My stereo isn't doing it for me. Need advice

It would seem that even a cursory reading of the responses indicates that you have a room that is your main problem. The speaker/room interface is, BY FAR, the most important arbiter of good sound quality.

The folks who are advising that you run around throwing equipment at your problem are way off base. Adding an AC power conditioner isn't gonna do jack sh!t for you. And neither will expensive speaker cables and over-priced AC cables.

You *must* improve your speaker/room interface. The best ways to do this are:

1) Carefully "tuning" of the room/speakers to eliminate early reflection points and peaks/nulls caused by standing waves.

2) Employing the use of "room correction" software (RCS). Surely you've heard of Audyssey, Dirac, Trinnov and other such systems? If not, time to get on Google and start getting educated. The better RCS systems can do an astonishing job of taming problem room/speaker interfaces.

In fact, your best bet is to combine 1 and 2 above. Read up on how to "tame" your room with acoustic treatments and employ the tricks learned there. Then get an RCS system and spend a coupla days or so dialing in the room using the RCS.

I flat guaran-damn-tee you that if you do these two things your system will sound *worlds* better!! And the knowledge you gain from this exercise will allow you to setup any future system much more quickly, easily, and accurately.

Feel free to contact me off-list if you'd like some help or advice....

-RW-

I guessing he's using 2 legs of the electricity which will destroy the sound, make sure only 1 leg is used.

"05-20-15: Coli
I guessing he's using 2 legs of the electricity which will destroy the sound, make sure only 1 leg is used."

I assume that's a joke.

"05-20-15: Rlwainwright
It would seem that even a cursory reading of the responses indicates that you have a room that is your main problem. The speaker/room interface is, BY FAR, the most important arbiter of good sound quality."

That's not always the case. What's most important will vary from person to person. For me, there are other qualitites that to be more important then the room to speaker interface.

+1 for the fact that about 50% of Agon posters I have interacted with over the last ten years responded to this post within one day.
+2 for the "room is the problem"
+3 for the stuffed animals suggestion.
+4 for the near field listening suggestion. I have my office system set up near field with monitor speakers on the diagonal near the corner in a smaller room with a sub and it is spooky good, even at (relatively) high volume. My equipment is half as good as Dylan's. In another problem room (too lively) setting monitor speakers up on the floor solved the glassy sound. Isolate with wooden plinth may help further.

Mapman. Just have to say one of the best systems I ever heard for synergy was Primaluna One integrated plus Dynaudio 52SE with vinyl front end. To each their own.

in

No that is not a joke, first hand experience. No amount of equipment change could solve it. And it was not the room either.