Where's My Bass?

Should i or shouldn't i ??? Let me put on my dancing shoes rather than my "stomping boots" : )

Please keep in mind that these are strictly my opinions and worth slightly less than what you paid for them.

The MSB DAC's are somewhat leaner and brighter sounding.

Audio Research is known for being a "non-tubelike" tube product. That is, they do not have the full bodied bloom that many tube products offer. Instead, many of their products tend to emphasize a slightly leaner sound. Changing tubes may be able to alter this to a notable extent.

The Aleph series of amps have very sweet sounding midrange but lack bass impact.

The Analysis Plus Oval 9's produced a very lean and tizzy tonal balance in the systems that i tried them in.

I can't comment on the Harm Tech cables as i've never used them. I do know of a few people that have changed to other cables and stated that they found the Harm Tech's to be somewhat lean sounding or lacking warmth afterward.

As you noted, the Audio Physic's line is not known for being "powerful" sounding or having a lot of bottom end.

With that in mind, every product that you've mentioned that i've had experience with come across as being "light" in bass response. Obviously, others will have varying opinions and thoughts on the subject. I'm sure that under the circumstances that they used each of these components / brand names, their observations were probably quite valid. Some components can display the characteristics of a chameleon i.e. they change colors as their environment is altered. That is why "system synergy" is discussed so often here and on other audio forums. Sean
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Good post sean...
I have an LS-7 and lacked bass prior to switching the tubes.. of course, I am an Upscale audio fan..
I went with new old stock tubes.. and the bass improved significantly... Also, When I changed my cart from a mm to a garrott k2 mc the bass cleaned up and was incredible..
And I am using a simple 2 way monitor with 8 inch drivers and 1 inch tweeters...
Good luck,
Joe

I let a 4 lb.18" smallmouth go a couple of weeks ago, could it have been yours?

1. The HT pro silways and magic links are an excellent cable. (at least for some systems) Especially for the money. If you have their Truthlinks, I don't know.

The Analysis Plus Oval 9's were the strangest speaker cable I've ever heard in my system. I had lost all bass definition. The AP 12's were even much better than the AP 9's in my system.

All other cables I tried made only little differences at the micro- level. But those AP 9's were terrible and I had tried them on 2 seperate occassions (about 3 months apart).

Obviously, not every cable works well in every system.

You might want to consider some Harmonic Tech Pro 9 speaker cables. For one thing, it never hurts to stick with the same manufacturer for all cabling. I have all Harmonic Tech and thoroughly enjoy them.

2. Next, I'd look toward room acoustics and speaker positioning.

Typically the further from the back wall the better for soundstaging, etc., but too far out and you will lose some of the bass emphasis. You want the speakers away from the back and side walls but too far out and you'll experiences a weakening of the bass.

3. I understand that Pass makes some pretty good amps but I'm not that familiar with the Aleph. Isn't that one of their older and smaller amps? If so, then you may want to consider upgrading the amp.

-IMO

before you spend any money, you should really play around with placement in the room. If you have not experimented with all of the options, you could be amazed at the differences in tonal balance that even a few inches can make. I've know too many people that spiral into the upgrade path looking for certain sonic signatures in new equipment/cable when all they really needed to do was move their listening chair up agains the back wall...