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No bass in the Proac Response 3

I've just had the opportunity to buy a Proac Response 3 from a fellow agon just recently. One of the foam the 6.5" woofer was
torn ( with holes) so I already had it replaced with brand new foam. The treble improved quite a bit once I had the foam replace. The midrand is still the same and I have to say the Proac midrange is beautifull. I can sit and listen to female vocal (Krall, Elle, Cassandra) music all day. There is no sign of harsh or etch at all.

However, my problem now is that the bass is nowhere to be found when I play rock/pop. I do the regular Proac reccommended speaker placement of 2 feet away from the wall and the deep bass , mid bass are all but lost. If I moved the Proac very close to the wall then I get stronger bass, but now my image and everything else got all messed up. A simple analogy would be like I don't feel the singer is standing in the rooming sing anymore once I move the speakers toward the wall. Everything is just so flat ( 2-d), but the bass is good.

The most simple weak link that I can see in my system is that maybe the Krell integrated is just not big enough to produce the kinda big bass that I used to. But another interesting thing to know is that before I got the R3, I also got a much smaller Proac supertower that produced bass twice as much as the R3; and the R3 is twice the size, but lacking in the lower freq department.

My system is following:
Krell KAV-300i (integrated amp)
Arcam DV-27 (CD player)
Sony DVD player + PS Audio UltraLink DAC
Proac R3 (Full range speaker)
ducchau
ducchau OP
12 posts
 
Hifibri, how could the sand filling change the internal volume of the cabinet when the cavity that contains the sand is totally separate from the other box that contains the drivers ? So this is the point that I don't quite get from all the techniques of higher end speakers designers use.

However, I did remove half the sand last night and it seems to help the bass quite a bit. Although not to the point that I am happy. So more speaker placement experiments.

Jea, thanks for the technical trick to test out the polarities of the speaker connections. Although I feel that I did connect the speaker wires correctly, I will try what you suggested.
jea48
4,325 posts
 
Ducchau, here is what ProAc says about filling the sand cavity......

Quote
"After removing the cover the cavity should be part filled with dry silver sand, then the listener is invited to add or subtract sand, which will tune the bass quality for his taste and room acoustics. As a general rule of thumb, a small amount of sand will give the bass more warmth, adding more sand to the cavity will give a dryer tighter quality, most people will find that half to two thirds full is optimum in most models."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Also, I assume you are using spikes on the speaker plynth.
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racamuti's avatar
racamuti
362 posts
 
Hi Ducchau, New drivers dont burn in, they break in. The new surrounds are stiff and they get more compliant as they play some allowing the cone to move back and forth easier. The more movement the better, so just crank em up for awhile and they will loosen up and bass will get better and better.
ducchau OP
12 posts
 
I see. We'll see how it goes over the weekend. I send out report of how things pan out.
audioconnection
1,270 posts
 
I will presume you have speakers with the tweeters set up correctly on the inside of each speaker.
I would start with removing all of the sand.
Bring the speakers toe in so that you can see just a little bit of the inside cabinet wall of the speakers from your listening position.once you find your favorite spot in the room make sure your speakers are absolutely level, spiked and the nuts tightened snug up the plinths as well.
Any time you move the speakers
recheck and confirm the speakers are level and
not rocking.
Make sure you run the same type speaker wire on tweeter as the woofers. Run one CD player at a time.
If you have 2 going unplug the one you are not using.
Let us know how you made out
Cheers John Rutan
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