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SourcePoint 888 owners – low-end bass in open rooms?

I’ve had my MoFi SourcePoint 888s for a while now and overall I really enjoy them. They are paired with a Parasound A21 and P6 preamp. Sources are mostly vinyl (MoFi StudioDeck with MasterTracker) plus CD.

What I love:

- clarity
- separation
- dynamics
- clean sound at volume

What I’m struggling with:

I keep feeling like I’m missing some low-end weight and room-filling bass. Bass is there and sounds clean, but often it doesn’t feel as full or physically present as I expected based on reviews.

My room may be part of the issue:

- current room is approximately 11x18
- one entire side is open to the rest of the upstairs
- listening distance about 8 ft
- speaker spacing about 9 ft

I’ve already experimented extensively with:

- speaker distance from front wall
- listening position
- toe-in
- volume levels

Some recordings sound excellent and punchy, but many leave me wanting more low-end fullness and physicality.

Questions for other 888 owners:

- Are you getting strong low-end bass/fullness from these?
- Did room size or openness affect bass significantly?
- Did moving to an enclosed room help?
- Did any of you eventually add a subwoofer (REL or otherwise)?
- If so, did it “complete” the system?

Trying to determine whether:
1. this is mostly a room issue,
2. a setup/integration issue,
3. or simply the natural character of the 888s.

Thanks in advance.

mcashiola
mcashiola's avatar
mcashiola OP
7 posts
 

Thanks everyone for the thoughtful responses and for taking the time to help. It sounds like the open room may be a significant factor here, especially with bass reinforcement and room pressurization. 

We’re planning to enclose the room soon and add carpet, so I’m very interested to see how much that changes things. If that still doesn’t move the needle enough, then I may look at adding a single REL sub as a second step. if that still doesn’t help enough, I may be back asking about stacking subs, external crossovers and EQ. But I hope I don’t have to go that route because that sounds complicated for me to figure outlaugh!!

tablejockey
4,403 posts
 

Room/ speaker setup ALL setups affect final SQ.

The OP states some albums sound good, while others sound terrible.

Those bad sounding LP's are inferior recordings, pretty simple.

The OP is getting overcomplicated fixes/explanations- too many cooks in kitchen.

There should be NO good sounding LP's if the room/positioning is the main culprit.

 "I may be back asking about stacking subs, external crossovers and EQ."

That ain't gonna do squat for lame recordings.

Overthinking and getting sucked into the audiophoolery vacuum😂😂😂

 

gkelly's avatar
gkelly
987 posts
 

as painful as as the learning curve for setting up subwoofers. The satisfaction and experience will soon make the Hurt fade gently into the night. 

wolf_garcia
6,885 posts
 

Get a pair of subs and note that you don't need to stack them...I use 2 in mono with the larger one (REL Classic 99) between the speakers and another smaller REL (Q150e) to the right to help with bass nodes and to give me something to sit on while rummaging through vinyl.

 

gdaddy1
485 posts
 

There are too many 'cooks in the kitchen'. Go straight to the source. Take a few minutes and pick up the phone and call REL. Have a conversation of what you want to achieve and the advantages of stacking, high level connection, sealed. It's not difficult and the end result will be well worth it. 

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