Seeking help finding the weak link(s) in my system and offering suggestions please.

Dear andera and others,

At this point I am really confused, not sure what direction to take. I appreciate all of the good suggestions people have posted here. There are a number of suggestions that are consistent such as speaker cables, room treatment/optimization, DSP, etc.. Still trying to distill all of the feedback. Considering my budget, (1K) I'm going to dig into room optimization and speaker set-up, a common theme here that will cost me only time and effort. After that, not sure, maybe speaker cables and/or DSP. I'm going to try to find as many resources as I can regarding getting the most out of your system through proper set-up.

A big thank you to everybody!

Hello andera,

I followed your instructions regarding speaker placement. I felt my room acoustics to be decent but far from what my local dealer implemented, which I am convinced would make a significant improvement, however not practical for me.

With respect to speaker placement, it was a bit frustrating and took me hours to accomplish, however the results were worth it! The appearance of my system in the room looks a little odd now to the casual observer, but when you sit in my designated chair the speakers now vanish with a much deeper and wider sound stage. I was surprised how much an improvement was made through this effort, it sounds like I made a major upgrade to something?? Very happy now! At some point in the future my next tweak will be speaker cables, there are some great ones out there within my budget.

Thanks again for all of the help!

You're most welcome.That's fantastic... good to hear. Yes... it's not that fun to do... but after a person goes through the process, and can understand and hear proper placement... you can listen to any system and tell if the speakers are set up properly. It's pretty easy to tell.... as the sound will be smeared, undefined, and not very exciting.I find that with proper placement, a person can really hear and define the difference with any changes in the system... such as gear, cables, stands, room treatment, or tweeks.After making an improvement... the best part is listening to all your favorite music again... and hear how much better it sounds!Happy listening.

How do you assess your output and how the room reacts? A UMike and REW or TrueRTA, both audio analysis programs, will give you concrete data on what is causing problems or verify that your latest tweak or gear addition is a step in the right direction.
Personally I think you have way to many things in your audio stream and I am a believer in the least required to get to where you want to be the better.
You can replace a lot of that stuff with a Xilica DSP and once you learn to use it can adjust or balance anything and it can take a signal right from a PC and make it right for superior listening. I do that and the secret to making this work is to download the high def software upgrade available on every sound card I know of and install it. The Xilica allows for time alignment if you wish. Gain adjustment and yes those fancy amps are not really totally balanced channel to channel. You run curves on your speakers and see where there are problems and you can set PEQ’s on the Xilica to correct. If your speakers have problems with certain genres of music or specific instruments and various frequencies you can isolate this with the UMike and software and have up to 30 presets stored in the Xilica. A push of a couple of buttons will allow you to play your problems child the way you want.
This presumes you set your Xilica up with the PC program that comes with it and do your tweaks on your PC/monitor. Doing these on the Xilica itself can be done but is very tedious.
I watch many people find something they don’t like on their system and then buy more and more to try and fix it never being happy. How in the world do you isolate exactly what is the largest offender when you now have so many variables?
I do not run a stock store bought system. I have a custom built bass single fold horn set for 500hz to 27hz (yes it will do that), a Klipsch K402 for 500hz to18khz, run it all off an upgraded sound card driver Dell PC which feeds into my Xilica and then from there into two Crown xli800’s where one feeds left channel and the other the right channel and yes this two way system has one amp channel for each driver. I can make my gear do what I want with few limitations whereas buying puzzle pieces and sticking them all together will never give you the same level of control or fidelity. The very best sound requires you to go beyond plug and play.
  Not placing a value on my time to learn to do all this and just looking at dollars spent and shopping for best deals, getting my hands dirty building have less than $6500 spent. Getting to the point where I realized this was possible cost a whole lot more. $$$$$$$$$$ Money spent on systems is a real poor indicator of end results in my experience.

Hi,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your system set-up.

As for now, I am quite content with my system after proper st-up of the speakers and dabbling a bit with my room acoustics, this made a transformation to my system I did not think possible. At some point, maybe, I may more closely examine my system components with respect to synergy. DSP is something on my radar as well as improving my speaker cables.

Were it not for this forum, I would have missed out on a significant improvement in my systems capability and it didn't cost me a dime!

Thanks to everyone who contributed! Please enjoy your Holiday and all that goes with it.

Peace...