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Listening Fatigue & Speakers in Small Room

The main components of my system are B&W N804s, a MF A300cr power amp (225 wpc), a BAT VK-3i, and a MF Nu Vista CD. All cabling is Cardas Golden Reference. I had this set up in my old, 20x24 condo dining room/living room with no problems. Now, I have a house with a dedicated listening room of approximately 10x10x8, and am experiencing listening fatigue. After a little while, the outside of my ears start to hurt. Recently, I have treated the room with GIK bass traps and spot panels which have made the quality of the sound much, much better, but my ears continue to hurt. I'm thinking that maybe the B&Ws are just too big for the room, and that I may need to go to monitors with a sub. Am I on the right track, or could another component may be the culprit? Thanks for your help.
rlb61
daverz
487 posts
 
I'm not familiar with the 6H23 (I use EH 6922s, which are what my 3iX came with, but I don't think they are the thing if you have "hot" tweeters). You might want to talk to Kevin Deal about mellower tubes in the 6922 family. The Genelex Gold Lions were actually a bit too stuffy in my system, but otherwise had a very nice tone and dimensionality.

Also you simply may need to damp the room even more.
ebm
9,311 posts
 
Get MAGICO S!.
jedinite24's avatar
jedinite24
1,503 posts
 
I think the 6h23 type tube may be the cause of the listener fatigue. I had a budget tube preamp where it incorporated 4 rocket logo 6h23P preamp tubes and 4 6922 preamp tubes and I swear no matter the 6922 tubes I put there was too much emphasis on the mid range and treble. Practically no bass at all. I couldn't get the preamp to work in my system which is in a small room similar in dimension to Rlb61's room.
newbee
4,768 posts
 
If changing tube to warm up the tone is your goal, I have had a lot of success using JJ ECC88s. The are low noise tubes and I've used them in a BAT VK D5 successfully (as well as a Woo headphone amp. And they are cheap too.

But if you are contemplating a speaker change I would wait - what works now might not work then.

Re small speakers, Spendors, Harbeths, or on the cheap (or not so cheap) Silverlines come to mind.

Did you try crossing the axis of your speakers in front of you? How did that work?
rlb61 OP
789 posts
 
Newbee ... crossing the axis of the speakers just slightly
in front of me, coupled with reducing the volume to the 60-
68 db range has made a world of difference. The more I play
around with this, the more it appears that room reflection
is the culprit. When the speakers were firing forward, they
were hitting untreated surfaces. When I toed them in just
in front of me, imaging snapped into place and room
excitement was reduced substantially, so the outside of my
ears are not throbbing anymore. Also, I have ordered a
couple of 244s from GIK Acoustics for the front wall behind
the speakers, which should take care of certain reflections
as well. Hopefully, those will be the icing on the cake.
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