2. home-theater
  3. 137407-115924

How to get good sound out of this for music only?

I recently dug two older high end systems out of my brother-in-law’s basement and garage that he did not want (and had never used). One very high end system which is now in my home where I am really enjoying it even though I’ve never been an audiophile before now.

The second system may be hifi, might be mid-fi, I don’t know. It was clearly once used as a home theater system. Cosmetically everything is pretty beat up but it all works.

It consists of:

Rotel RSP-1066 Surround Sound Processor
Rotel RMB-1075 Five Channel Amplifier
Two Bowers and Wilkins CDM-9NT tower speakers
One B&W AW 650 powered subwoofer
One B&W CDM SNT speaker which I think was used for the center channel

I’ve got it all hooked up in my living room just to see if it will all work. See below (and I know none of it is positioned correctly yet):

https://images.nikonians.org/galleries/data/3564/IMG_1049.jpg

I’ll admit straight up that I have the manuals but have not read them.

Bottom line is, I’m not sure what settings I should be using on this home theater system for simple music. When I set it on two channel it sounds okay. The B&W tower speakers do not have the mid range clarity and brightness of my higher end system. The bass is not as tight.  When I use one of the other modes, with the center channel speaker and subwoofer (at low volume) it begins to sound pretty good. Again, I’ve made no attempt to position any of this since I don’t know where it is going to go. It might end up in my cabin or back in his basement. I’m going to try to get it sounding good enough to make his wife want to put it in their home....but that probably isn’t going to happen.

My question, without reading a manual full of stuff about video integration and surround sound modes, how should I set this up to sound good, it doesn’t have to be awesome, for just listening to music? Thanks for indulging my laziness.

George
n80
n80 OP
2,119 posts
 
Thanks bondmanp. I will work on that tweeter and see what I can do. The dome has a metallic appearance and seems sort of stiff so not sure if tape will do it but I'm going to try.

I think some use should definitely help with the speakers.

Cables are a decent brand, Transparent, but definitely one of their lower lines. 

As to source, I did hook a CD player up last night and there is definitely SQ improvement over the laptop but even with the bass and treble controls just can't get the SQ I'm looking for via 2 channel + sub. I'll continue to fiddle with it. Speaker position is not good but this system is not going to stay in this room so will work with that wherever it ends up and that will probably require going through all the same tweaks and modes again....but there are worse ways to spend an hour or two. ;-)
Post removed 
n80 OP
2,119 posts
 
I did. They sounded better but still do not compare with the Aerial Acoustics.
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