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Too much bass

Brief equipment list: Rogue Magnum 120 amps, AR LS3 preamp, Vandersteen 2c's.
The bass is overwhelming. Either source, CD or Vinyl I cant turn up the volume over 1/3 of the control knob. The music falls apart. I have had many other speakers using this combo of electronics. Proac, Thiel, Meadowlark and Magnepan.
It almost appears as the amps are clipping. But if I chose a program with very little bass involved, everything is fine.
Could my amps be clipping with these speakers? Are they a difficult load?
Thanks, Scott
scottht
nsgarch's avatar
nsgarch
2,524 posts
 
If the M 120's are in Triode mode, try switching them to Ultra-Linear mode. Also (I assume you are, but....) use the 8 ohm tap for the 2c's. Other than that, your amps should have plenty of power.

The other possible issue might be speaker wire. Not the kind, let's not get into that, but the length. IMO, if they're over 8 ft. long, then the (tube) amps might be having trouble controlling (damping) the woofers. Also, as you may know, Vandersteen recommends bi-wiring these speakers for tightest bass.
gunbei
2,327 posts
 
When I first read your thread title before popping in here I would have either said that your speakers were too close to the rear wall or you're sitting to far from them.

But after reading your post I think it has more to do with the amp and/or its synergy with your speakers and preamp. Does the Rogue have an ultra low input impedance? A bad set of tubes? Or maybe as Nsgarch suggests, that you try switching modes on the Magnum 120s or using different taps.
nsgarch's avatar
nsgarch
2,524 posts
 
Scott, I was going to bring up the point Gunbei did, about amp/preamp mismatch, but you indicated that you didn't have this problem with several other speakers.

I suppose it could be the output tubes, as Gunbei suggests, but it seems unlikely they'd all go bad on both amps at the same time.
aroc
760 posts
 
How far is your listening position from a room boundary? I had a similar problem in my room if I was <4.5 feet from the rear wall. When I moved my chair out into the room the problem went away. Also how close to a room boundary are the speakers? One thing that helped me tune all of this in my system was to get a Radio Shack SPL meter and a Stereophile test CD with test tones. I had booms at 40-50 and 125 and suckouts at 70-80 and 160Hz.

My $0.02

Aaron
ubglub
76 posts
 
I had problem once with overwhelming bass after I had a component modified, so of course I attributed it to the equipment mod. However, it was easily corrected by pulling the speakers just a few inches further from the back wall.
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