Help wanted: Bass!

Since this has not been mentioned:

The first thing to check is the phase!!

Try swapping the red for black connections on the back of the speaker (one channel only), put on a record with some bass impact and see if the bass is better or worse. If the speaker is out of phase bass will be poor and with some speakers and some rooms you may not notice that the imaging isn’t what its supposed to be. So it might be that the imaging will improve as well if phase is a problem.

Another thing that can cause loss of bass is the length of the speaker cables. One advantage to running monoblocks is the ability to place the amps close to the speaker to allow you to minimize the length of the speaker cable. This usually has a bigger effect with tube amps than solid state due to the output impedance of the tube amps being higher. This is exacerbated if the bass region of the speaker is 4 ohms instead of 8 or 16!! Generally speaking a meter and a half is the upper limit with nearly all tube amps unless you have 16 ohm speakers and you don’t. If your speakers are 4 ohms the limit is more like one meter and the cables had better be pretty heavy.

Its also important to make sure the connections on the amps and speakers are as tight as possible. DO NOT OVERTIGHTEN or you might really regret it.

You may also be experiencing a standing wave in the room; often a problem when the room has regular dimensions. If this is the case no amount of EQ will fix it. I advise staying away from EQ as you will find that the EQ exacts a price which is a loss of transparency and musicality. Its better to find a solution by other means. A standing wave can often be cured by moving the speaker somewhat. If you are stuck with the location, back the speaker up as much as you can and fiddle with toe-in.

Of the subwoofer suggestions, I second the Swarm made by Audiokinesis, should you find that subs are indicated.

I conferred with CJ was told that phase inversion is necessary; it’s the configuration I’ve been running though - check.

Connections are secure – check.

***Speaker cable length….hmmm, maybe a bit of a problem here. For aesthetic purposes (again, this is my living room and not my hi-fi room) my electronics are on one side of the room and the speakers centered in the room. Because of this arrangement, I’ve got two 20’ bi-wire runs of Van den Hul Teatrack hybrid cabling. Kensington SE’s are 8 ohms. Atmasphere: Think I’m losing much here?***

To answer the question- yes. Not only are you loosing bass impact, you are loosing resolution. You'll find it easier to make out vocals if you can shorten up the speaker cables.

(this BTW is why balanced interconnect cables are so handy in a home environment as they can be run very long distances without degradation, allowing for short speaker cables; a topic for a different thread)

However, I was not talking about absolute phase with my phase comment. Phase inversion is something an amplifier might do (our amps are non-phase-inverting) but its possible to hook one amp in phase and the other out of phase by accidentally getting one speaker cable hooked up wrong.

When this happens the woofers are fighting each other- you get cancellation in the bass frequencies and so no bass impact. That is why I suggested changing the phase (reversing red for black) on **one speaker only** to test to see if this is the case. Since you have not done so, I suggest you try it and see what difference you hear!