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Why are my SF Venere S Speakers not sounding as warm?

I have a beautiful pair of Walnut Sonus Faber Venere S speakers and I use them for everyday surround sound/music listening in our living room.  The issue is I fell in love with these speakers in the showroom, and when I set them up in my living room they sounded almost piercingly bright and not nearly as balanced and pleasant.  I have bi amped them with my Marantz SR 6012 Surround Receiver, ran the room EQ set up as well as tried to manually EQ the system.  I was able to take some of the brightness out and get them to a more balanced sound.  I am VERY happy at the un-hindered sound quality they produce.  However there is not near as much bass as there seemed to be in the showroom (I had them disconnect the separate sub).  Now I understand my room is not treated and that of course makes a difference.  I added a Definitive Technology SuperCube 2000 and that has helped, surprising amount of bass for such a small discreet sub.  What are your suggestions?  What am I missing on the set up of these speakers to get the full range from them?

We have a tile floor and a raised ceiling that is at an angle from approx 9' up to 15'.  We have a large fabric couch with an area rug and wooden coffee table.  The dimensions of the room are approximately 14' deep and 19' wide.

tice34

Showing 6 responses by mtrot

mtrot
642 posts
 
These dealers know how to set up speakers to sound their best.  Also, what electronics were they using?  Were they running them off of an AVR?  They may have been using power conditioning and high end amplification.

Also, how big was the room the dealer had them in?  Perhaps it was larger than your listening room and perhaps they had the room well treated for reflections.  If your room is smaller, the speakers will have less space to fill and could sound a lot brighter. 
mtrot
642 posts
 
If you are buying Sonus Faber level gear from this dealer, they should be willing to go to your house and evaluate your listening space and try to find out why it's sounding bad. 
mtrot
642 posts
 
A link to a pic of your room would help a lot to improve and facilitate good recommendations for you.
mtrot
642 posts
 
Since you are now going be using your 6012 as a pre-amp, you will need a set of interconnects to connect to the Krell.  Now, unless you get very good interconnects, you may actually experience a LOSS of audio quality in terms of fine detail, texture, high frequency extension, and possibly bass extension.  I know because I've been using my AVRs for years in this fashion, i.e., with a separate power amp.  I you notice some loss in audio quality, don't let anyone tell you that cables can't make that much difference, trust your ears.  You may have to experiment with multiple interconnects. 
mtrot
642 posts
 
Well, it would depend on which type connectors you have on your 6012 and your power amp.  What types do you have?  My power amp has only XLR connectors and my AVR has only rca connectors, so I use rca interconnects with an XLR adapter on the amp end.

As to which interconnects, I have for several years been using a set of High Fidelity CT-1 interconnects.  They are pretty pricey, but I've never heard such good sound before.  I think they cost $1,500 back in that day.  At more reasonable prices, Wireworld and Audioquest makes some quality interconnects.
mtrot
642 posts
 
The Marantz 6012 has no balanced circuitry, so there is no reason to connect to the amp's XLR inputs.  I think you just need the best RCA interconnects you can get. 

Wireworld Silver Eclipse 6, 7, or 8 seems to be a very nice sounding interconnect that you can often find used here on Agon.  For more cable suggestions, you might try asking in the Audiogon cables forum.
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