After nearly 20 years, I left Magnepan and went ProAc


Listened to proac d48r's a few weeks ago and fell in love at first listen. After a couple of days I got my wife to sign my "permission slip" and took the plunge and they now reside where my 1.6 once stood.  You see, I've never heard a speaker literally mesmerize me and engage me like this before.  Sure the Maggie's have a huge image and soundstage and transparency, but these Proacs simply sound more like a real event, with dynamics and palpability, with a more refined and true sound.  The images are much more dense.   

I only have 48 hours on them so they are nowhere near their final voice, but they are breaking in nicely.  The manual says they require a lengthy break in.  I pulled out my old marantz cd-5000 to do the break in honors and will run these straight for a week or two and then taper off with normal listening.   

One thing I dont care for are the spikes. They have these little slits that aid in tightening, but no tool to go around them, so I can't get a good tightening with just my fingers.......so the spikes jiggle.  When I check  I can hear the spike and lock but chatter, and   this is not helping my  stability or sound.  Any sugesstions to tighten them right would be helpful. Thanks.  Cheers to a new chapter!   Wanted to share my excitement with you.  So grateful and never thought I would have speakers like This.  It feels like a dream!

audiolover718

Showing 5 responses by jperry

Congrats on your new d-48s. I have d-40rs and don't know if I will change from here.

I have Nordost Sort Fut on mine and they were an improvement over the standard spike in both functionality and sound
Audiolover718,

Many say that Proac speakers sound best with tubes, and they certainly do sound great. I have used my current and past Proac speakers with a variety of tube amplifiers and a few solid state amps as well. IME the best sounding amp I have used with mine is the Aesthetix Atlas, which is a hybrid amp consisting of a tube front end and solid state output devices. I think the ability of the solid state output to control and power the bass is a big plus. I would guess that your system sounds great with the ARC amplifier.

Let them break in for a while and have fun optimizing your system.

Best Regards,

Jim Perry
My room is a similar size to yours. My system is posted with pictures if you want to look. Let me know if you want additional details. You may want to look up Sumiko Master Set in the discussion archives.
@audiolover718 

Thanks for the compliment. I did some measuring and here are the results. The speakers are located on the short wall in the front of the room. The floor is engineered wood over concrete, and the walls are drywall on studs, or over masonry.

The back of the speakers are 36 inches from the front wall of the room and the outside of the speakers are 20 inches from the side walls. They are toed in about one inch. The inside of the speaker cabinets are about 72 inches apart. My ears are approximately 8 - 9 feet from the front of the speaker cabinet and the distance from my head to the back wall is about 3 - 4 feet.

I am sure your setup will vary from this, but hopefully this will help. Your speakers will need to break in so be patient. I bought demo speakers so they were already broken in for the most part.

I don't know where you are located, but feel free to look me up if you are in the Phoenix, AZ area.

Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Best Regards,

Jim Perry 
 "milpai ...have you moved your D40Rs to a larger room? I keep visiting your system page and ogle at those speakers. How is the bass in that room? "

@milpai

Thanks for the kind words. They have been in the same room since I bought them. The one thing I did that really improved the bass was replacing my Quicksilver V-4 amps with an Aesthetix Atlas amplifier. The bass is controlled and natural sounding with power when it is in the music. A bigger room would be better, but not possible for me. I do have a dedicated room so that is a plus.

Best Regards,

Jim Perry