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chipcarterdc... Congrats on your purchase.I own them and without a doubt... the Olympica III’s are a truly wonderful speaker system. My setup was easy. I pulled them out from the front and sidewalls in my space and have the ports facing inward. Why inward? That’s just where I started and have seen no need to face them outward. I have them positioned about eight feet from the front wall behind the speakers and about six feet from the sides.This gives them plenty of room to breath. Of course,if you have them set-up close to the sidewalls, I would be inclined to face the ports inward so as to not have the bass energy inner acting with side wall room boundaries. Sound pressure effects to close to any boundary can cause non-musical bass response. "Experiment in your space for sure." For my setup I used a laser for the utmost in precise positioning from the speakers to my listening chair/ears. Having the speakers the exact same distance from your ears will pay off big time,but not absolutely mandatory,it seems the III’s are not real fussy in this regard as some speakers can be...but do experiment,its worth the hassle. When they are dialed in properly its easy to know... by the superb image and sound-staging,which,by the way,the SF III’s are champs at. I also use the spikes[as per designed ] on concrete flooring,mandatory for best sound. Also, I recommend bi-wiring them if at all possible. I have tried jumpers and imho, bi-wiring is the way to go. Above all else...have fun. PS Another great review! http://www.theaudiobeat.com/equipment/sonus_faber_olympica_iii.htm |
Thanks for all your responses!
FYI, I started with the ports facing outward just because that's how they happened to be arranged when I brought them downstairs to the listening room. I plan to leave them this way for a couple of days; then switch to having them facing inward; then see which way sounds best. Anything in particular I should be looking for in terms of how inward v outward would affect the sound?
Note that my listening room is pretty compact, so they're currently about two feet our from the front wall and two feet from each side wall.
Also, a question: did yours come with different height spikes? The instructions say the smaller spikes should be place in the rear and the larger spikes in the front, in order to give the speakers a slight upward tilt. However, my spikes are all exactly the same size... |
Yes,the cones/spikes should be different lengths as you stated.Shorter ones rear and longer ones front. Seems odd you received all the same length seeing the speakers were designed to upslope rearward... |
Check spike length for both speakers; could be one speaker has all the short spikes, the other all the long ones.
Speaking of long, I am really longing for a pair of olympicas to replace my Cremonas. |
Nice thread, as I am considering replacing my aging Legacy Signature IIs with the Olympica IIIs. Having read numerous reviews on the Olympica IIIs, I am hopeful that they may offer the sort of music/home theater "jack of all trades" performance I am looking for. I do listen to a lot of high resolution music, but actually spend more time watching movies. The only possible drawback is that they do not dig deep in the bass like my Legacys, but the reviews state that they do move lots of air down to 35Hz. I do wonder if anyone has compared the sound of the new Legacy Focus SE to the Olympica IIIs.
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Mtrot, don't you use a subwoofer for hometheater? |
Well, I did use one for a bit, but I ended up moving it to my bedroom system. I am thinking about getting one.
However, I'm just a sucker for big, full range speakers! I like to run my front L/R speakers full range, even with a sub in use. In a lot of action movies, there is prodigious deep bass in the front L/R channels that is independent of the LFE bass. And, yes, sometimes it is directional, i.e., I can hear the roar/rumble on one side more than the other. If you set the fronts to SMALL, then ALL the deep bass and LFE is sent to the sub. I also have tower speakers for my surrounds, and I also have them set to LARGE, so I get deep bass coming from behind me as well.
The other reason I like/want speakers that go deep is for two channel music. I like speakers that can more fully produce the bass that is in the recording without having to send it to a sub. When I do use a sub, I like for it to just augment the deepest bass a bit, and not try to reproduce the bass that is higher and should be coming out of the L/R speakers. Yeah, I know I'm in the minority in my thinking.
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Just noticed that auto-correct changed "Sonus" in the title of this thread to "Songs." Sorry about that!
Question: I am going to try bi-wiring these speakers. I have a Macintosh 2275 integrated amp, which has 4ohm, 6ohm, an 8ohm taps. Currently, the speakers are attached to the 4ohm tap running into the high inputs (using the bridge that came installed on the speakers).
For bi-wiring, which taps should I use? 8Ohm taps connected to the high inputs on both speakers and 4Ohm taps connected to the low inputs on both speakers? Or vice versa? |
That’s what I would do... 4 ohm to the low/bass connectors and 8 ohm to the mid/hi. I believe the III’s dip down to near 2.6 ohm at 103 hz. So from what I gather,they are more of a nominal 3 ohm load. More current into lows connected that way. Of course,nothing is written in stone...
Also... When I was using a single run of cable to the III's I connected the cables to the low connectors and jumped to the mid/highs. This way seemed to let the speakers give a much more musical presentation overall. The other way around thinned the sound out a bit,at least with my system. ymmv
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Thanks!
Bi-wired them this evening: sound quality jumps out as *noticeably* better in back to back A/B comparison. Will need some time listening to them as bi-wired to be able to describe/quantify the improvements.
Question: what would happen if I connected the low/bass input to the 2ohm taps rather than the 4ohm, and then either left the high input connected to the 8ohm or moved it down to the 4ohm?
By "what would happen," I mean both "what would one expect to hear" and "am I going to blow something up if I do this"? |
The previous owner must have switched spikes or something, for they definitely come from the factory with shorter ones for the rear, longer ones in front to achieve the proper rake. I tried both inward and outward with the positioning of the ports, and much preferred them outward in my listening room. Mine are about 40" from the sides, 50" from the front wall, and about 9' apart. I listen in the nearfield, and they sound absolutely marvelous. The more good power you can provide them, the merrier. My room has always been excellent in the low end region, and the Olympica III's are down just 5db at 28hz in my room, verified by a mic at the listening position. As it is a dedicated room, it's well treated and my listening position is well away from the back wall. If you can give your new speakers similar allowances, you'll be well rewarded, trust me. One of the smoothest, most detailed tweeters you'll ever hear.
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I forgot to add....my toe-in has the tweeters crossing about 2ft behind my head. After a LOT of trial and error, I find this gives the best balance. I am on on a wooden floor on a cement slab as you are, and I found very nice gains in bass definition by mounting the spikes on Herbie’s decoupling sliders. Definitely worth the $120+.
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chipcarterdc said ...
"Question: what would happen if I connected the low/bass input to the 2ohm taps rather than the 4ohm, and then either left the high input connected to the 8ohm or moved it down to the 4ohm? By "what would happen," I mean both "what would one expect to hear" and "am I going to blow something up if I do this"?" Try it out and see what the outcome is,it may sound better, or worse,only you and your ears can be the judge.. I do not think anything will blow up as you say...as long as you do not put the amp into clipping... I would think everything would be fine. |
Thanks for all your responses!
Dealer is sending me the shorter spikes.
Starting to form solid impressions now after a few days. Really enjoying them. I’ve noticed that i do need to have the volume a tad higher than I usually do for them to really sing. At low levels, they sound quite good but pretty laid back/a bit too "polite". Just a slight volume increase really brings them to life. And no, not just because they’re louder: everything improves (width and depth of soundstage, separation of the instruments, realism of the vocals, etc.) |
Being to polite I believe could be a system dependent thing. While listening at low volume settings with my III’s everything I hear at a louder volume’s is also there at lower volumes...just not as loud of course. Low loudness levels for me, at least, are just plain superb with the musical spectrum refined and preserved. Sonus faber claims a sensitivity of 90db/w/m but I believe it is closer to 87db/w/m from a review I read. Combine that with an average Impedance of 3 ohms( dipping to 1.7) and it’s easy to see they like a bit of juice to get them going...
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Boy I love that cute little dart on the tweeter. Must bring it to life. |
