Steve, you have good gear, but have a few changes to make. Get some Transparent speaker cables (used). Run the amps in monoblock mode, you'll be glad you did. Then allow the amps to break in, 20 hours is not enough time for new amps to settle in and begin to sing. Spend a bunch of hours with the set up, Martins are finicky but VERY worth the effort and time. Your stuff is too good to disappoint, you have no reason to feel buyer's remorse. Any specific questions, feel free to drop me an email. Jeff
Need help - system performance
First I'll explain my system. Have a pair of Martin Logan SL3's (10" woofer with approx 4' esl panel), a pair of Parasound HCA1000A amps at 125 wpc each, a Parasound pld1100 line drive stereo preamp, a Pioneer Elite DV-05 dvd player,IXOS silver series interconnects (1/2 to 1 meter)and 12 gauge fine stranded monster cable MC-1 which has just an outer thick plastic jacket (16' speaker cables).
I have the amps horizontally bi-amped ( 1 amp for lows & 1 amp for highs). The speakers were bought used, are two years old, in mint condition, and were cared for. the amps & preamp were bought new and now have about 15-20 hours on them as well as all cables. DVD/CD player is connected to the direct input on preamp. polarity is correct on all terminations.
This is my sonic situation, when playing my favorite cd's, (you know the ones which have those exceptional quality recordings)the system sounds overall very good and bright. When watching dvd movies, it also sounds very good. When listening to most cd's however it appears to be lacking a little something!!!
It seams if the music be played consists of single or separable instruments, i.e. single guitars, horns or voices, the esl panels sound wonderful, but when its compounded such as rock and roll or the complete frequency spectrum, it seams to lack midrange, clarity, and sound stage. the 10" low end drivers seam to deliver a punchy bottom at times and muddy at others. The lower the volume the worse the condition. As far as listening to music from the tuner, well it sounds like absolute s....t. I have experimented with speaker placement with basically no differences. I have NOT tried to vertical biamp or drive the the amps as monoblocks.
I had a limited budget and spent approx 4K so far. I thought I did all the right research and made the right choices considering my budget. So what happening??
I tend to think the inexpensive speaker cables (bought from circuit city) could be causing the problem but I cant bring myself to spend a $1000.00 to proove it without talking to someone who knows more about it first.
Need intelligent help and recommendations....Steve Rounds
I have the amps horizontally bi-amped ( 1 amp for lows & 1 amp for highs). The speakers were bought used, are two years old, in mint condition, and were cared for. the amps & preamp were bought new and now have about 15-20 hours on them as well as all cables. DVD/CD player is connected to the direct input on preamp. polarity is correct on all terminations.
This is my sonic situation, when playing my favorite cd's, (you know the ones which have those exceptional quality recordings)the system sounds overall very good and bright. When watching dvd movies, it also sounds very good. When listening to most cd's however it appears to be lacking a little something!!!
It seams if the music be played consists of single or separable instruments, i.e. single guitars, horns or voices, the esl panels sound wonderful, but when its compounded such as rock and roll or the complete frequency spectrum, it seams to lack midrange, clarity, and sound stage. the 10" low end drivers seam to deliver a punchy bottom at times and muddy at others. The lower the volume the worse the condition. As far as listening to music from the tuner, well it sounds like absolute s....t. I have experimented with speaker placement with basically no differences. I have NOT tried to vertical biamp or drive the the amps as monoblocks.
I had a limited budget and spent approx 4K so far. I thought I did all the right research and made the right choices considering my budget. So what happening??
I tend to think the inexpensive speaker cables (bought from circuit city) could be causing the problem but I cant bring myself to spend a $1000.00 to proove it without talking to someone who knows more about it first.
Need intelligent help and recommendations....Steve Rounds