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Where's the rest of the music???

I have a problem with my system and I'm hoping someone can provide me with some ideas. I have a modest system (outlined below) and I listen to a lot of jazz and some HT. The HT sounds fine but I'm having problems with 2 channel. Almost everything I listen to sounds very vocal heavy. The vocals shine but the accompaniment is very faint, especially the low end. Overall I don't think that my system is as full sounding as it should be (most things sound better through my cheap headphones).

I would say that the only thing I've found that I'm happy with is the new Diana Krall "Live in Paris" DVD. This sounds excellent on my system but if I listen to it straight through headphones it is extremely bass heavy.

Lately I've upgraded my cables and my amp, which has provided some improvement. I also have a REL Strata III on the way which I'm hoping will fill it out a little more. Any other advice would be appreciated.


Here's my current setup after upgrades:

Speakers: B&W CDM-1s
CD: Yamaha CDC-765
Pre: Yamaha V992 (not using amp portion)
Amp: B&K AV5000
Cables: Signal Cable IC and biwire speaker cable

Thanks,
warehouse
10 responses Add your response
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
Tweeking is what makes this hobby fun. I still use my original model CDM-1 in my smaller home office system. I was using some 16 inch B&W stands there. I later came accross some used 22 inch stands. Just raising the speakers 6 inches in the same location made a huge difference.
sherod
1,690 posts
 
Warehouse, that's great that you are hearing an improvement with your experiments. Sugarbrie also has some good recommendations. As TWL says, "I just love it when things like that happen..."
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
It is definitely not the speakers. Other than the tweeks you are trying, I vote for the source CD player and the amplifier. I've run CDM-1's with amplifiers costing well over $2000 and they sounded great.

If you want to upgrade at some point, I would start with the amplifier, then the CD player.
warehouse OP
9 posts
 
I have to tell you that you guys are great. I have tried several of the suggestions here as well as working with speaker placement and now my system is sounding sweeeet! I'm not sure exactly what it was but I'm not going to mess with success. I think it also helped that I let my new cables burn in.

I still have to turn up my bass knob slightly on my Yamaha but that's probably just making up for the less that perfect electronics.

Thanks again!
fpeel
455 posts
 
This might be a stretch as you may have already tried this, but it's worth a shot.

The manual for this unit mentions it has "variable analog output". Since the attenuation is probably done in the digital domain I'd run it at full "volume" into the preamp so as to not drop any bits. Check that this setting is not the cause by hooking it up to the preamp, run the "variable analog output" up to full and use the preamp's line stage to control the volume.

FWIW, running it straight into an amp would not test be an adequate test unless it was done at full output and then what could one tell anyway?

Got my fingers crossed for you...
sherod
1,690 posts
 
I don't think it's the speakers. I just sold my B&W CDM1NT and for 2-channel as well as movies they were excellent across the spectrum. My electronics were Rotel 985MKII 5-channel amp and Rotel 985RSP processor.I think it's in the electronics,but I would go with Jdombrow's suggestion and substitute each one at a time,speakers last.Your new subs will complement the speakers well.
warehouse OP
9 posts
 
Thanks for the suggestions. For grins I connected my CD player straight to the amp (bypassing the Yamaha). Seemed to provide a little improvement but still not great. This leads me to believe that either it's my speakers, CD player, or my room setup. I'll keeep playing around with positioning and see if things improve.
jdombrow
371 posts
 
Find someone who has some components you can swap into your system one at a time, including speakers. This will help determine where the problem is. Good luck.

JD
sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
I agree it could possibly be the preamp section of the Yamaha. The best preamp section for music in an HT receiver would be one that has the ability to bypass most everthing but the volume control.

It might be too much trouble, but if this is the problem, a possibly cheap solution would be to pick up something like a passive Creek OBH-10 or OBH-12 and use it to listen to music, and then manually switch the cables back to the Yamaha for playing movies.
twl
3,251 posts
 
I would check to see if your 2 channel is being processed by something in the HT preamp, that might affect it. If you still have some kind of "theater" processing that is intended for "encoded" discs switched in, and you are not using encoded discs, this might have something to do with it. I don't use HT, and am not very familiar with that stuff, so this is just a guess, but it sounds to me like there is something like that going on.
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