Getting more out of my system (1 Viewer)

[Aaron_Mum]

I went over to a friends last night to check out his 2 channel system. I was very impressed. The soundstage was huge, with such depth, height, and width. Music was presented with such ease and clarity between the instuments. I just finished listening to some of the music I heard last night on my system and I need to know how I can get more out of it!

I cannot match my friends system in many ways as he has built a dedicated 2 channel room in his house (that is stunning acoustically) with dedicated power going to it. He is running a pair of older maggies, with a HK7000 reciever and and ARCAM dvd player. He is a believer in cables as his interconnects are as big as a garden hose and he has the isolation rack going on for the components. I have never heard a violin presented like I heard last night!

I do not have a perfect room to work with and am running Paradigm Monitor 7s with a PW2100 with a cheap Yamaha reciever (75wpc) and a Pioneer 563 dvd all hooked up with common AR interconnects. My room is smaller and so is my soundstage. I have great clarity and an amazing focused image between the two speakers but it does not extend much beyond that. I have done the research on DIY acoustic panels so those will be going up soon and my next upgrade will me a more powerful high current reciever.

Can I get what I am after with some hard work put into speaker positioning, getting some panels up and upgrading the receiver? Do you simply need a dedicated room to get an outstanding soundstage? Are Monitor 7s up to the task or do you have to upgrade to Paradigms better lines? Your thoughts are appreciated!

 

[Aaron_Mum]

bump

 

[Scott Oliver]

It's all about synergy between the whole; good gear, good room, good acoustics, and the little things like good cabling and tweaks can sometimes pay dividends as well.

Color me surprised that your friend has a succesful marriage between some Maggies and an HK receiver, but I guess sometimes the odd couples work out.

I am positive the improvements you have listed will get you further along the way there. But whether or not you can achieve the level of sound your friend has who knows. If you haven't done so get out and listen to as many set-ups as possible whether at a dealer's place or other audio/videophile's places.

Along with listening to as much stuff as possible, I would continue to address room acoustics and speaker placement if you haven't done anything along those lines. And then on the receiver try before you buy. If all the pieces are in place, and your system with or without the new more powerful reciever in't getting the sound of your friend's system out of your head then perhaps you need to investigate more system changes.

I was in a similar situation 6 years ago, when I bought a serious home theater without much listening experience or knowledge of anything. Then after purchasing I started to go around to local dealer's places, and realized my system sucked compared to a lot of the stuff I was hearing around the city when it came to music reproduction. I went with the eventual selling off of everything and replacing it with a much higher level of component, and then once that was all done I started to address room acoustics. Your route is probably much smarter, but hey I'm a renter.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

I think soundstage is the domain of the speaker more than anything else. Maggies and similar speakers are renowned for the impressive soundstage you described, but to my ears the trade-off is non-linear frequency response. I’ve always felt they were somewhat colored and a little too prominent in the mid-range. At least the ones I’ve heard.

Your speakers are good, but a box speaker is not going to compete with a planar in the soundstage department. And it would come at the expense of that “amazing focused imaging” you were talking about. You probably can’t have both.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Aaron_Mum]

Thanks for the responses guys. I am coming to realize that you cannot have it all when it comes to this hobby. You have to choose what you want and then aquire the tools to getting there.

I was not aware that one of the strengths of planar speakers is a larger soundstage, thanks for the info on that.

Off to decide what should come next...

 

[Benihana]

you can pick up some Magnepan MMG's for around $350 used or $550 new. Will give you that soundstage and lively sound your looking for.