going mad

davey

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Hi i hope someone can help, my system is a marantz cd6005, tisbury passive volume and a refurbed quad 303, speakers are naim ibls mk 2. cables are good quality but not crazy price. problem is the sound just does nothing for me, sounds sibilant and lacking bass, i have tried an active sub and this increases bass but doesnt sound great. speakers are up to the wall and six feet apart room size is 7 x 11 metres and speakers are firing acroos the 7 metre width. Any ideas from you greatly appriciated.

Davey
 

Vladimir

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My advice is to borrow and try a powerfull PA amp, for example Crown, QSC, Behringer etc. If you notice the speakers opening up, you will determine that the issue is lack of power to drive them to your preferences. Then you can upgrade from the 45W Quad to something bigger.

Is the Quad refurbished or in factory condition? If the later, you may be hearing a faulty amp. Borrowing a different amp may help determining if this is also the case.
 

davedotco

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But the Ibls always were quite difficult speakers to drive properly and get 'right', and even then the speakers are known for their speed and agility, not their bass weight.

Whilst there may be other options the simplest way to sort this out is to buy the biggest Naim amplifier you can afford. If you get something used but quite modern you may get away with just the power amp but overall a pre-power combination is probably for the best.

Once you have the system working well, then you can have another go with a subwoofer, trying to sort out a system that is not giving it's best by adding a sub is usually doomed to failure.

Edit. Try and get some Naim (or very similar) speaker cable too. This is one occasion when the 'all Naim' approach might be the correct one.
 

davey

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Hi guys

thanks for the speedy replies. My quad is a full rebuild by an experienced engineer not quad though. I shall look at naim amps, any suggestions. My budget would be £500 so used will be the only way to go. also i live in the far west and demo`ing kit is tricky

Dave
 

RobinKidderminster

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I don't know your system but I would suggest room acoustics could be the problem. As an experiment, can u set up the system firing down the room: speakers away from the walls: seating half way back? If the system still sounds poor then u have (largely) eliminated the room as the (main) problem.
 

davedotco

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To be honest, your budget would be pretty tight, really not sure if that would be enough to sort your issues.

It is a classic problem, you have a pair of speakers that cost about £1k when released many years ago and the expectation was that they would be powered by some fairly serious Naim amplification. As a (Naim) dealer we would normally recommend the IBL as a compact alternative in Nap250 based systems. With lesser amplifiers the results were very hit and miss.

Replacing the IBLs is not easy either, compact floorstanders that can be used tight to a wall are pretty rare in the current market though if you have the space the Q Acoustics 2050i model are currently available at quite reasonable prices.
 

Vladimir

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And now a few words about amplifiers matching. The common wisdom among Naimophiles is that you need at least a NAP 250 power amp to drive the IBLs decently. I tend to disagree. Let me remind you that even the Naim Nait wasn't completely out of question as a first partner for the IBLs. With the small Nait, the IBLs were - indeed - the first step into an all-Naim system.
My opinion is that the Nait isn't the best partner for the IBLs. Things get better with the Nait 3 or even the NAP 90.3 power amp, though.
The higher you move in the Naim power amps hierarchy, the better the IBLs will sound, that's quite obvious. For example, many Naimophiles claim the speakers sound at their best when actively driven by a four-pack of NAP 135s (!!!). Now, this may even be the case but in my opinion the "source-first" concept can't be stressed that far. The cost of 4 NAP 135s, compared to a pair of IBLs, is simply too high. I'm sure one can get better results with a passively-driven pair of SBLs, for example. As for IBLs, I think an active biamping, even with two NAP 140s or 90.3's can give excellent results.

Naim NAP90.3 on ebay right now for 165 quid and NAP200 for 900.
 

davedotco

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Vladimir said:
And now a few words about amplifiers matching. The common wisdom among Naimophiles is that you need at least a NAP 250 power amp to drive the IBLs decently. I tend to disagree. Let me remind you that even the Naim Nait wasn't completely out of question as a first partner for the IBLs. With the small Nait, the IBLs were - indeed - the first step into an all-Naim system.My opinion is that the Nait isn't the best partner for the IBLs. Things get better with the Nait 3 or even the NAP 90.3 power amp, though.The higher you move in the Naim power amps hierarchy, the better the IBLs will sound, that's quite obvious. For example, many Naimophiles claim the speakers sound at their best when actively driven by a four-pack of NAP 135s (!!!). Now, this may even be the case but in my opinion the "source-first" concept can't be stressed that far. The cost of 4 NAP 135s, compared to a pair of IBLs, is simply too high. I'm sure one can get better results with a passively-driven pair of SBLs, for example. As for IBLs, I think an active biamping, even with two NAP 140s or 90.3's can give excellent results.

Naim NAP90.3 on ebay right now for 165 quid and NAP200 for 900.

I would, from my experience (pretty exhaustive in this case), most definitely not consider a 90.3 as being anywhere near sufficient dor IBLs.

Running IBLs in a full active system sounds pretty amazing and, yes, we sold and installed a few in our time. The costs are pretty unbalanced but it was possible to produce a great sound from a very small, elegant floorstander in room situations where bigger or more intrusive speakers would not be permitted.
 

davey

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thanks for all you help guys, it looks like the naim route for me. There are a few nait 5i on ebay at the moment any thoughts?
 

chebby

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davey said:
thanks for all you help guys, it looks like the naim route for me. There are a few nait 5i on ebay at the moment any thoughts?

Probably more suited to the 90dB (4 Ohm minimum) Naim Arivas.

Nice set - collect only - for £600 on ebay yesterday when I looked (and spelt wrongly as 'Arrivas' if you want to search).

From what DDC was saying, your IBLs need bigger amps than the Naits.
 

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