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I have NOVA V's and I am not happy

I have a Mark Levinson 585 and a pair of Sonus Faber Olympica Nova V's and although I admittedly have some room acoustic issues that I am working on I am not happy with the sound. 

I listen to music LOUD. This Pairing thru a pair of Kimber Cable 8TC's gets bright in what I think is the 2 to 4 khz range and the sonus faber nova's seem to mute the lower end of female vocals, artist like Macy Gray or Tina Turner dont seem to have the same drive in the lower octaves. At the same time the upper end of vocals like Sheryl Crow can get too bright and cause fatigue (I am assuming this is in the 2 to 4khz range) I have tried every speaker placement you can think of, toe in, toe out. distance from front wall and I am adding acoustic treatments as fast as they can be shipped. 

Here is my question, I had Mark Levinson 436 Mono Blocks in the past connected to a pair of B&W Nautilus 802's thru a pair of MIT Shotgun bi-wire speaker cables and I never noticed that system to be bright. Granted that system was in a different room in a different house. Everyone is telling me that B&W is a brighter sounding  speaker by far over Sonus Faber. If I decide after all my room treatments that I am not a fan of the Sonus Faber sound where should I turn for my replacement speaker? Or is it Mark Levinson's Fault? I want Rich Lush Loud Musical sound. I like a decent sound stage, I also really love it when when you hear decay from the instruments. I don't really care if that's what is neutral or not that's what I like :) 

Where did I go wrong and what can I do to fix it?

Thanks Lee

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samzx12
1,216 posts
 

Cheers Grisley 🍻 😜

asctim
429 posts
 

Looking at the response they measured below I get the impression that could be a very bright speaker depending on the room you are in and how it is set up. I can’t imagine how a speaker with a more flat on-axis response could be so bright unless it had side or back firing tweeters. They recommend listening off axis. I’d recommend also a very large or well damped room. What I think you could do to fix it is get an equalizer!

 

ozzy62's avatar
ozzy62
2,836 posts
 

@asctim 

 

I think before I would go with a band aid solution, I would just replace the speakers.

asctim
429 posts
 

@ozzy62

 

I agree that getting different speakers is a great option, but if someone wanted to keep these speakers I don’t see any other option than EQ. And, if the off axis response is a smooth mirror of the on-axis response the results will sound excellent. I doubt that’s the case with this speaker but an equalizer can be a great thing if properly applied, doing far more audible good than harm. It’s more like putting shoes on your feet for a walk in the woods than a band-aid. It doesn’t just fix errors. It opens up new possibilities. Without filters much less would be possible in audio. For one thing we'd be stuck with whatever a full range driver could do. Or we'd just have to come up with drivers that roll off correctly on both ends of their ranges without any crossovers and somehow sum correctly. I think crossovers are great in speakers, and I don't consider them a band-aid. If I want to modify the response I'm just modifying the crossover.

helomech
1,495 posts
 

Those older Nautilus 800 series B&Ws actually measured fairly flat compared to current models and were arguably better speakers than the current series.

 

As for the SFs, I auditioned the Nova IIs and thought they were quite neutral. They were being driven by a relatively entry-level integrated though. 
 

I wonder if what you’re actually hearing is cone breakup from the midrange driver. It is absurdly common these days for manufacturers to fail to design a proper crossover network for the driver limitations. Even brands like Revel and Dynaudio have been guilty of this in recent years. They don’t low-pass the woofer or midrange cone at a low enough frequency so you end up hearing cone break-up distortion when the speaker is pushed, often in the 2-4kHz range where our hearing is most sensitive. I’m not claiming that’s definitely the issue with your SFs but it’s very common throughout the industry. No good excuse, just lazy engineering.

Anyhow, just a possibility. Also, as others have alluded to, some amps really struggle with the high capacitance of Kimber cables. I wouldn’t expect that from ML amps but something to experiment with. Supplementing some hardware store zipcord will be sufficient for determining whether it’s the Kimbers.

 

 

 

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