That Classe' has a high pass setting when using a sub. Are you certain you are sending full range to the speakers when the KEF subs are not used?
Page 28 of the Classe' manual.
Good luck!
My Sonus Faber Amatis have weak bass even though I'm running ML 536s--800 w/ch into 4 ohms
I don't know what I'm doing wrong. I thought the new monos would solve the problem. I still have to use subwoofers to feel like my system has any bass. I've tried speaker placement but to no avail. I realize it could be room issues, but short of packing my room pull of room treatment, there has to be something else. The drivers work, it just doesn't sound full. Should I get a different speaker? At this price, I expected more.
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@torke : I have recently tried the Amatis’ (somewhat) smaller siblings, the Serafino, at home for almost two weeks. I returned them in the end because of what I perceived as a very colored sound. The highs and upper mids, while truly beautiful in their own right, were much too emphasized. The bass didn’t lack extension, there just seemed to be comparatively too little of it (along with the weak lower midrange). I have also heard a pair of Amatis for a few hours at a friend’s house, cramped in a very very small room right against the wall (so bass was plentiful there) and as far as I could tell the same basic tilted up sound signature was there as well. I’m a lover of classical and jazz music just as you and, for my ears, these new SF speakers didn’t quite cut it in terms of timbre naturalness, the BBC speakers I’ve owned (Spendor, Harbeth, Graham) being better in this regard (but also lower in resolution and with less extension both ways, not exactly in the same class, unfortunately - to be expected given the price difference). This shouldn’t be construed as me saying they are bad speakers, they do some fabulous things like those sweet and silky highs and the "musicality" and I’ve been almost obsessed with them for a few years but, on closer inspection, natural sounding they are not... |
I believe you nailed it that it is simply your room. That is tough for any of us to diagnose and advise upon simply by commenting in a thread. I have Wilson Sophia 1 that have a lot of bass that is clean and deep in my room. When I had some Egglestonworks Vigintis and Wilson Alexia 1 they both were very weak with significantly less bottom end compared to the Sophias. On paper this makes zero sense. I visited a guy and listened to his Wilson Sasha DAW with ample amplification and the sound was the most boring sound I have ever heard from a hifi system. It was shocking how little bass and realism the system had. I totally understand the psychology of feeling that you should not need subs but maybe you do. I am sure when you have them properly paired with your SF speakers the SF will provide the remainder of the spectrum beautifully so let them work together and enjoy the end result. |
Walk around in the room and determine if some satisfactory bass output is present at a location other than your listening location. Move speakers a bit closer to the front wall and walk around some more. If you are sitting on top of modal nulls, you might start to wonder where all the bass went. If you can’t move your listening position, correct positioning of subs and sub phase adjustment would be the way to address such nulls. Do a battery tap on each speaker and see if the woofers are moving in the same direction. (check if some Italian guy wired something wrong when he was coming out of riposo) etc Did you try a different amp? Some half broken amps can make all the bass disappear, depending on the issue. Take it to some local tech (if you are not set up to bench stuff at home) and check it out. Here’s an example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8vhVTQ1cLo On a positive note, those KEFs are nice subs. It could also be that your Amati is a slightly bass flaccid speaker overall, with emphasis on looks and mids "sweetness", tailored for Diana Krall, not MC Ren. |
Did I miss the part where you told us about speaker placement? How far off the wall behind them? How far apart are they? How far away do you sit from them? Are you using the Naim as a streamer and the Classe as preamp and Dac? I’m not a big fan of Naim and I’m not so sure the Classe is the right preamp for the Levinson's,, If it was me I’d look for a Levinson preamp. At then you’d know that impedance and phase are correct, Then a appropriate Streamer and Dac, I just think there’s some mismatches in your equipment and maybe speaker placement |
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