Why my system has detail but no body & warm vocal?

Sean, You're always welcome to butt it - you usually shed lots of light in dark places. My point, if I have only one, is that trying to improve a system thru changing cables can be a frustrating and expensive pursuit, not to be undertaken lightly. Some times I get a bit annoyed in this forum as it seems when ever some one has a tonality problem everyone immediately suggests that its best remedy is to change cabling. In my experience much more progress can be made in careful attention to in-room acoustics and placement of speakers and listening position. My unstated challenge to Bob and Mejames was simply to recommend a specific cable to Yxlei that they knew would work with his components and would be cost effective. Its too simple to say if you want more warmth get, lets say, Cardas (but I think you may give up some resolution in the process) or Nordost if you want more detail (but then you may risk getting enhanced highs eviscerated bass and dammed little warmth), all of course depending on how your amps and speakers see them (thats how mine did). What was interesting, in my case, was that it didn't make much difference which amp I was using, the signature of the cable remained close to the same. Then you always have the neurosis to deal with - OK this cable sounds pretty good, should I stop now or is there a better cable at hand I just haven't heard yet. Judging from the number of cables for sale a lot of people are still looking. Enuf for cabling! I ain't against it, I just view it as a tweek which can make a great system even better but it can't make gold out of lead.

If I had a second point, and in fact it was my main point all along, its about proper set up, a subject which I think many either ignore, hoping in vain to solve their problems with electronics and wires, or just don't understand at all. Its one that you recognized in your initial response. Something as simple as, perhaps lowering his speakers somewhat might reinforce the 200hz range and give him the body he was looking for in his speakers. Or moving his listening position might put him in the apex of a standing wave and give a sense of enhanced lower registers (his listening position could be in a null). And this costs ZIP except for the time required to learn about speakers, room acoustics, and a lot a patience, or a sound meter, a good disc of tones, some graph paper and a lot more patience. Reves recently suggested that perhaps we need a seperate forum for this as doing a search for prior posts is frustrating at best. I'm done now - time for bed! Thanks for listening to my rant.

Sean,

I too like the quotation "all designs should be stable" and I shall realy repeat it and emphisize it to all audiocomponents.

There is a plenty of effort already had been placed onto design of every audio component to be that stable AND independed.

As to the wires they can only be a "passive reactive elements" such as filter block or shunt on radio and video freequencies. Even if the wire is designed as a shield from such the component can still have a possibility to oscillate from RF and VF interfearance if not properly designed.

The bottom line is that if there is such degree of instability present than it should be infinitessimally small and applying wires that are designed to block RF and VF will change the sound by only small fraction of decibell.

Sounds like your room to me. The first thing to do is get a bunch of blankets and towels and cover any hard reflective surface in the room especially the front half by the speakers. If you sit close to a back wall this should also be covered. Now play your lacking body cuts and see if the problem has gone away. Slowly remove the dampening blankets until you achieve an acceptable balance in the sound. A mix of half absorptive and half reflective is best along with uneven hard or reflective surfaces for diffusion. Avoid a large hard surface any where near your speakers as this will give an early reflection in the sound which will smear the image and harden the critical midrange. The ear needs 10 milliseconds between direct and radiated sound if your imaging and intelligibility is optimized. (Sorry Amar).

Ron-C

More audiophile decorating tips; Martha would be proud!

Newbee: I agree with your clarification whole-heartedly. If you notice, the first part of my original post stated that i thought that the components selected could result in such a problem as Yxlei was describing. I also stated that Yxlei should try to optimize the speakers and room placement prior to doing anything else. If everything is set-up as good as possible and the problem persists ( and it probably will because of component selection ), THEN more drastic steps should be taken. Suggesting cable changes as an instant "cure-all" is kind of like saying that one should fill a gaping wound with sand in order to stop the bleeding. Sure, the bleeding will stop, but you've got one helluva infection that you'll have to deal with at a later date. The more appropriate approach would be to get to the root of the problem. In doing so, one may become as healthy as possible without having to deal with gross side-effects getting there.

Ron: Good basic and inexpensive suggestions and is an excellent "quick & dirty" approach to finding out how much room treatment one needs and where it would be most appropriate. Whether or not it has a very high WAF or Martha Stewart approves is another story : )

Using Ron's temporary approach above and you find out what you need, a good source for "inexpensive" ( by "audiophile" standards at least ) sources for room treatment materials can be found at Markertek. They also have a good variety of other audio / electronic related items, so folks that are not familiar with them should take a look at the website when they get a chance. Sean
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