Planning to buy an entirely new system.

The speaker sound good in a lot of places u said....that is becuase u were in a dem room and not at home, unfortunatly most people find things sound different when at home!

Dont remove ur spikes, the penny idea is to put under spikes to stop them scratching wooden floors but u are better off with spike shoes as they have a soft piece underneath them or non slip rubber.

Paving slabs will tighten up the bass but granite will be better I have done this on mine and I have a concrete floor with laminate on top and it improved things instantly and noticeably! Keep the spikes on tho with shoes and then ontop of plinth

U do however still have room problem and unfortunatly I doubt u will ever be able to listen to music in a range of positions comfortably with the same sound signature, as far as bed goes u need to make do, then pick ur most favoured listening and adjust for that point, if u want someone to have a listen to ur gear to show off a little then sit them where u would sit and play them a tune!

As for the Chord speaker cable its probably the same as the one I mentioned to u and it can very simply be put in a white braided skin to keep the misses happy Simply pull it through the braid and put a bit of heat shrink on the end or tape it down, bear in mind u can do this for any cable so dont be picky on what cable u choose due to colour!

Ask Sevenoaks to ask the Leema rep what he would recommend that works well cables wise between their products and tell him u are on a budget, so he doesnt try to fleece u.

For instance Ayre and Rowland recommend Cardas, Spectral its MIT, LFD its LFD, companies usually make or work with a cable to fine tune their systems around then recommend it to Joe public as they have had best results in creating the setup that way.

I think u were also hasty with ur speakers and a good set of wall speakers and probably a sub would have given u better results!

 

Thanks for all your advice. It's good to hear another opinion.

I wish I'd posted up my room plan at the start.

I think the dali's a meant to be relatively good for having close to walls (the bass ports are at the front) - I think their instructions mentioned being designed for ease of positioning.

 

Hi Dan.

One of the possible problems with the speaker spikes I read about is that they direct your bass far more powerfully into your floor. If they're resting on pennies, then the carpet provides some insulation. I might give it a go - it's relatively cheap to try out.

I've just got the leema amp home, and I think I was too hasty with that too. It's not right for me.

It's way too powerful, and I have the volume control at almost the lowest point, making the remote control unusable, as an increase in volume is relatively massive. The volume always rises to a set point when you change inputs too.

The AV input can't be used with normal audio products either, as the volume rises to a 'pre-set unity level', whatever that means.

*sigh*

I just wanted to listen to a nice bit of music.

 

its not so much where the port is - although a lot of people think it is. A rear ported speaker can be happier with a near wall position than a front ported one.

Its more the frequency response of the loudspeaker, and whether it has been designed to have a dip, which is levelled by the increased bass of a near-wall position.

Its not just audionote, you have (from the top of my head) Revel (actually has a switch for wall positioning), Linn Kan (if you like them)


I do like Audionote though, especially the E. They sound great against a wall, or even in corners.

 

The av input is a fixed line level (volume) and thats why it beats out at a fixed volume

If u put ur speakers on the floor it will make them muddier in response

Usually a spike on speakers or components clean up the sound where as a foculpod or vibropd which is made out of absorbathane which is a squiggy rubber will make things warmer and smoother

Get the paving slabs and use the spikes on pennies ontop of the slab for now, its only a couple quid, also to tame the amp just order a set of cables from somewhere like Russ Andrews look in their bargain basement section first for a set of interconnects with a -6db say attenuation this will make ur volume step ups on the amp less agressive

As said before I can send u some cables on trial and error and I will be happy to refund after if u dont like they are quite clean sounding and dynamic, they may help and with the slabs should tighten things up IMO!
U aint got much to loose and u are sort of digging a grave here at the mo! Sorry to say it but u need to try a few things now to get the best out of it all!

Also try rolling up a pair of socks loosly and plug up the ports for now to try it it should tame the bass

 

Whe I say loosly try different tightnesses cos ur speaker will need to breath a bit as they are designed that way but thats why bungs are available for this exact reason

 

I can't believe buying hi-fi requires so much work!!

I'm thinking about taking the amp back (although that could be a struggle). I'm not sure if it's worth spending £750 on an amp when the main problem with my sound is caused by problems with my room and layout.

Also, if I was to get attenuators for all my inputs it looked like it would cost me £500!

I'm not sure what you meant by this: "The av input is a fixed line level (volume) and thats why it beats out at a fixed volume"

That means I couldn't use it for CD etc, right?

@ bottleneck: The dalis are meant to be designed to let you squeeze them in places, I think the semi split nature of my room makes things esepcially odd though (with other things not helping). It would always be better to be able to position them properly, but they are meant to be reasonably forgiving in this respect. Clearly not enough though!

I think I probably should have gone for bookshelf and a sub though, as this would have given me more control over bass levels. Live and learn. When I buy new speakers in thirty years time, I'll remember that.

 

Take the amp back they cannot refuse to take it, get a Cyrus instead and save some money.

Try the bungs also

The av input is probably fixed and to be controlled through another Leema product poss a dvd

 

Save money on a Cyrus? Aren't they even more!

I'm just listening to the Leema now, and it is nice. It works well with the speakers, but I think it might just not be the right amp for me feature wise. I've e-mailed them to see if there are any work arounds they'd suggest.

I'll have a play with my speakers too.

 

I think with a bit of playing and remember they will take weeks to start to sound right the Dalis should be ok, u need to make sure u get a good amp that is more than happy to drive at 4ohms tho! The Dalis are not 8

 

I meant a 2nd hand Cyrus
There also may be a gain control in the amp re email them and ask them to find out cos if u can get this adjusted ur problems will go away
Remember in a few weeks time everything will start to sound better and run in, u may be pleasantly suprised if u can sort the volume

 

Thanks Dan. Apparently the Leemas are played for 200 hours before being shipped (? - that's what the rep said).

If there is a work around for the volume I expect I'll stick with it. If not, I'm back to the drawing board.

The Dalis actually seem easier to drive than my tiny missions - or at least, they produce more noise for a given point on the volume control. I'm a bit surprised by it.

 

Cos the amp is say 100wpc for 8ohms that would make it about 200wpc for 4 which is what the Dalis are, so any volume increase then becomes double per click on the dial

 

Oops. I think I thought it was the other way arround. Apparently the Leema's stats are:

Power output 80 W, 8 Ohms
RMS per channel 150 W, 4 Ohms
Ouput current > ± 12 Amps
Frequency response 5 Hz to 80 kHz, ± 3 dB @ 1 W
Signal-to-noise ratio - 100 dB, A weighted, 150 W RMS 4 Ohms
THD 0.008% (10 W RMS 4 Ohms, 1 kHz)

I'm surprised I have to have it so low. On my old amp I was generally around 9 o'clock. With this one I'm barely off mute.

 

It sounds like they could mod it, but I'm not sure it would work out how I want, and it would be an extra cost too:

"I can't make the control less coarse at low level, but I could re-write the software so that the default level is lower. Or I may be able to lower the power-amp gain, which will lower the noise floor.

"The default level is 20 - the maximum gain is 240! If/when you return it for the other mod, I'll sort it."

Not sure what to do here. I'll sleep on it.

 

Hi Gargal,

Looking at your floor plan I suspect that a room correction/EQ may be the best way forward. I use a Behringer DEQ2496 and that allows you to store different correction curves to cater for different issues or locations. This would allow you to save a curve for listening at your desk/couch, one for bed listening and perhaps another that averages them for general moving 'round doing other stuff.

This will allow you to 'fix' the sound in your room to a wonderfully flat response, or to whatever response curve gets you going. It will take a little bit of learning and experimenting to understand how to use it to best advantage. Well worth the effort.

Regards,

Stuart.

 

If you want to keep your speakers (I like dali's a lot myself), and regardless of whether you keep the amp, then trying a behringer is not an expensive option to try. They are less than £200.

 

Ask for a price

 

Hi there. Thanks Stuart - maybe that is the best approach.

How would wiring up the DEQ2496 work? I've got quite a lot of inputs going through, and I can't really see how to connect them up, or how many inputs the DEQ2496 can take. (To me, it looks like there are only balanced ins - is this right? That would be a problem for me.)

Does anyone have any advice on the amp? If I'm running things through a £200 EQ, is it worth having such a (for me) expensive amp? Especially as it seems I use only a small fraction of its power.

Any way I can get a better bargain because I need less volume? Or are all mid-range amps built for cavernous listening rooms (free of beds)?

Does anyone know how long I have to decide while I can still return the amp? I'd like to be able to give it a bit of thought. Ta.

 

Just going that now. They've been really helpful with questions so far.