Whats my weak link?

B_Limo,

What, i believe, John (Jmcgrogan) and I (and a lot of others) are trying to tell you is this: "Stop what you're doing and start thinking about the big picture!".

Forget about your room, as important as it is, for right now and think about your components. You like the KEFs in Steve's system, so you bought them. You've heard what the KEFs were showing you in Steve's home, and you hear what the KEFs are showing you in your home.

Besides the sound's interacting with the room's acoustics, the speakers are giving you the music that they're receiving from your components. They can't give you gold from iron.

You said that your components are not as good as Steve's, and that Steve has taken them even further with his mods. Turn on the light bulb, the KEFs are showing you that your components aren't up to making music like Steve's components.

Now quit buying speakers and start comparing Steve's components to yours and spend your money upgrading those pieces that can't handle their share of the load.

You need to sit down and be honest, and come up with what you can spend and take the time and spend wisely. By components I mean every piece of your system from the wall to the speakers.

Chuck

room acoustics...everything else is second...good luck

Take a break. Read Jim Smith's "Get Better Sound."
Tackle one issue at a time. You will have a new appreciation
for how things fit together.

Be patient... the most satisfying sound is not assembled
quickly, or easily. It is a journey that takes many twists and turns,
over (literally) a lifetime. Make it fun...keep it fun.

Start with the book!!!

B limo,

I second Al's headphone suggestion. A few year's back, I decided to build a system I could retire with. I had (and still do) a pair of Sennheiser HD 600 cans, and Musical Fidelity X-2 can amp.

The cans were sounding much better that the system at that time. Now, that isn't the case at all. Cans give you a good baseline to measure your progress with.

That said, I believe you still don't have your speakers situated to give their best performance. It looks to me as if you have them located on the long wall, where they can't get any help from the corners of your room for good bass response.

Do you have the manual that came with your speakers? See what KEF reccommends for placement.

If that doesn't help, there were lot of good suggestions made previously here. Room treatment can tame many problems, but lack of bass response isn't usually one of them.

Good luck, keep trying, you'll get there.

Dan

03-06-13: B_limo
Ps, again, Jmcgrogan, what pre amp would you recommend? I can probably try my buddies to see if that's partly responsible. I've read reviews stating that the classe ssp 25 isn't that great for a 2 ch. pre.

B, I went through that HT phase about 15 years ago, trying fancy SSP's from Classe, Proceed, Krell, etc, none of them was very good for 2 channel audio. I still remember inserting a Classe CP-60 into my system in place of one of these SSP's (I recall I was running a CA-200 amp at that time), the difference was amazing. At that point I realized that no SSP would work in a 2 channel system.

Since then I've had about 20 different preamps in my system. I try to make sure they have a HT throughput, picked up a cheap Denon AVR to handle the other speakers for HT, and let a stereo preamp handle stereo.

I would recommend that you try your friends stereo preamp and see if that makes a difference. If it does, as I suspect it will, you now know where to start. I won't bother with any recommendations, since I find that the preamp is such a personal choice. For me, it's the heart of the system and difficult to find just the right sound and features. That's probably why I've been through over 20 preamps, more than double the amount of amps, CDPs, speakers, turntables, or any other piece of gear.

Cheers,
John