Disappointed with MA Bronze 5... or was it my fault?

[YOLO]

Hi Xicu,

Do not sell or change your speakers yet. I feel your Yamaha AV receiver is not up the task driving your MA Bronze 5 well.

You are located in the Netherlands, Find a dealer with these speakers and demo a stereo amp. Hifi Studio One in Leiden or Hobo is a dealer.

PLease try NAD/Marantz/Cambridge/Cyrus amplification.

 

[emcc_3]

I had a Yamaha as500 with the bx5s (previous gen) and it was too bright. Have a Roksan k3 now and sounds a lot better.

 

[xicu]

Thank you very much for all your comments. As you have said, I think I made a mistake by buying based on other people reviews, and I'm trying to tell myself that it's me, not the speakers.

I can still return them (in NL you have 14 days) and I'm afraid that's the right decision here. I could replace my receiver but I don't want to spend more money at this moment (and, in the future, I'll prefer to put the money in a sub).

Just for the record, after 10 days the treble of the MA is smooth and detailed, but the bass is still missing. Whether it's because of the speakers, the amp or the room, I can't know. They're very dynamic and detailed but the sound lacks body. When I run the auto EQ (YPAO), things get better (highs are cut and bass is boosted), but I don't see the point on investing on new speakers that you have to equalize severely to enjoy them.

With this budget in NL I can find QAcoustic 3050 and Dali Zensor 7. Can you share your thoughts about them? How do they compare to the Bronze 5? Do you have any other suggestions? Don't get me wrong: I won't buy without listening; it's just to pick a number of candidates. I listen to virtually any kind of music and movies. My preference will be to have the more detailed voices (I don't need the crispier highs or the deeper bass, but I think that an unbalanced system will never offer proper mids though).

Again, thank you all for your time.

 

[abacus]

The fact that the YPAO gives a big improvement indicates that the problem is the way the speakers are interacting with the room, rather than the speakers themselves. (BTW, If you look at any professional installation (Not just domestic) you will find room EQ is always used at the end to fine tune the system after the room acoustics have been sorted as best as possible)

Your description indicates a very sparse room and/or plenty of reflective surfaces, so if you can’t treat the room, a warmer sounding pair of speakers is probably the next best option. (And don’t forget to use YPAO to finish off)

Bill

 

[drummerman]

Yup. The amp needs changing too. However, as per HifiWorld review and measurements, the Bronze 5 is a super accurate speaker in monitor fashion rather than the usual cheap floorstander traits (at least until a few years ago) of raised upper bass joining tuneful cabinet vibrations. I would say it is probably more accurately engineered than the silver series.

The OP prefers the 'showroom sound. The Bronze 5 will likely not give that, no matter what and deserves better amplification.

I think something like Mission's LX could give what he is seeking without going down the cheap boom box route. They likely work decently with his existing amplifier but would respond to an upgrade too.

I agree with Bill too as in if the room is sucking life and bass out of the speaker some EQ'ing may be inevitable.

 

[MajorFubar]

With this budget in NL I can find QAcoustic 3050 and Dali Zensor 7. Can you share your thoughts about them? How do they compare to the Bronze 5? Do you have any other suggestions? Don't get me wrong: I won't buy without listening; it's just to pick a number of candidates. I listen to virtually any kind of music and movies. My preference will be to have the more detailed voices (I don't need the crispier highs or the deeper bass, but I think that an unbalanced system will never offer proper mids though).

Again, thank you all for your time.

They're definitely a good start, see if you can get to hear both in your own home. Good luck and happy new year!

 

[lindsayt]

Xicu. MA Bronze 5's are bad sounding speakers.

The context in which they will have been reviewed would have been by comparing them to nothing, or comparing them to even worse sounding speakers. There are a lot of really bad sounding speakers on sale today for under £1000.

You are quite right in taking them back for a full refund, ASAP. Please go ahead and do so.

Your rooms are a similar size to mine. I use huge speakers. The small speakers that I've tried sound like they're shouting to be heard in my rooms. They can also sound like I'm in an entrance hall and the band is on the pavement outside and I'm listening to them via 2 x letterboxes that are open. When compared to my huge speakers it sounds like the band are still there but the front wall of the house has been knocked down. It's the room filling authority that I crave in huge speakers.

The only way you're going to get large to huge well engineered speakers for a reasonable budget is to DIY or go 2nd hand or both. EG buy speakers that need some basic repairs and repair them yourself. Speakers are about as complicated as bicycles and you need about the same level of technical ability or confidence to repair either.

I gave up buying hi-fi on a demo-only basis years ago. I've moved onto buying on the basis of weight and cost when new. It has served me well. I have found enthusiast hi fi forum reviews and advice to be better than hi-fi magazine reviews. It helps if you follow the advice of people that know what they're talking about. One way of telling that is if they criticise certain aspects of the sound of their current systems. Posters that never criticise any aspects of the sound of their system are not to be trusted when it comes to hi-fi.

 

[insider9]

Posters that never criticise any aspects of the sound of their system are not to be trusted when it comes to hi-fi.

I'm sure this will cause a stir but I agree. As a rule, I find opinions of ex owners most helpful. Generally they can describe the good and the bad in the most objective manner.

 

[drummerman]

Posters that never criticise any aspects of the sound of their system are not to be trusted when it comes to hi-fi.

I'm sure this will cause a stir but I agree. As a rule, I find opinions of ex owners most helpful. Generally they can describe the good and the bad in the most objective manner.

With the proviso that audiophiles often go overboard with praise on their latest acquisitions using the predecessor to explain all the shortcomings

 

[QuestForThe13thNote]

I think it will be Ill advised to dispense with them just yet. You could get Dalis or q acoustics or whatever and similarly find them lacking somewhere eg not as detailed as monitor audio etc. If your expectation is higher than the combination of amp and speakers can provide, it will always be one or both that are letting things down. So my advice would be keep them with their shortcomings putting up with it, until such time as you can afford to upgrade the amp, then go from there. If they still don’t tick the boxes then get rid of them, and by doing this you give yourself more chance to learn and know if it’s really the speakers letting things down and to cement views about owning monitor audio in the future. It’s a little bit unfair for someone to say they are bad. Everything is bad against much better speakers.

 

[lindsayt]

Posters that never criticise any aspects of the sound of their system are not to be trusted when it comes to hi-fi.

I'm sure this will cause a stir but I agree. As a rule, I find opinions of ex owners most helpful. Generally they can describe the good and the bad in the most objective manner.

With the proviso that audiophiles often go overboard with praise on their latest acquisitions using the predecessor to explain all the shortcomings

That type of audiophile is exactly the type that I wouldn't trust for advice on hi-fi. Any audiophile with the sort of judgement and experience that I respect would give a balanced review of any kit they've just purchased.

As for keeping the MA's, that would be a masochistic course of action.

Speakers like these:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PAIR-OF-GOODMANS-SPEAKERS-MODEL-MAGNUM-SL/332502229775?hash=item4d6aad630f:g:qf8AAOSwoVNaPr7f

are not the best speakers ever made. But they are better than the Bronzes and would have much better authority in Xicu's pleasantly large room. And they're cheaper, easier to drive and won't depreciate.

 

[MajorFubar]

As for keeping the MA's, that would be a masochistic course of action.

Finally someone who sees it my way rather than blaming every other component in his system.

Posters that never criticise any aspects of the sound of their system are not to be trusted when it comes to hi-fi.

I agree to this in principle, other than the observation that unless your current system fundamentally offends you in some way (too bright, too bassy, and so on) you need to have heard better systems to know your current system's weaknesses. Seeing that most of us try to progress sonically forward, usually our current system is the best sounding system we've owned.

 

[QuestForThe13thNote]

You don’t need to hear other systems to know your own systems weaknesses as most Hi Fi can be upgraded and sound better. You may just want to improve it and get your wallet out, as is a possibility. Simple as.

I think you don’t have to be critical of your own system because if you own it and like it you are unlikely to have a bad word about it, or maybe if you did you might not keep it. But it’s easy to realise what some other people might not like in sound signatures and in describing yours, take that on board in recommendations to others. That said, I do often laugh how brands do get put into pidgeon holed as being this sound or that sound. Sounds can vary not only within the ranges of the amp manufacturer but be incredibly hard to describe and also very difficult to predict according to speakers and the room. Add in tastes and it’s impossble to predict what might floats someone’s boat of a brand or amp they haven’t heard before.

 

[MajorFubar]

You don’t need to hear other systems to know your own systems weaknesses as most Hi Fi can be upgraded and sound better. You may just want to improve it and get your wallet out, as is a possibility. Simple as.

I hear what you're getting it but it isn't always that simple. Once you progress past a minimum standard (cheaply and easily achieved these days) we're all chasing just the final 10%. And you can't know how close you are until you hear something better. That was the point I was making.

There's always going to be people who make changes for change's sake as well, and only later realise that all they made was a sideways move. I have the T-shirt for that, I spent much of my 20s doing it, egged on by magazine reviews that told me the new generation of X amp or X CD player was vastly superior to the last. And it wasn't. But places like this forum didn't exist back then to knock some sense into me. I was an easily-led youngester who believed the hype, even though I had already trained as a studio engineer and with a different head on knew that most of what I read in hifi magazines was crap.

 

[Native_bon]

It really did take me a long while to realise the type of speakers reviewers like was not for me.

 

[BigH]

Send them back. Then do some demos in a proper hifi shop, to get some idea, take your reciever in to try against other amps. Then do home demo if you can. Otherwise you can waste so much money messing about.

 

[Native_bon]

Yes take them back. *secret*

 

[QuestForThe13thNote]

Major fubar, its all very personal to the person and difficult to quantify but once you get past a certain quality and price of speakers, for me what then becomes ten percent is 30 percent etc. It’s very easy and common sense to hear minor increments when you do minor things and conversely the opposite is true. I’m not chasing 10 percent until I hear something a lot better and then it becomes 25 percent better or whatever which is to be expected. But a very good £1k hi Fi doesn’t do anything like the scale, soundstage, power, clarity, dynamics and naturalness of a really good £50k hi Fi. If you heard them one after the other, it would be easy to say one is 60 plus percent better than the cheap one.

 

[xicu]

Thank you all again for all your comments. I've learnt a lot these days with your much appreciated feedback, together with my 'wrong' buying.

I'm definitely going to return them, so I'm back on the search for a pair of floorstanders that sound fair and authoritative in my living room with my cheap receiver, and that can improve in some months when I improve the latter. Ideally, they won't be too large (I guess that 2x8" drives would work, but those towers are usually too large for my non-dedicated room).

In The Netherlands with this budget I'm limiting the search to these models:

* Q Acoustics 3050

* Wharfedale Diamond 240

* Dali Zensor 7 (these are a tad more expensive and some people consider them bright, so I'm not very excited about them)

I could ask some UK dealer to send a pair of Mission LX to NL, but I'd prefer to avoid buying without trying, given my current experience.

Any comments regarding the aforementioned models or suggesting any others to audition, would be truly appreciated.

Cheers,

xicu

 

[newlash09]

Are the qacoustics concept 40's within budget in Netherlands. I find them to be excellent speakers. But need some room behind them. Atleast 1.5 ft in my narrow 11x17 ft room.

 

[insider9]

Are the qacoustics concept 40's within budget in Netherlands. I find them to be excellent speakers. But need some room behind them. Atleast 1.5 ft in my narrow 11x17 ft room.

Happy New Year to you and your family, Newlash09!

 

[newlash09]

Wishing you and your family a great year ahead too

 

[insider9]

Wishing you and your family a great year ahead too

Many thanks, Newlash09!

 

[lindsayt]

Xicu, taking your speakers back is an excellent decision.

As well as the speakers you've mentioned, you also have easy access to all the hundreds of used speakers on German, NL, French, Belgian, UK ebay.

If you buy brand new from dealers with your 500 odd Euros you will have to accept ultra budget engineering that will be reflected in the sound that you get. By buying used, you don't.

 

[Oldskool1976]

Posters that never criticise any aspects of the sound of their system are not to be trusted when it comes to hi-fi.

I'm sure this will cause a stir but I agree. As a rule, I find opinions of ex owners most helpful. Generally they can describe the good and the bad in the most objective manner.

With the proviso that audiophiles often go overboard with praise on their latest acquisitions using the predecessor to explain all the shortcomings

That type of audiophile is exactly the type that I wouldn't trust for advice on hi-fi. Any audiophile with the sort of judgement and experience that I respect would give a balanced review of any kit they've just purchased.

As for keeping the MA's, that would be a masochistic course of action.

Speakers like these:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PAIR-OF-GOODMANS-SPEAKERS-MODEL-MAGNUM-SL/332...

are not the best speakers ever made. But they are better than the Bronzes and would have much better authority in Xicu's pleasantly large room. And they're cheaper, easier to drive and won't depreciate.

So you've heard both speakers? With the same amplification in the same room, because if not, you are even worse then the people who see no shortcomings in there kit.

Because at least they have heard what they are preaching.

No one is claiming they are Magicos but the fact he got a smallish floorstander in a massive room with a budget AV is more the problem.

Oh and last few pairs of bronze 5 that sold on ebay all went for around £400. Seems like they hold there value well, remind me again, how many people have bid on those goodmans???