Speaker advice?

[sitbacgh]

I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice or possibly some expert troubleshooting on my speakers.

I just bought some paradigm studio 100s v.4,cc690,studio 40 v.4, and servo 15 for my home theature/stereo system. The problem is that I cant seem to get much bass out of these studio 100s and seem to get distortion from the woofers at higher volume ranges on 2 channel music. Im using a denon 3808ci for a preamp,parasound halo a51 for amp, sony playstation 3 for blueray and music player,furman elite 20pfi power conditioner, audioquest bedrock biwired speaker cable,audioquest king cobra interconnects,audioquest hdmi-1s for video and audio.
This system should have plenty of clean power for these speakers to perform
at their highest level(the amp is 250wx5), and I was wondering if these speakers were just not made for good 2 channel listening. They sound great for movies but only decent for 2 channel. What do you think, is it the speaker choice I made or maybe I need a better cd player or possibly a better preamp? I can sell these for almost what i have in them at this point. Are these speaker really only for home theater? Is there any better choices for a great theater and 2 channel speaker system with more bass in a similar price range?
The sub has almost too much bass and I usually turn it off for 2 channel listening. Ive moved the studio 100s them to multiple positions with little change in sound. Does anyone have some suggestions? Any help help would be very appreciated.

 

[AVRat]

Have you done any sort of sound calibration on the setup? Why are you expecting more bass from the 100s when you've got the Servo? You're right, you should be getting good clean sound out of that system. I don't care for the Studio series because the bass sounded thin to me.

 

[ParadigmDawg]

Something seems wrong; how have you calibrated this system? I use the studio 40's in a room that is 8000 cubic feet and they keep up just fine. I love the sound of them for 2 channel listening as well as for movies. The servo 15 should give you all the clean bass you could ask for but should be perfectly blended in with your mains as not to draw attention to itself.

Warp uses a system very similar to your in a huge room and you couldnt pry the studios out of his hands.

 

[3db]

excuse my ignorance

I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice or possibly some expert troubleshooting on my speakers.

I just bought some paradigm studio 100s v.4,cc690,studio 40 v.4, and servo 15 for my home theature/stereo system. The problem is that I cant seem to get much bass out of these studio 100s and seem to get distortion from the woofers at higher volume ranges on 2 channel music. Im using a denon 3808ci for a preamp,parasound halo a51 for amp, sony playstation 3 for blueray and music player,furman elite 20pfi power conditioner, audioquest bedrock biwired speaker cable,audioquest king cobra interconnects,audioquest hdmi-1s for video and audio.
This system should have plenty of clean power for these speakers to perform
at their highest level(the amp is 250wx5), and I was wondering if these speakers were just not made for good 2 channel listening. They sound great for movies but only decent for 2 channel. What do you think, is it the speaker choice I made or maybe I need a better cd player or possibly a better preamp? I can sell these for almost what i have in them at this point. Are these speaker really only for home theater? Is there any better choices for a great theater and 2 channel speaker system with more bass in a similar price range?
The sub has almost too much bass and I usually turn it off for 2 channel listening. Ive moved the studio 100s them to multiple positions with little change in sound. Does anyone have some suggestions? Any help help would be very appreciated.

How are your speaker cables terminated? I mean are they bare wire, spade lug soldered to them.. etc.. I'm asking because I'm thinking that your speakers may be wired out of phase.

The other thing that may cause the poor sound is speaker positioning within the room relative to your seating position. Its more critical for 2 channel than it is HT. Just trying to cover the basics.

 

[fmw]

Hmmm. I looked the speakers up on the Paradigm website. They feature 3 7" woofers and that's enough to do a good job with the bass. I would think these speakers would perform very nicely for stereo music. I can't help but wonder if you have a setup issue somewhere in the system. Have you told your receiver to send all the bass to the subwoofer (small setting instead of large)?

Or you might simply be used to the sound of the system with the subwoofer and think it is lean in the bass without it. It may be that it sounds more accurate without it and you aren't used to accurate. I sure couldn't say without hearing them myself. I don't see any reason to blame it on the speakers, however. They seem perfectly well designed to deliver good bass.

 

[jonnythan]

How are your speaker cables terminated? I mean are they bare wire, spade lug soldered to them.. etc.. I'm asking because I'm thinking that your speakers may be wired out of phase.

First thing I thought as well. Check and recheck the polarity of the wiring.

 

[sitbacgh]

Thanks for the posts!!

I have the speakers set on large and the sub turned off in the reciever settings. The wires were terminated by audio adisor with spades on speaker end and bananas on amp end, and they are connected properly(ive check several times)) with the biwires being low pass on bottom and high pass on top terminals(i will be rechecking this tonight to make sure they didnt reverse things though). My room is L shaped with about 510sf of space with carpet concrete floors. Other than the self calibration mic that came with my denon receiver, Im pretty much a audio newby on calibrating the system and could use advice.

When I listen to music such as "30 seconds to mars" and "gorillaz" the bass bottoms out hard at higher dbs(no treble distortion whatsoever). The bass seems thin to me for all type of music, which seems odd considering the nice reviews of the studio 100's for being a good bass speaker. Most of the time I will have the servo hooked up with them, but for now (since they are brand new) Im evaluating each speaker with all types of music via stereo or home theater. The studio 40s seem to sound like they have just as much bass as the 100s. It just seems like the 100s should sound bigger.

Any tip on how to calibrate this better? Im still waiting for my cc690 so I havent got to listen to 5.1 music with proper timber matching(using a LCR450 for now). I can take a picture of this room set up and post it(if they allow this) if that would help.

 

[AbyssalLoris]

I'm a noob with all this, but could it be something to do with concrete floors? No, actually I don't think it is...

 

[ParadigmDawg]

You need to get a SPL meter and a calibration disc to properly tune the system. For now use the auto set-up and then go back in and change the speakers to small and set your crossover to 80hz, make certain the crossover on the servo is set high as it will go. See if this blends everything in well and then try using the direct mode(what ever Denon calls theirs for 2 channel listening and see if you notice a big difference. The 100's should put out some nice, clean bass even without the sub so something still seems fishy.

By the way; how are you running the bi-wires to the amp. There is really no need to ever bi-wire and I wonder if something is goofy there?

 

[fmw]

I think you are misunderstanding some of the advice you've gotten. What people are suggesting is that you check the polarity of your speaker connections. You know, red is right on both sides, that sort of thing. If the wires are reversed on one speaker system, the drivers will operate out of phase. When the woofers are pushing on one system they will be pulling on the other. That tends to cancel much of the bass. The drivers all need to be working together to move the air.

You can't "calibrate" to a higher level of bass unless your receiver's auto calibration routine has messed things up by equalizing the bass out of the mix. That's possible because AV systems tend to assume the use of a subwoofer.

Do three things. Check the wiring to be sure your speakers aren't out of phase, defeat the receiver equlization and speaker setup and make sure you have defined your main speakers as "large" in the surround setup. I can't think of anything else off hand. There is no reason the speakers shouldn't produce full bass.

 

[jonnythan]

If you have banana plugs or spades or something on the ends of your wires, ignore them and check the wires themselves. Check that the wire with the stripe (or whatever) is attached at the same color terminal on both your receiver and speaker.

It's also not a bad idea to completely remove your bi-wiring, at least until you get the sound issues sorted out. It's very possible that you messed up a wire somewhere, and with twice as many wires as necessary it's that much easier to mess something up.

Leave it as single-wire, at least until you get everything sorted out. Then you can go put in the extra wires if you want.

 

[sitbacgh]

I think you are misunderstanding some of the advice you've gotten. What people are suggesting is that you check the polarity of your speaker connections. You know, red is right on both sides, that sort of thing. If the wires are reversed on one speaker system, the drivers will operate out of phase. When the woofers are pushing on one system they will be pulling on the other. That tends to cancel much of the bass. The drivers all need to be working together to move the air.

You can't "calibrate" to a higher level of bass unless your receiver's auto calibration routine has messed things up by equalizing the bass out of the mix. That's possible because AV systems tend to assume the use of a subwoofer.

Do three things. Check the wiring to be sure your speakers aren't out of phase, defeat the receiver equlization and speaker setup and make sure you have defined your main speakers as "large" in the surround setup. I can't think of anything else off hand. There is no reason the speakers shouldn't produce full bass.

The speakers are in phase and wired correctly with red on red and black on black(unless the guys at audioadvisor and audioquest labeled them backwards). The studio 100's are set as large speakers(i think ive tried about every possible setting denon has)and they do produce a decent bass, but I guess I was expecting more with the Halo a51. Its just that these woofers tend to bottom out at higher dbs, at a listening level thats loud but not unreasonable to me. Maybe my expectations are to high.
I am going to go to a friends house who has an excellent home theater room and set them up with his b&k amp and preamp and see if what it sounds like there, maybe my room just isnt set up right just yet.

 

[3db]

Ah... the room...

The speakers are in phase and wired correctly with red on red and black on black(unless the guys at audioadvisor and audioquest labeled them backwards). The studio 100's are set as large speakers(i think ive tried about every possible setting denon has)and they do produce a decent bass, but I guess I was expecting more with the Halo a51. Its just that these woofers tend to bottom out at higher dbs, at a listening level thats loud but not unreasonable to me. Maybe my expectations are to high.
I am going to go to a friends house who has an excellent home theater room and set them up with his b&k amp and preamp and see if what it sounds like there, maybe my room just isnt set up right just yet.

One more thing to try on your Denon is to run it in direct mode, total analog without going thru any of the digital processessing to see if that helps any.

But like you say, it may very well be the room. When I moved two years ago into a big house, I had a HT room. I noticed that bass was suddenly lacking from my PSBs . It was there but thin like you say. In the house prior to that, bass was spot on. Well I since moved again and the 1st thing I noticed is that the bass has come back again. It could be very well room dependent. You could try moving the speakers closer to the walls to see if corner loading helps flush out more of the bottom end. I don't think your amp has anything to do with it. Good luck.

Oh and do check the polarity of the cables themselves using an ohm meter. Don't do this check just visually.

 

[ParadigmDawg]

If all suggestions fail to provide the bass you are looking for I have to wonder what speakers you used before. If you are use to the bass of something like a Cerwin Vega then you are not going to get that. The studios provide clean, accurate bass.

Seems like I have heard you say that you have bottomed them out several times; you may want to quit doing that until you find resolution or they are going to become some expensive paper-weights.

 

[fmw]

The speakers are in phase and wired correctly with red on red and black on black(unless the guys at audioadvisor and audioquest labeled them backwards). The studio 100's are set as large speakers(i think ive tried about every possible setting denon has)and they do produce a decent bass, but I guess I was expecting more with the Halo a51. Its just that these woofers tend to bottom out at higher dbs, at a listening level thats loud but not unreasonable to me. Maybe my expectations are to high.
I am going to go to a friends house who has an excellent home theater room and set them up with his b&k amp and preamp and see if what it sounds like there, maybe my room just isnt set up right just yet.

The amp won't make any difference. The amps in your system will reproduce bass just like his will. His room acoustics may be better than yours but won't help because you will end up going back to yours. In other words, I wouldn't waste the time.

I'm beginning to think you are comparing your speakers with speakers that have a subwoofer to support them. If you set up a sub for movie LFE, it can sometimes be overbearing with stereo music. In other words it won't be accurate relative to what the sound engineer intended when he mixed the recording. I find this a problem in my own system. I find myself wanting to turn down the sub when I play stereo music. Unlike your speakers, my mains are very lean in the bass and need the support of a sub. But too much is too much. I'll bet I would prefer the sound of your speakers with stereo music than mine with or without a sub unless I were to spend several minutes adjusting the sub.

Finally, if you like more ponderous bass, then go ahead and let the subwoofer add some to the mix. After all, it our preferences to which we are catering with home entertainment equipment. Don't be shy about adjusting things to the way you like them. After all, you're the one listening to it.

 

[fmw]

Let me mention one more thing. Your woofers have about the same air moving capacity as a single 15" woofer. However, they are smaller and lighter. What this means is that they will have a shorter "throw" than a bigger woofer and accelerate and decelerate faster than a single larger woofer. They are more hightly damped by definition. This produces a different sonic character than you would achieve with a single big 15" cone. I've heard audiophiles describe it as "tight" bass. I've always thought of it as "fast" bass because, in fact, it is. If you are comparing the bass performance of your speakers with three smaller woofers to speakers with a larger single woofer, they may produce the same number of decibels at, say 30 or 35 hz but will sound different. So add that to your considerations.

 

[sitbacgh]

Thanks for everyones input on this matter.

I can hear some better sound all the way around now. Speaker placement, finding the 2 channel direct mode, and better calibration have really helped.
My expectations were for a "Cerwin vega/klipsch Chorus type of bass not an accurate type of speaker. I was also told that my amp(halo a51)would make the speakers sound much better in conjuction with a reference quality preamp that has balanced outs.

Maybe time to save some money and find out, plus wait for hdmi 1.3a to be available on such units