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mystery muffled mids

I have a year-old setup I enjoy very much. B&W D3 805s and Hegel H590. Sound is really great. Imagining fantastic. every second with it is pleasure until I try to play classic rock. Anything by Led Zeppelin sounds like someone has smushed the sound and it lost the mid range, imagining disappears. I tried playing louder but live with too many people around to be able to do that constantly. And it did not improve anything noticably. 
I normally stream from Tidal via Audirvana. Anything by Bill Frisell, for instance, sounds phenomenal. You feel you can grab the instrument from the air. I mention this since he uses similar instruments to Zeppelin. Bowie's stuff sounds awful, as does Queen. I know they should sound better. Kind of Blue is fantastic. Gaucho, Sea Change, Elephunk, Wildfloflowers, Know what I mean? -- all great. To a friend, I said that this means bad recordings sound bad. The friend said that's not it. what do you say? How can I improve the sound? thank you in advance.
petar3
chorus
976 posts
 
Try a pair of Cornwalls. People on this forum say they are great rock speakers. Oh, you also listen to classical ? Well then you need multiple speakers. About 4 sets and you'll be okay.

Maybe 4 rooms too.

+1 for island
gmercer
193 posts
 
What speaker cables are you using?
Stop. Just stop. 
daveman2's avatar
daveman2
58 posts
 
@gmercer - don't know if you're just trolling, but I will explain why I asked in case you are actually just ignorant, and also for the sake of the OP and others in this thread. The OP has a great amp and speakers, truly excellent stuff in fact. He/she does not need to change those, at least for the sake of quality. Changes in his/her price range would mostly be a lateral move, at best. Tidal, although not as good as Qobuz, should not inherently have "bad mids." So, by process of elimination, there are a few variables left that could be causing the OP's issues: speaker cables, power issues (bad power coming into house/room, limiting/missing power filter or conditioner, etc.), or room interactions (no ICs, so not a consideration). For simplicities sake I asked only about the speaker cables.
daveman2's avatar
daveman2
58 posts
 
OP, as I said, that list was for your sake, too. I would also consider the stand, isolation, and/or coupling you have for your speakers. If you just have your speakers sitting on a stand or shelf, without coupling them to a good stand or alternatively isolating them from the stand, then this could be your issue. Without isolation or coupling, your speakers will audibly vibrate on their placed surface, often times muddling up the mids, especially. This makes sense that you notice it more with rock, because the mid/bass driver will be moving more, and causing more vibration. GL
ozzy62's avatar
ozzy62
2,828 posts
 
Depends on which LZ recording you are talking about. Some are pretty good, some are horrible. Makes a difference.

Oz



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