Kharma 3.2 Owners, your thoughts...

Henry:

1. Abruce is absolutely correct. Take the P300 out! It is probably choking the system a bit and also leaning things out.

2. Supporting equipment is fine. If anything else is questionable, just in terms of not being up to the quality of the rest of the system, I would say it is the Rega and the IC's.

3. Are you firing the long way or the short way in your room?

4. How far into the room are the speakers?

5. What are the surfaces like in your room (floor, walls, etc.)?

I read what Dolphin said and do disagree with him based on what I have heard in every customers system I have setup. I do not doubt what Dolphin heard, just as I do not doubt what you are asserting, I just do not know what conditions and what components were in the systems that he heard.

If you would like me to call you, I would be happy to see if we can get the system sounding more like what you expected. You own one of the most spectacularly lifelike products I have ever heard. Do not give up quite yet.

Email me your number, and I will call you upon my return from the HES Show on Monday.

Another consideration.I heard that LAMMs don't like others;why don't you try full LAMM system with decent player and Purist Audio or Kharma interconnects.It looks like money is not your problem,unsatisfactory sound is.

Thanks for your suggestions, much appreiciated.
...Last night I put on the speaker grills. That seemed to soften up the sound a bit.

...I will definitely remove the sources from the P300. Any recommendations on what I should plug the Preamp, Phono Preamp and CD Player into. I only have 2 dedicated outlets for the source equipment. Will I still need power conditioning for the source eqpmnt with them going into a dedicated outlet?

...What should I do for surge protection? Sorry to ask these basic questions but I guess with my system at a higher level than I'm used to, I need to re-investigate my components.

...In terms of all Lamm equipment, I realy love being able to use the remote volume control which Lamm does not provide. Would it be plausable to use the Lamm L2 with the placette volume control?

...The room is 12 x 18 and the speakers are on the 18 foot wall, 3 feet out and 5 feet apart.

I agree with the above comments to try it without the P-300, I didn't care for it with my digital front ends, it imparted a choked, etched character to the sound. That notwithstanding, and although I didn't necesarily think they were etched even out of the box, my 3.2's didn't really start to sound like they can until after 2 months of playing 24/7. They take a while to breakin, and will continue to do so for some time. Not that they didn't sound good initially, but as time goes on you realize just how much better they get with breakin. For me, at about 2 mo's they really opened up, became more relaxed and the bass just bloomed. Give em time, and try the above suggestions.

3 feet out is possibly part of the problem. You are at the 1/4 null point of the 12 foot dimension. I would move them forward to 4 feet and spread them a little further apart, probably 6 feet. Side wall reflection is very important and because you are firing on the short wall you really need ample diffusion on the wall behind you--this last point is very important. If you can fire down the long wall that might be better. You can see how these thing affect you by going to our room simulator . These speakers aren't in there, but use something that has similar bass response. You'll see that the placement will change the bass response. By nulling out part of your bass you are tipping the higher frequencies out of balanced--thereby getting that etched sound. Room treatment and position I believe are the biggest culprits here.