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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

 

128x128jl1ny
jl1ny's avatar
jl1ny OP
419 posts
 

@ishkabibil 

it is what it is brother. There was no way to replicate my set up at the sellers room. Truth be told they are sounding pretty sweet right now with the Rel dialed in. A much more detailed & spatial presentation than my ProAc’s.

@lemonhaze 

I think “IF” I had the space to add another Rel, these Ref 3A’s would be incredible. I emphasize “if” because I really don’t have the space right now…although I’m wondering if a single better sub (Rel S510) would be a game changer or make matters worse. 

ishkabibil
422 posts
 

For sure adding the sub is a game changer.

And sometimes it takes a walk away from listening and coming back to revisit to satisfy.

Enjoy.

erik_squires
16,137 posts
 

Swap the TV with the couch, and back the speakers up to the TV.

Put in GIK acoustics corner traps floor to ceiling with diffusor panels.

mozartfan
2,143 posts
 
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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ something aint right here,, if ecah was winner,, why buy others?? why not just stay w 1 speaker??? I know why. I never did ride on the speaker merry go round. FR til death. Dont need speakers any more, I already have the best. The proble is midwoofer/midwtters are flawed in the 1200hz- 3500hz band width.
qwin's avatar
qwin
10 posts
 

"They give you a break in time for these?"

This was my first thought too.

If you heard them in a store, they probably had a reasonable number of demo hours on them.
I'm presuming you bought new, so they will require some brake in of the bass drivers suspension. I would persevere a bit and let them loosen up before jumping to conclusions.
But speakers will sound completely different in different environments, so nothing is guaranteed.

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