montesquieu
03-01-2011, 10:15
Am still visiting the relatives, won't be home for a few days yet. But looking for advice on a troubling problem with the brother in law's system. He is a complete hifi illiterate but had help from someone local who put the following together for him:
Reasonable DVD player with RCA outs to a pre (he uses this for watching films as well); quite nice Denon DD deck which seems to be in good fettle - cheapo AT MM cartridge though; Conrad Johnson PV10 preamp, and a Bill Beard EL84 amp with six tubes each side (three each side in push-pull). Chario Syntra 100T speakers which have three drivers, one labelled a 'subwoofer' driving out of the bottom.
Anyway, the system is sounding terrible: zero bass (from either TT or CD player), lightweight mids and an overblown too-airy upper range. Seriously I've heard better out of a Roberts radio. My guess it's putting out zippo below 80hz.
I'd never heard of the Charios but they seem to have been reviewed well, though at 88db/4ohm my suspicion is that the wee Beard amp is struggling to drive them.
Cables (speaker cables and interconnects) are cheapest of the cheap lamp wire, I'm going to post him something better out of my bits box but I doubt that can be the main issue.
Should I bite the bullet and tell him to replace his speakers? Or can anyone think of something I'm obviously missing? I thought about adding a sub but my feeling is it would need to be right up around 90hz for the xover.
I've done what I can with speaker placement and sorting out the wiring issues (speakers were out of phase and power amp wired wrongly left right :doh:) and it's sounding better than before I arrived .. but there's still no weight at the bottom end. If they were tiny bookshelf jobs I'd be going for a sub no worries, but they aren't - they should be able to do better than this.
He bought this system after staying at ours a year ago (he had old Pioneer gear from the 80s before that, which actually wasn't that bad for uncritical listening), I haven't seen him since but he was obviously trying to copy what he heard at my place, without wanting to ask me specifically for advice (it's taken me 30 years of 'interest' in hifi and probably 6-7 years of more recent box-swopping to get where I've got to).
His wife (the wife's sister) is giving him shit for spending money blindly only to make the sound worse, and on some level I think he deserves it ... no wonder he never mentioned it to me.
Oh and he's overseas on 100v power ... if he was local I'd just buy him the pair of Snell Ks that are on ebay right now and be done with it. I have a few days left to help him out .... any ideas?
Reasonable DVD player with RCA outs to a pre (he uses this for watching films as well); quite nice Denon DD deck which seems to be in good fettle - cheapo AT MM cartridge though; Conrad Johnson PV10 preamp, and a Bill Beard EL84 amp with six tubes each side (three each side in push-pull). Chario Syntra 100T speakers which have three drivers, one labelled a 'subwoofer' driving out of the bottom.
Anyway, the system is sounding terrible: zero bass (from either TT or CD player), lightweight mids and an overblown too-airy upper range. Seriously I've heard better out of a Roberts radio. My guess it's putting out zippo below 80hz.
I'd never heard of the Charios but they seem to have been reviewed well, though at 88db/4ohm my suspicion is that the wee Beard amp is struggling to drive them.
Cables (speaker cables and interconnects) are cheapest of the cheap lamp wire, I'm going to post him something better out of my bits box but I doubt that can be the main issue.
Should I bite the bullet and tell him to replace his speakers? Or can anyone think of something I'm obviously missing? I thought about adding a sub but my feeling is it would need to be right up around 90hz for the xover.
I've done what I can with speaker placement and sorting out the wiring issues (speakers were out of phase and power amp wired wrongly left right :doh:) and it's sounding better than before I arrived .. but there's still no weight at the bottom end. If they were tiny bookshelf jobs I'd be going for a sub no worries, but they aren't - they should be able to do better than this.
He bought this system after staying at ours a year ago (he had old Pioneer gear from the 80s before that, which actually wasn't that bad for uncritical listening), I haven't seen him since but he was obviously trying to copy what he heard at my place, without wanting to ask me specifically for advice (it's taken me 30 years of 'interest' in hifi and probably 6-7 years of more recent box-swopping to get where I've got to).
His wife (the wife's sister) is giving him shit for spending money blindly only to make the sound worse, and on some level I think he deserves it ... no wonder he never mentioned it to me.
Oh and he's overseas on 100v power ... if he was local I'd just buy him the pair of Snell Ks that are on ebay right now and be done with it. I have a few days left to help him out .... any ideas?