B+W 683s and Arcam set up

[admin_exported]

Hi all, I finally got my dream hifi together but my bubble has been burst. I used to have a kenwood 150w amp and an Arcam alpha 7se cd player with B+W 601s series 2. It sounded amazing! It used to fill the room with sound and if you closed your eyes the singer and the band where in your living room, I didn't think you could improve on that but after looking on the net I decided to buy a new setup. I bought an all Arcam system. (alpha 10 power amp, alpha 10 intergrated amp and a 7se CD player. I added to this a pair of B+W 683s and connected it all up with good cables (Chord interconnects and Van Damme studio grade speaker cable). I decided to Bi amp and use the power amp for the low's and the intergrated amp for the high's. after many hours of setting it up I was ready for the magic to happen but it didn't

The sound does not fill the room, in fact if you close your eyes and listen you would struggle to find much difference between a hifi you'd buy for a hundred pounds and this. At low volume it sounds "ok" but not great, turn it up to half volume on the 100w amp and you mainly get bass wich is so in your face that it practically ruins every song. The speakers are brand new and have only been used for a few hours so I'm not sure if they need a good running in? I know you can put plugs into the vents to reduce the bass but at half volume not only am I getting too much bass but also the instruments seem to clash with one another, turn it up just above half volume and it sounds as though it is about to distort. I turned the power amp off and listened to just the mids and high's but there is very little sound coming from the mids on both speakers.

I thought about altering the gain but as both amps are made to go with each other I don't see the need to. I have got them on spikes an a laminate floor (I'm not too bothered about the floor) but I also got rubber feet with them. I don't know what to try to make it sound good. Just run them off the integrated amp? try The bungs in the vents? Put the rubber feet on or just be patient and run them in. (probably wishfull thinking on that one though).

Does anyone have a similar setup or any advice they can give me? After the reviews the amps, CD player and speakers got I can't understand why it's not even coming close to a setup I had many years ago that was a fraction of the cost.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[bluedroog]

Was there a long gap between your systems being set up, do you think you just have different expectations now or have let the nostalgia of your first proper system play up the quality in your memory? Audible memory is notoriously bad. I'd expect either that or perhaps something is incorrectly set up now, perhaps your speaker are out of phase or you have got something miss-wired with your bi-amping?

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Bluedroog, I thought about that myself, maybe I remember it being better than it actually was. It was about ten years ago that I had my other system but I'm sure that it was much better than what I've got now. I wouldn't mind I was going to buy everything again exactly the same but decided to upgrade instead. If the speakers are out of phase then how do you sort that out? As for the wiring being wrong I very much doubt it, I checked everything four or five times.

 

[plastic penguin]

Personally, once you go beyond budget B&Ws they can be tricky to drive. That shouldn't be a massive problem, but i may well be a simple synergy problem.

 

[Anonymous]

I've never even heard of a synergy problem?

 

[plastic penguin]

If the speakers are out of phase then how do you sort that out?

If you have bare wires the just swap over on the back of the speaker. You should have two terminals in red and two in black. Switch the wires over.

 

[Anonymous]

A friend of mine suggested that when I had my other hifi. I had no problems with that but he said that it does the speakers good if you swap the wires over, put on a CD then turn off the system and swap the wires back over. As it was working fine I didn't want to do that, to be honest it sounded very dodgy and I was worried it would damage the speakers.

Can you tell me what the procedure is to do that?

Thanks.

 

[Anonymous]

I foregot to mention that it is bare wires at the amp end and BFA Z type plugs at the speaker end.

 

[plastic penguin]

I've never even heard of a synergy problem?

All hi-fi, to sound at its best, needs to synergise *or sonic chemistry between components* in a yin and yang sort of way.

I always bang on about synergy, and many others on here agree. Ideally, your set-up should greater than the individual parts.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice. Do you need to play anything or alter the volume and how long do you swap them over for?, is just seconds?

 

[plastic penguin]

Thanks for the advice. Do you need to play anything or alter the volume and how long do you swap them over for?, is just seconds?

Regards the speaker cables, yes, you'll notice an increase in bass immediately when 'In Phase'. It'll notce on any music you're familiar with. So test with a CD you most often play.

Good luck, PP.