My journey to the temple of boom

[agk]

Word.

After moving it all back to its previous location to get it away from a socket and discovering no improvement I am 'happy' to have isolated what I think is a flakey phono lead.
Jiggled them around and its gone away for now. Just peed off I gave away my spare months ago.
Had these for an age and when my iron gets replaced I shall have a look inside as I love them.

[agk]

Location location location.

Man it makes a difference sitting on the same level as the tweets. Had to move the speaks back further to get some bass back which has the added benefit of getting the unit out of the corner behind a speaker.

Thus.


I also don't feel like some pikey student anymore. Bonus.

[agk]

Phew! Just isolated the fault to a tweeter so that's a relief. At least its nothing expensive and knowing what's causing the grief puts me in a happier place.

[agk]

Well scratch that. The substitution of another pair of speaks firmly points the finger elsewhere.
Kef Cresta 30 by the way, not a sound I like even without the other issue. Very shallow and muffled.

[Matt78]

I once bought a pair of Cresta 10s - the standmount version - and they didn't stay here very long at all. As you say, shallow sounding. In fact the 10s had virtually no bass at all!

How are you getting on with isolating your problem?

(Nice system by the way. That Sony amp looks great.)

[agk]

I found the Kefs to have plenty of bass (floorstanders so I guess that helped) but sounded like they had a blanket over them.
Cheers man. Found the problem and it was the Sony so its Cambridge time again thanks to a local charity shop.

[agk]

Now this is too cool! Using an Onkyo code (83) I have programmed the dvp remote to operate volume on the Cambridge amp.

[synsei]

I have a lot of respect for CA amps. I owned an A1 MKIII SE for quite a few years and only let it go once I began to get really serious about hifi again around five years ago. Considering this model propped up CA's range of amplifiers I found it to be an excellent sounding unit which for me outperformed some well sorted and highly regarded budget amplifiers from years gone by such as the NAD 3020 and Marantz PM44se. Unfortunately the A1 couldn't handle difficult speaker loads as well as its competitors which is why ultimately I moved it on. My A1 was fitted with the rather excellent MM phonostage which is one of the reasons I hung onto it for so long. How does the 540A compare with the Sony in your system Andrew, not withstanding the Sony's intermittent fault?

[agk]

This is going to hurt, me being a long time CA hater who never got on with them and found the Richer Sounds era stuff too bright.

I'm only six discs in but I think the Cambridge sounds better. There, I said it.

Its a slight improvement in space around individual instruments and a depth and liquescence to the bass. The Sony did all this well but the Cambridge just has the edge.

It has to be said that I don't know how much of this might be down to the flawed Sony. Had it been in full health the result may have been different.

[istari_knight]

Nah its probably just better... Dont forget the 30ES was the bottom of the ES range and is basically a QS model in fancy clothes. When I compared it against a 770ES it was obviously colouring the sound "rounding off" the frequency extreme's. The CA's are/were designed by the leg-end that is Doug Self http://www.douglas-self.com/ampins/ampins.htm so I'm not surprised its capable.

And lest we forget our old friend synergy ... Good to see your able to enjoy your tunes again anyways