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Whats wrong?

Can anyone tell me whats wrong with my system? I play all my music from my computer which has an Audigy sound card, and then there is a Yamaha EQ-70 10 band equalizer, and a Parasound HCA-750 power amp driving Magnepan MMGs. I have some cheap Acoustic Research interconnects, and 18 gauge speaker wire which is also Acoustic Research. I'm just not happy with the sound, the performance is not as magical as I thought it would be with upgrading to MMGs from Bose 201s. Can anyone tell me what to do?
lawbadman
infinity_audio
186 posts
 
use the digital out, make sure your S.card is 24/96, get a 24/96 DAC. Sell yur parasound, and buy some other brand, parasound can be okay to stay if you dont have much money change your cables to better one, at least not the one which is made in Taiwan. Take away the EQ and try to see if you hear more stuffs. speakers... you like bass? if you do, then these speakers dont belong to you... you like mid and soundstage depth? then they are fine...
infinity_audio
186 posts
 
best sound card Creative 24/96 5.1 channel platinum something... I forgot, $200 and change... a lot of output and it's in the front, easier to play around
phasecorrect's avatar
phasecorrect
2,013 posts
 
ALso..dont play mp3s...these sound worse than am radio
s7horton
1,077 posts
 
The amplifier, in my opinion, should be changed. My experience with the MMG is that they are like all other maggies. Requiring tons of power. There is bass available. But even for those little guys, they would like 300 plus watts. That's probably a little excessive, but won't hurt anything. The earlier Parasounds were bright, as Sean mentioned. If you do a little research, I think you'll be surprised how little you have to put into your system to make it come around. Especially buying used.
socrates
247 posts
 
I ditto all of what Phasecorrect suggested abpve, and also agree that the smaller Parasounds where very bright and brittle up top. On conventional speakers even the smaller Parasounds would always pump out very good bass for their power rating, and also sounded much better at low levels due to a high class-A bias. However, with inefficient and reactive Maggies, I'm sure it could very well be a different story. Have fun upgrading!
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