Lack in harmonic richness

As far as I can recall I had this problem also with the previous speakers (Dunlavy SC V's) but with the Soundlabs it is aggravated.

Welcome to accuracy. Both the speakers you mention are highly respected for timbral accuracy - especially in the all important midrange. Both will have a tight lean low end (DAl's were over damped if I recall and some could even do a respectable job on a square wave - something few modern "impressive but one note bass" speakers can do!!)

If you are finding this sounds "thin and threadbare" then you clearly used to and obviously prefer a more colored presentation with some harmonic warmth. You may need a tube power amplifier on the warm side of neutral. A subwoofer may also do the trick as panels can be lacking in that bottom octave area and that can contribute to a thin sound.

Alternatively - give it some time - listen to your collection and concentrate on how different each recording sounds - the analytical precision may grow on you after a few hundred hours once you realize you can hear more detail when it is not overly warm with harmonics...I know it did for me.

These speakers were a long time favorite of Gordon Holt - so if you can be prepared to accept that your initial dislike is due to your not being accustomed to the taste of such ruthless timbral accuracy then I think this could grow on you...

Enjoy! You have awesome gear - I would not be so quick to change - or to dumb it down with warmth - just give it time.

Two cents...as usual.

BTW - in the above I assume everything is working properly. Given your extensive experience Chris - I simply assume that you would know if something was wrong and producing distortion.

There is a lot I could say on this topic, and the sadness many have spent emotionally and financially trying to decipher the all powerful and knowing "Audiophile" Code of "Accurate" listening experience, and the "Enjoyable" corrected listening experience. And unfortunately once you get into the money you have spent already on such a system being told to go backwards a few steps (and name brands for that matter) will not sit well.

My best suggestion is start by correcting any room issues possible, even if you gotta spend 1000 bucks to get a professional service to analyze your room, it sucks, but then you would have to step back and say to yourself why do I have so much money invested and I am not totally satisfied?

Or all you can do is work with the correction tools normally and boringly pointed to in this hobby..

Tubes- adding some actual "bloom, and harmonics" or as some see it "coloration" and "Distortion"

Cables- some feel is a waste of time and a joke, but mostly Cardas gets a good rep. for simple but expensive "Full and warm body" sound.

New Crossovers- with premium capacitors, which in my case has saved many systems with amazing difference in results, if you have passive crossovers... I would not doubt that even in a 20,000 dollar pair of speakers they have some caps that cost 2 dollars each.

Good Luck

I felt as you do . Then I heard tubes . Tubes are much better . I seem to like some warmth or coloration !

While I don't have any experience with SET's , I think that you could find what you are looking for with a P/P tube amp and some resolving and fairly efficient speakers .

Good luck .

First of all, let's eliminate the SoundLab A1's as the problem. The most important thing to me in a music system has been to render the space and harmonic overtones. And the SoundLab A1's like the big Maggies do this incredibly well. However, the SoundLabs are far far more resolving of low-level detail. If anything, the A1's are now bringing through even more of the sterile sound that you have described.

The big SoundLabs have a goofy impedance curve which makes them not a good match with solid state amplifiers. This has been covered here multiple times by A'gon members Atmasphere, Audiokinesis and others.

Since you describe your problem also with the Dunlavy speakers, I would tend to focus ALL your attention on the preamp. Time and time again I have found the preamp (line stage) to be the make or break link in a system when it comes to portrayal of space, decays and harmonic information. I have dismissed far too many preamps and line stages over the last 25 years because they failed this test miserably.

Shadorne is not correct about the A1's needing help with a subwoofer. These speakers go way down to the low-mid 20hz range with A LOT of low frequency energy if driven by the correct amps. The A1s move a lot of air. JGH's reference speaker was the A3 - a much smaller version of the A1.

A subwoofer will do nothing to bring back the truncated decays and harmonic overtones most likely being clipped off at the line stage level.

John