Thought I would just update this thread.
After perusing eBay and seeing a pair of van den hul d352 cables for sale, right length and right price thought I would buy them to test.
The next day I called Anticables to organise return for the cables and found my self talking to Paul Spelz himself and a true gent he is as well!
While he readily agreed to take them back and issue a refund he had a few suggestions that I could try if I wished as he was now not going to hold me to a strict 30 day return window as he had spoken to me. And as he said the ref 2.1 were engineered for more bass so I was likely suffering from a surfeit of bass causing it to sound muddied.
No problem and hey I may learn something in the process.
First thing I did was something I had been meaning to do for a while, place 15x15x2 maple blocks under each speaker with spikes coupling them to the carpet underneath.
This did indeed tame the bass somewhat and I could now hear plucked bass notes distinctly.
A little more fiddling with placement and toe in gave even better control but now I felt some of the sparkle that my Focal 826v have always had was dulled somewhat.
A bit of thinking made me realise that as the tweeters are right at the top of these speakers and I had now effectively raised them 2 1/2 inch placed them a fair bit above my ears at normal seated listening position.
Tweaking the spikes on the bottom of the speakers to angle them down towards my listening position gave me near sonic nirvana!
Imaging and prescense are outstanding, vocals and acoustic guitar are stunning, yes the bass may still be a tad overblown but I have not even tried the van den hul cables yet as still waiting for them to arrive.
But I am vastly improved from my starting point and a few good lessons learned on just basic speaker adjustments.
After perusing eBay and seeing a pair of van den hul d352 cables for sale, right length and right price thought I would buy them to test.
The next day I called Anticables to organise return for the cables and found my self talking to Paul Spelz himself and a true gent he is as well!
While he readily agreed to take them back and issue a refund he had a few suggestions that I could try if I wished as he was now not going to hold me to a strict 30 day return window as he had spoken to me. And as he said the ref 2.1 were engineered for more bass so I was likely suffering from a surfeit of bass causing it to sound muddied.
No problem and hey I may learn something in the process.
First thing I did was something I had been meaning to do for a while, place 15x15x2 maple blocks under each speaker with spikes coupling them to the carpet underneath.
This did indeed tame the bass somewhat and I could now hear plucked bass notes distinctly.
A little more fiddling with placement and toe in gave even better control but now I felt some of the sparkle that my Focal 826v have always had was dulled somewhat.
A bit of thinking made me realise that as the tweeters are right at the top of these speakers and I had now effectively raised them 2 1/2 inch placed them a fair bit above my ears at normal seated listening position.
Tweaking the spikes on the bottom of the speakers to angle them down towards my listening position gave me near sonic nirvana!
Imaging and prescense are outstanding, vocals and acoustic guitar are stunning, yes the bass may still be a tad overblown but I have not even tried the van den hul cables yet as still waiting for them to arrive.
But I am vastly improved from my starting point and a few good lessons learned on just basic speaker adjustments.