Can a new amplifier affect speaker placement?

Hi all,

I'll start with the last first:

Foster: Early on, I did use the compensation filter - to great effect. Bringing it down from the default 8 ohms (and my speakers are mostly an 8-ohm speaker) to 5 ohms (which the Paradigms run at in the higher frequency range, according to John Atkinson's tests in Stereophile's coverage of the speakers) definitely made for better sound. NAD claims, in the manual, that using the filter achieves measurable - but inaudible - results. I completely disagree - results were definitely audible. All that said, making the adjustment did not affect bass performance (insofar as I could tell).

Hasse and Mezmo: I think I agree - at least partially. The bass is somehow cleaner, more textured. Bass instruments are more easily defined (though I don't think the Creek was a slouch in this area).

Zd: Yep, the Creek's a great little integrated. I may find a way to press it into service elsewhere, rather than selling it. Between the solid headphone amp, its passive pre, and its amplification section, this thing's been a winner for me all the way.

On with the show:
Over the weekend, I did some tinkering with speaker placement. After moving the speakers a full foot back, the bass snapped right into place! Tracks that I knew to have robust bass lines sounded how I knew they should, without sounding wooly or bloated. Imaging seemed to be unaffected.

It's worth saying that I had a helluva time getting the bass right in my little room with the Creek. My assumption at the time was that the Paradigms were a little too much speaker for my 16'x12'x8'h room (never gave you my room size, Philjolet - there it is), but I resolved to make it work. I had the fronts of my speakers 53" from the rear wall. Now they're 41" - a more "normal" distance. I'm sure I'll tweak their positions some more (I've lost my transients somewhat), but I think I'm pretty close. The treble is still sparkly, imaging is still excellent (possibly improved?), midrange is rich and detailed.

For giggles, I threw in an orchestral work the other night. I'd forgotten this was one of the reasons I bought the amp: dynamic swings with the Creek were just never quite what I thought they should be. Good golly! With HUGE dynamics like this, I could get into this whole classical thing!

Long & short of it: thanks all. I'm a bit dismayed that an amplifier change would require such a big change in speaker position, but there you have it. I'm now well on my way to being a very, very happy camper with my new M2.

"With HUGE dynamics like this, I could get into this whole classical thing!"

Funny how that works! Dynamics is a big part of how classical music impacts us. When it is not there as it should be, things suffer.

I just thought of something you may want to try. Every NAD integrated that I've seen jumps the amp and preamp sections with an external rca jumper, just like your Creek. I would use the Creeks preamp and go directly into the amplifier section of the NAD. This may sound like an odd thing to do, but on several occasions I've seen loss of bass was due to the preamp, and not the amp.

Zd,

That would be an interesting exercise - I could try the Creek as my pre and the M2 as my amp. The M2 is quite an unusual integrated though. It takes digital feeds directly from sources, and effectively amplifies them. That's not to say it's an amp with a DAC built-in a la Peachtree or similar. Rather, one might think of it as a DAC with amplification capabilities. One might do even better to think of the DAC as non-existent - to think of it as a "digital" amplifier (note that Class D does not mean 'digital' - this is a misnomer), yielding a similar purity of signal that an analog source might achieve with just about any other amplifier. No digital to analog conversion takes place, just a sort of re-mapping if you will.

Conversion in the M2 actually comes in to play in converting analog sources to "digital" (I'll use/abuse 'digital' here rather than getting further than I'm qualified into pulse wave modulation and NAD's efforts to map the digital signal to PWM (which also essentially operates as a 1/0 or on/off, similar in concept to digital). The amp's architecture is similar in concept to units from TacT or Lyngdorf - though its sonics purportedly surpass these (I admit I wouldn't know personally!).

It's quite a feat of engineering really - and a bit surprising I think to come from NAD of all companies. I'd be very surprised if we don't see many similar products coming to market in the next few years, particularly in the world of home theater. The M2 is still ugly looking - NAD hasn't completely forgotten its roots! So... while I'll probably take on this exercise (I'm a tinkerer) for the helluvit, I think it would negate the M2's raison d'etre. ...and if I like the sound better, well, god help me!

You could not try the Creek as your pre and the M2 as your amp because the M2 has no preamp and therefore no preamp outs.