Help! Advice and Recommendations please (system sounds bad)


Good day everyone,

I am at the end of my wits. After being without my rig for 11 months due to a move, I am trying to dial in my system with horrible results at the new home. 

 

I feel it goes beyond room differences and speaker placement.

Everything is identical (except the sound). 

 

I would love a recommendation for someone in the CHICAGOLAND AREA that would be a good fit to tune my system. 

 

In the meantime, I humbly ask the the group for any opinions on things to try. I am hoping that one of the settings is just wrong on the plate amps or the crossover, but I have experimented with all I can think of. I  hope it is my ignorance on something obvious. 

 

The mids seem muddled. Not rich. I am getting some perceived distortion and harshness when the mids peak.  When the music is displaying a strong full spectrum I lose a lot of detail and separation. 

The soundstage seems to lack depth. The speakers do not disappear as much. 

 

It feels as though something is not being very efficient. Please note that the mid and low dials on the crossover, at my previous home, was turned to about 2:00-3:00. Now it is closer to 11:00. I had to turn  it down otherwise the problems with the mids were worse. 

 

I have the high gain setting selected on my DAC. Low seemed incredibly dull. I am utilizing the mid/high and sub inputs on the crossover. 

 

I have included pics of the setting and room. Thank you in advance for any help. It is greatly appreciated. 

Equipment:

I know you have access to all the audiophile publications, reviews , and best practices, owners manuals, and such. I have the following two-channel system:

Conrad Johnson Art Mono block amps

Conrad Johnson Act 2 series 2 pre-amp

Magnepan 3.7i speakers 

Lampizator DAC

SublimeAcoustic K231 3 Way Active Crossover

2 GR Research 3x12 subwoofer towers powered by a rythmik A370PEQ plate amp. 

jordanmj

@jordanmj 

The first thing that sticks out to me is the new wood paneling.  That can result in quite a bit of absorption vs the diffusers you use to have. Hence it will deaden the sound. And you need to liven it back up. Diffusers would be your best option. 

As to the servo Rythmick, I have a couple of those. Even so I have very different equipment as you can see under my house of stereo system, some of your sub settings seem off. I live next to Rythmick in Austin and know the owner. He has always recommended setting the volume to noon. Maybe down to eleven, but where you have it they would barely be in play imo. I also get best results with the low pass filter at 50 hz/24, extension freq 14 and damping high. Meaning we are quite a way off in our adjustments. Again different room and equipment will equal different settings, but just trying to help. Good luck.

Well if the problem is in both speakers then this narrows things down a great deal. I would think it is a room/acoustics problem. 

I have never experienced much or any absorption with wood paneling. My guess is the panel are reflective. 

I agree with @baylinor.  The new room is a completely different acoustic environment.  You went from a pretty live room to what can only be a very dead one.  Was the panelling already there?  If not, did you install it?  Was it an aesthetic choice or an acoustic one?  I'm not a trained acoustician, but I think you may have to add some reflective materials to the walls, especially behind the Maggies.  Maybe some artwork or a different type of diffuser, I don't know.  You might even have to investigate a very different kind of speaker.  But you can't expect your system to sound the same in a room that has totally different acoutical properties from your old one.

@audition__audio 

If one takes the time to look at his system and check the picture of his new "wood paneling", it is evident that it is much more than that. More like a bunch of wooden slats right next to eachother. Lots of wood. If it's made of pine, it is one of the most absorbant wood there is. 

 

Awesum system. Continueing with some advice here. Maybe break the rig down to basics. Can you run the streamer/dac directly into amps, or try a different source? Remove pre amp, crossovers, subs. Get as basic as you can. Check all interconnects. A digital volt/ohm meter can verify shorts/ opens. Check line voltage several times on outlet your using. Is there some high amp draw appliance on same circuit? 

Ive had troubleshooting finds such as loose interconnect, gain switch on phono pre set wrong, mono switch selected on pre amp. 

Curious what your culprit will be.