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Vandersteen 3A sigs, whats wrong here.

I recently purchased a Pair of 3Asigs here on Audiogon.
The problem is they dont seem to have much bass at all.
I have tried many different room placements. They are being feed by ARC VTM100MKII, ARC LS25MKII, ARC CD3MKII. Also with Kember 8HTC true Bi-wire cables, And a variety of IC's including transparent and Cardas Gold reference. Tried single ended as well as Balanced. So the front end gear should be ok, but no matter what I do there is weak bass. I also prefer to listen at lower levels, however regardless of volume it is always week. Any ideas, please help.
vdosc
racamuti's avatar
racamuti
362 posts
 
Hi, I once bought a pair of Reference 3A speakers and after a few weeks of driving my self nuts trying to get some bass out of them, someone suggested that I check the internal wiring. I opened them up and found that one speaker had been wired incorrectly at the factory and was out of phase with the other speaker.
once I reversed the wires on that one speaker the bass came back and I was a happy camper!
Just a thought, Tish
dominion78
7 posts
 
I agree it may be a phase issue. Maybe the original owner messed with the drivers and mis-wired the woofer on one speaker...if changing wires at the speaker terminals doesn't net a root cause. You could ask the person you purchased them from if he did any experimentation or repairs.

Also, you could purchase a RS SPL meter and a test tone disk and test to see how they measure. Don't forget to add in the corrective values to your findings to get an accurate indication of the measurements.

Good luck in you discovery,
D
audiomax
166 posts
 
Richard Vandersteen is still around. You can contact him and describe the symptoms. May be an easy problem such as swapping out bass drivers if there's defective one.
sounds_real_audio
946 posts
 
Ok just sell the damn things. You are not happy now so what could change that?
dhgee
10 posts
 
Use a test CD to do a phase test. I use a Rives Audio test CD 2. You could always just raise the cover sock on both and put some heavy kettle drums and place your finger to see if the woofer pushes out or in as others suggested. If one pushes in reverse the woofer wiring. I keep a cheap integrated amp just as a system isolation tool. The woofer coils could also be overheated as it is used. The 3a is not as efficient and may need more power amp.
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