System Advise Please - It's All Gone A Bit Wrong

Having a bit of a crisis at the moment and am looking for suggestions. I used to have floorstanders but found them far too bass heavy for my room, so I've moved to small stand mounters – trouble is I think I may have gone too small

They're Wharfedale Diamond 9.0's and I got them on the strength of good reviews as I don't have any dealers near me, certainly for budget gear, as such I buy blind.

Now I don't have enough bass and they can also sound a little flat, I find them a surprisingly difficult load (6ohm and 86db) for their size meaning both 30wpc amp's I've had need to be near the 12o'Clock position before they reach a decent level!

Current system is an Arcam Alpha 2 amplifier and Technics SL-PG580 – does anyone have any speaker (or otherwise) suggestions ideally second hand and under about £100? Also worth mentioning is that when I have my DVD player routed through it soundtracks are great, quite powerful infact, so on thinking the CD player was at fault I tried putting a CD into the DVD player only to find the same flat bass light sound, the same applies to my turntable

 

An interesting louspeaker for you ... RDD .. should be the Harbeth Compact7ESIII .. I had the II in my 11mt X 6mt X3mt and it showed great bass even if it's a not big monitor for sure...

 

where in the room do you have the speakers located ?

 

The only place I can at the moment I'm afraid (it's a PITA rectangular room), and that's one at each side of the brick fireplace with the baffles a few inches in front of the brick level if that makes sense?

Thanks for the suggestion Arlequen but I fear Harbeths may fall a little outside my budget

 

How about these:

Kef Cresta 3 - £55

http://www.greenhomeshop.co.uk/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=10&products_id=853

 

Interesting site that Seeker thanks, those look smart but I think floor standers are a little big for my room (in sound and possibly looks) though if they sounded fantastic and were a bargain I could possibly be swayed, however the Avant 902.1 on the same site look just the ticket - has anyone heard them?

 

Interesting!



How about a pair of ES Sony's for £77? Seem to remember these being rather good, but better than the Avant...?

 

so how about trying to move them about a bit ....

if its the standard size brick fireplace ....steped out from the wall then its likely the speakers may be unable to work in there prefered position ...ie close to the rear wall

see if you can drop them back so that they are backed to the wall and see if you can get them further apart ...

this of course is a nil cost solution ...if your actually wanting to spend money then no ammount of moving about will give you a great sound !

 

Thanks Zanash, well free is the best price of course I'll try moving them back against the wall but they'll definately not be in free space then, both will have a brick wall immediately to one side of them and on the other side of each speaker would be my hifi cabinet and tv!

 

If you don't have the manual for them:

http://www.wharfedale.co.uk/images/ranges/manual_3.pdf

But in a nutshell it says to place as near to the wall as possible and then move away slightly if that's too boomy.

 

Ha, I saws those on eBay and thought they were interesting. I did hear some of Sony's gear in the 80's and loved it but I was a teenager and my "reference" system was a boom-box at home.

 

Does flat mean more detailed ?..more pleasant

 

They're not worth that though (well they are intrinsically but not market value, being Sony audiophools won't go for them) so I've IM'd him with a best offer, just out of interest if they don't sell which I doubt they will at that price.

spica - I know what you mean, however I do love detail and could live with the lack of bass if the sound was detailed and exciting, in fact I like that, trouble is it's neither, a bit dull on the whole at the moment

 

You could try some mission M31i's or similar, they should have a more forward exciting presentation, the Quad/Wharfedale always sounded alittle 'restrained' for my taste, smooth though!

 

Good word, that's how I'd describe the sound, funnily enough you're not the first person to suggest Mission - think I might have to start looking at getting a small pair of those if placement doesn't help matters tonight, hopefully their presentation will be a little more forward.

 

what are those bass units like?

Im very intreagued by a square bass cone with a metal cover (?)

 

Here you go





More info here http://homepage2.nifty.com/k-ooki/apm/

 

getting back to the point !........

if you try to get the speakers back to the wall and preferably away from the chimney Brest ie

x--[]-hifi --chimenybrest------[]--x

assuming that you decor allows

rather than.....

x--hifi-----[]chimenybrest[]-------x

as the defraction and dispertion caused by the brick work will play old harry with the sound.

 

I had a play last night and moving them back in their current position didn't work out well It would in theory be possible to move them out which is something I hadn't considered, however it'd look like this;

x--[]-hifi--chimenybrest--CRT TV--[]-Wall

The only trouble with that set up is that while the left side could stay pointing inwards the one on the right would have to be at almost 45o to point into the room as the TV is now - it may be worth having a play with though, I hadn't considered it but the right hand side may actually work out better for when I route movies through it (i.e. more direct sound coming from the same angle as the TV)