@rocray I could leave today but I’ll make a run for it probably in 2-3 years. I’m in love with the build quality of these speakers, the Corian cabinets are incredible. I’d consider tucking them away until I move if I have to. In the right room with dual subs they would be insane and I already heard what they are capable of in a bigger room. The manufacturer still offers full service on them even though they are no longer in production so no worries there. Oh did I mention that I stole these for a fraction of the msrp ($4K+).
Great speaker sounds terrible in my room?
So today I took a ride to demo a set of speakers that has had my interest for quite some time, the Ref 3A Royal Virtuoso. These things are completely overbuilt, top notch parts and built like tombstones, the cabinets are made of Corian and are completely inert. They sounded excellent during the demo. The owner was running them with a beautiful VAC preamp / Pass labs amp and a Moon Dac-streamer. They were on 24” stands and approximately 2ft off the back wall. They sounded superb as expected…I pack em up, take em home. I rig them up…my setup is near field with the speakers 10ft off the front wall and the speakers are 5ft away from my listening position. I fire them up and….shocker. They got nothing. They literally were lost with Zero bass response. I actually thought maybe something was connected wrong…I checked the connections ( more on that in a minute) all good. These are higher efficiency (91db) than my ProAc Response D2’s (88db) yet the Ref 3A’s sounded much lower at my usual listening level. I’m still scratching my head over how this speaker is unable to kick ass. I have decent gear with plenty of firepower (ARC D400MKII amp, Levinson 380s Pre, Denafrips Terminator Dac, Aurender N100SC streamer. I’ve had Sonus Farber Concertino’s, Vienna Acoustics Haydn, KEF 150’s and my ProAcs all set up in the same manner and they all were excellent performers. The one thing that I’m wondering about is the Binding post on the Ref 3A…it uses the Cardas screw down clamp type post that only accepts spades or bare wire. my cables are banana terminated and I was using cheapo adapters. Could this all could be a connection related issue or just a speaker/room mismatch?
Thoughts / comments are much appreciated
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@jjss49 ok, yes understood. |
This is going to sound nuts, but it's a true story. Happened to me. I was listening away as usual when I began to notice that the bass was becoming intrusive. Over time the speakers (KEF 104.2) became unlistenable; the bass just took over. I began the laborious process of searching for new speakers. It wasn't going well. One day I noticed that the banana plugs coming from the amp (Threshold) were just a little bit loose. I got new banana plugs that I could adjust to that they fit snugly into the amp's binding posts. Guess what? Problem solved! I have zero insight as to why this worked but ,based upon my experience,you might want to revisit your connection problem theory. |
@jl1ny, it sounds like the REF 3A’s are keepers. Keep tinkering with placement,until you find a place where compromise is at a minimum. Especially since you know there will be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Another suggestion would be,sleep on the couch,and turn your bedroom into a listening room. ;-) |
@rocray Ha-ha! Oh but I have! Everything from a sofa with a pullout bed to an Air mattress. If I didn’t cherish sleep so much it woulda been done! |
- 113 posts total