Hello

[Munchies]

Hello all at Art of sound,

Im sam from dartford in kent and i found this forum from googling for info on various valve amps after a visit to my local used hifi shop (matrix hifi) and going to the tonbridge audio jumble and liking the look & sound of valves.

My current setup is Infinity Kappa 5 speakers, 2 Rotel RB-850 amps in bridged mono mode, Rotel RTC-850L Pre amp/Tuner, Systemdek 2 (the round one) with mission 774LC arm and ortofon 2m blue, Project phono box mk2, Cambridge audio CD10, QED silver spiral interconnects and QED SA speaker cable.
I also have a set of mission 735 floorstanders but they have been sidelined for the infinitys for the moment.

My listening room/bedroom :( is awful acoustically being 10.6Wx10.6Lx8H and seems to have complete loss of low end frequencies in the centre of the room, which is were i would like to sit and listen but i guess thats best left to another thread :)

I music i listen to most seems to be kate bush, portis head, massive attack, adele, supertramp, jamiroquai and florence and the machine but i also have around 200 d&b records from my youth and everything from an almost full collection of pink floyd, hendrix, bowie, fleetwood mac, tangerine dream and the eagles that all get listened too :)

Im generally not very happy with the sound im getting at the moment which is no surprise to me as i have some rather poor sounding parts in the chain, i,ll post a picture of my current setup in the next few days but for now i think need to research acoustic treatment :scratch:

Sam.

[Reid Malenfant]

Hi Sam, welcome to AoS :) Nice introductory post by the way ;)

I think you'll find that most rooms that are on the smaller side will suffer from bass suckout in the middle in all honesty, I doubt it's anything perculiar to your room alone ;)

Nice eclectic mix of music to by the look of it, hope you enjoy your say here & all the best! :cool:

[Barry]

Welcome to AoS Sam.

Perfect introduction. Seems like you have some pretty good gear there, but I have to confess I'm not familiar with any of it.

As to doing something about correcting your dissatisfaction with the sound of your system in your room, well some photos of how the system is laid out, and what the room looks like would help (anyway, we just love looking at photos of member's systems). The square floor plan doesn't help.

All I will say at the moment, is that there are many members here who hold the QED SA speaker cables in very low regard and would suggest you replace them.

I'm sure other members will come along shortly and offer you some more advice; collectively we have a lot of experience here, and some of our members are dealers/retired dealers who have had a lot of gear pass their ears and much experience of installing systems in all sorts of environments.

Nice choice of music.

Welcome again - don't forget the photos.

Regards

[Spectral Morn]

Welcome to AOS sam


Regards D S D L

[The Grand Wazoo]

Hi Sam!
Welcome to the Art of Sound.
What a great introduction! So you've got one of the old 'biscuit tin' Systemdeks, eh?

Cheers

[Munchies]

Hello again

Sorry for the slow reply to all the welcomes, its been a hectic week.
I have just taken some very quick pics of my setup as it currently sits, its all in a bit of a mess at the moment but it gives a rough idea till i get everything setup for some new bits of kit :)

http://i1208.photobucket.com/albums/cc364/munchies7/My%20HiFi%20System/MySystemall.jpg

http://i1208.photobucket.com/albums/cc364/munchies7/My%20HiFi%20System/MySystemCloseSpeaker.jpg

http://i1208.photobucket.com/albums/cc364/munchies7/My%20HiFi%20System/MySystemDek2.jpg

So im not the only one who has problems with bass in the centre of a small room, i,ll get some layout pics up soon.
I tend to agree about the QED SA wire, it is rather bright sounding and im on the hunt for some QED silver spiral at the moment.
Theres a piccy of the biscuit tin systemdek that im not to happy with at the moment (arm wise) but i,ll put more effort into the systemdek once ive change amp and speaker wire.

I,ve also got a Audioromy 838 SET running 845 output tubes on trail for a week and tbh for such an inexpensive valve amp its blown me away this week, its the first time i,ve had a proper listen to a valve amp at home and it makes the late 80s rotel pre/power amp setup sound poor :doh:

Has anybody used or got any views on the valve amp ?
I noticed its a 220v chinese market version and the build quality isnt the best, is this likley to cause problems in the long run ?
My Infinity kappa 5s arent really sensitive enough to work with 20w/ch at the volumes i sometimes like to use, so im thinking of trying a 40w/ch ariand with PP EL34s. am i right in thinking this amp would give me a bit more volume at the exspense of quality ?

Thanks again

Sam.

[Reid Malenfant]

Has anybody used or got any views on the valve amp ?
I noticed its a 220v chinese market version and the build quality isnt the best, is this likley to cause problems in the long run ?

If you insist ;) Possibly yes, while the Euro (:rolleyes:) voltage has so said been harmonised at 230V there is still a good bit of leeway & quite often UK voltage can be close to 250V... I often see over 240V here myself, this won't be too good for your 220V designed amp, I have often seen power transformers failing due to the higher voltage & the consequent increased current consumed. There are cases on here..

Now this doesn't mean that yours is going to fail in the next 10 minutes or hours or days come to that, but if it is genuinely designed for 220V then everything will no doubt be under some extra strain that it wasn't designed to handle, so it won't last as long before something needs replacing...

That is compared to something designed to happily run on UK 240V that is (read Euro 230V :eyebrows:).