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No bass in the Proac Response 3

I've just had the opportunity to buy a Proac Response 3 from a fellow agon just recently. One of the foam the 6.5" woofer was
torn ( with holes) so I already had it replaced with brand new foam. The treble improved quite a bit once I had the foam replace. The midrand is still the same and I have to say the Proac midrange is beautifull. I can sit and listen to female vocal (Krall, Elle, Cassandra) music all day. There is no sign of harsh or etch at all.

However, my problem now is that the bass is nowhere to be found when I play rock/pop. I do the regular Proac reccommended speaker placement of 2 feet away from the wall and the deep bass , mid bass are all but lost. If I moved the Proac very close to the wall then I get stronger bass, but now my image and everything else got all messed up. A simple analogy would be like I don't feel the singer is standing in the rooming sing anymore once I move the speakers toward the wall. Everything is just so flat ( 2-d), but the bass is good.

The most simple weak link that I can see in my system is that maybe the Krell integrated is just not big enough to produce the kinda big bass that I used to. But another interesting thing to know is that before I got the R3, I also got a much smaller Proac supertower that produced bass twice as much as the R3; and the R3 is twice the size, but lacking in the lower freq department.

My system is following:
Krell KAV-300i (integrated amp)
Arcam DV-27 (CD player)
Sony DVD player + PS Audio UltraLink DAC
Proac R3 (Full range speaker)
ducchau
jea48
2,944 posts
 
recheck and confirm the speakers are level and
not rocking.
Good advise but I would use the word plumb instead of the word level. The important thing here is to make sure the front of the speaker is plumb. Not sure this would have any effect on the bass directly but it sure will affect the treble, so I guess in a way it would affect the bass in the overall balance of things.

Run one CD player at a time.
If you have 2 going unplug the one you are not using.
Would you please explain your reasoning here. How would this affect the bass?

audioconnection
1,015 posts
 
Having 2 CD players on at a time.
Its bad enough we have one cd player hooked up
but two can add even more digital noise back into the system
which causes line noise with a bite.
just keep the one not being used turned off while listening.
Cheers John
ducchau OP
12 posts
 
I've waited for more than two weeks already for the woofer foam to break in or break up and now the sound has started to open up. Although as Shadorne has put it, I don't get the boomy sound with chest-pounding/in-you-face bass, the sound coming out of the Proac is a very deep and tight bass. Anyhow, it's just something that I am going to have to get used to.

cathode
72 posts
 
Do you have the room properly treated? Good bass traps will always smooth out the low freq response and, somewhat counter intuitively, will give you more, not less, bass.
indofunka
12 posts
 
Got similar story and think that good speaker cables could improve your bass freq. Used to have the Krell 300i but now replaced with the Atma Sphere MA1 Mk3. Even with the MA1 power, the bass still lack of impact/realism. After testing so many bi-wire product, currently, very happy with Anticable for the HF and the Canare Quad for the LF. On the subject of Proac's bass capability, when the Proac Response 3 is paired with the AudioValve Challenger 115 and Tungsol 6550, I've experienced the most realistic bass ever i.e. growl, impact, pressure... Btw, systems owned include Joule, Shindo, but most realistic bass come from this combination Audiovalve + Proac...
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