Kharma 3.2 Owners, your thoughts...

Thanks for your suggestions, much appreiciated.
...Last night I put on the speaker grills. That seemed to soften up the sound a bit.

...I will definitely remove the sources from the P300. Any recommendations on what I should plug the Preamp, Phono Preamp and CD Player into. I only have 2 dedicated outlets for the source equipment. Will I still need power conditioning for the source eqpmnt with them going into a dedicated outlet?

...What should I do for surge protection? Sorry to ask these basic questions but I guess with my system at a higher level than I'm used to, I need to re-investigate my components.

...In terms of all Lamm equipment, I realy love being able to use the remote volume control which Lamm does not provide. Would it be plausable to use the Lamm L2 with the placette volume control?

...The room is 12 x 18 and the speakers are on the 18 foot wall, 3 feet out and 5 feet apart.

I agree with the above comments to try it without the P-300, I didn't care for it with my digital front ends, it imparted a choked, etched character to the sound. That notwithstanding, and although I didn't necesarily think they were etched even out of the box, my 3.2's didn't really start to sound like they can until after 2 months of playing 24/7. They take a while to breakin, and will continue to do so for some time. Not that they didn't sound good initially, but as time goes on you realize just how much better they get with breakin. For me, at about 2 mo's they really opened up, became more relaxed and the bass just bloomed. Give em time, and try the above suggestions.

3 feet out is possibly part of the problem. You are at the 1/4 null point of the 12 foot dimension. I would move them forward to 4 feet and spread them a little further apart, probably 6 feet. Side wall reflection is very important and because you are firing on the short wall you really need ample diffusion on the wall behind you--this last point is very important. If you can fire down the long wall that might be better. You can see how these thing affect you by going to our room simulator . These speakers aren't in there, but use something that has similar bass response. You'll see that the placement will change the bass response. By nulling out part of your bass you are tipping the higher frequencies out of balanced--thereby getting that etched sound. Room treatment and position I believe are the biggest culprits here.

Dolphin,

Yes, you are absolutely correct in your evaluation of "Kharma" sound and I am quite surprised and please to hear your voice of sincerity. In Karma paranoia was purely artificially created 3-4 years ago by the US distributors and it was a well-orchestrated event that helped Kharma to get some memento in US. They dumped a huge amount of the speakers in the hands of the “specific people” at highly competitive prices and those “specific people” are the one who overwhelm Internet about their drooling. There are many reasons why “you are in minorities in your vision of Kharma’s Sound but do not worry. Whist their listing rooms, talk with them personally and you will get an unquestionable answer about the primitivism of their reference points.

Ironically the 3.2 was the only one Kharma loudspeaker that was more or less OK (with their 80k plus model as the worst among all Kharmas). Unfortunately it originally cost $6K-$7K and for that money or was pretty good (and particularly if one do not hear anything better). Since Kharma surrounded themselves with a eco of the internet droolers who at each corer began to post their photographs of the shinny Kharmas and the heavy golden chains over their necks they elevated the 3.2 price to $17K and it is shame. It was a wonderful speaker for the beginners but at their new price it is already not interesting.

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

Is this guy for real ?
I bet you still think the Soviets are behind the crappy weather I had this weekend ...

I love the Kharma line.. maybe its not for every one but to generalize on pretty much the whole line with a conspiracy theory ..well..a tad surprising..

Good luck anyway !

Matt