New speakers and excessive midrange


Got a new system together consisting of:

Linn Kremlin Tuner
Linn Genki CD
Dared VP-300B SET Monoblocks
Dared SL-2000 Preamp
Omega Grande 6R Speakers

System sounds OK, but there seems to be excessive midrange. Could this be a room problem or are the Omega's not fully broken in yet? Louis of Omega did some of the break-in for me (he's a great guy to buy speakers from, BTW - great customer service). Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
joeylawn36111
Dear Joeylawn36111:

Both sl-2000a and VP-300B shall have pretty good/flat freq response. Combined both, you shall have better highs and lows though. Usually you do get a bright mid right from a new system, you may need to more time to break-in the whole system (amps, speaker, CD player, etc.). Also, if you are not used to a single driver speaker, you will feel bright mid first time since the single driver usually has much less bass than regular woofer.

Regards,

Joe
switch to some US or European 300B amps probably would resolve this issue.
Many of the Chinese amps are not very refined and clean.
That's why there is no high and lows because it is not capable of reproducing it correctly.
"excessive midrange" might came from your Dared VP-300B SET Monoblocks and Dared SL-2000 Preamp combo and not the speakers themselves.
Joey, also if you would like to get my first impressions of the Omega's:

Omega Super 3 vs. Cain Abby

Have fun breaking them in...

Rene
Thanks for the all the responses! I do have a subwoofer (Earthquake SuperNova 10"). I also am upgrading the preamp to a TAD.
I think you'll find they get better every day. I've only had a few fostex based spks and their spls measured increasingly higher starting from around 2k up to around 5k. With that emphasis, and your suspension not yet loosened up, you will indeed hear an excessive mid. Play some music with lots of bass in it loud and that will speed things up. Is a sub in your budget? That would help mask some of what your hearing now and still fill in the bottom octave when you have arrived. Good luck.
Joey, it's a good idea to run in the speakers heavily for a long time. I have now $150+ hours on my Omega Super3's and they did improve a lot past 80 hours. I actually got a Sonic Impact amp break in the speakers.

Reverse the polarity on one of the speakers. If you put them close together front to front and fairly tight, hardly any sound will come from your speakers. Also using a mono source like the Tivoli radio helps, since then all frequencies are nicely canceled. Be careful not to turn up the volume to high though to now burn the speakers; the caneling of sound can be quite deceiving. I ran mine 24/7 for several days. That was you can easily get close to 300h in two weeks.

Compared to my Missions and Spendor S3/5 monitors the Omega Super 3 do emphasize the upper midrange and highs, and aer nor quite as full as I want them to be yet. But their speed, transparency, and detail are startling.

Good luck,

Rene
did you go from a more conventional driver speaker design to the omega? some of what you hear is break in, but some is the nature of any horn design and some is 'your ears' adjusting to the differences......some horn designs are easier to get realistic bass from than others (klipsch heresy II is an example of a horn design that nails enough real bass to satisfy most average sized rooms). the omega is a great speaker, but it is a bit fussy.
I had to wait forever for the break in of my Aha! Njoe Tjoeb CD player and Von Schweikert speakers. about 300 hours now and I think they have finally settled in. I wouldn't change anything until you have passed the burn-in period.
What do you mean new / like new ? If they're less than 50 hours of playing time then some more (100 hrs) breaking time is needed and did you change stock tubes to NOS ? They will made a huge different. Specially in the Dared SL-2000A.
This could be a break in issue, but there may be other things involved;

First, these are bookshelf speakers so they will be limited in bass response.
Their web-site rates these speakers' response as 50Hz to 20Khz, but they
don't give any information beyond that, so there's no way to know how linear
is the response bewteen those frequencies. This leads me to suspect some
roll-off at the extremes, especially in the bass, which is already limited.

You could also be accurately sensing something in the room. Most rooms roll
off the highs and have big peaks and/or valleys between 35Hz and 120Hz.
You can go to several sites on the web, load in your room dimensions and get
some idea about the problems in your room. It also has something to do
with speaker placement, room treatment, drapes, carpet, hardwood floors,
etc. An absorbant room can roll of your highs and certain room dimensions
make it hard for bass to resolve itself. If your previous system bumped up
the highs and lows it may have covered this problem. This would also
account for the new system sounding mid-range heavy.

These speakers have limited bass response, may have a roll off in the high
end, and/or your room may be rolling off the high end and/or your room may
have significant suck outs between 50hz and 120 hz, which would rob your
speakers of their already limited low end.

First things first -- give your new speakers a chance to break in.
In my experience all new pieces have a break in period. The CD should be less drastic than the speakers but I cannot know for certain as I have not owned that player.

My guess is your speakers will require at least 300 hours. Again, the manufacturer may have data based on tests that would allow you to keep track of hours and watch the progress unfold.

I am currently at 608 hours on my Dali's and the last 65 hours have moved my speakers so drastically that everyone in my group is commenting. I hope yours don't require that long, but don't give up on them until your sure they have had a fair chance.
Thanks, Albert. He said he put about 80 hrs. using a Test CD. BTW - the Dared's and the Linn CD player are new/almost new - do they also have a break-in period?
Joey, how many hours are on them now? Did Louis speculate about length of break in?

I went though this with my Dali Megalines, they took FOREVER. This week they are moving into "magic" territory and I don't even have the tube crossover yet.

So what I'm saying is, break in is HUGE. It's almost impossible to imagine the changes my system has gone through and maybe yours just needs a little more time too.

By the way, that Linn CD player is supposed to be very good, or so I am told.