Muddy speakers question

[mushroomgod]

Hi all.

I have a set of Tannoy floorstanding speakers (can’t remebe model, what HIFI gave them 5* though).

anyway... they are bi wired and my young kids have knocked them over twice. In addition to this my whole setup has been out of action for about 6 months (won’t bore you with details).

long and the short of it - my system lacks snap, sounds a little muggy and I’m trying to figure out why.

That’s the rough details.... to my question: I have a 2nd set of speakers that I use in my office. Little bookshelves that sound great. But they are not bi wired (just the two connectors on the back of them). Is there a way I can use my bi wired cable from my amp (Cyrus dac) to my non bi wired speakers. Basically I want to test my bookshelf speakers on my setup to see if I can rule out my tannoy speakers as being at fault.

Cheers all.

 

[Gaz37]

If this obvious but have you checked the speakers are in phase? ie pos on the amp to pos on the speaker.

 

[BigH]

Bi-wiring makes little difference, in fact it can make the sound worse. 5 stars don't mean that much. 221/522, so over 42% of speakers reviewed, have gained 5 stars, 228 have 4 stars and the rest 3 stars and below. Yes you can use your cable if you can see which wires are which, just make there are no bare wires that could cause a short. Can't you use the bookshelf speakers cable?

 

[CnoEvil]

The way a system sounds is down to:

1. The sum of its parts.

Any one of the elements can cause a muddy sound....most often, it is not the speakers, but how they are being driven and/or the quality of the Source

2. How it's set up

Where the speakers are positioned, how the listening position is placed, the height of the speakers, the quality of the speaker stands etc all play their part.

3. Room acoustics/construction

Room Shape, Laminate floors, areas of glass, soft furnishings, suspended wooden floors, wall construction etc also have a big effect.

 

[mushroomgod]

Hi chaps...

all fixed. As Gaz suggested I didn’t quite have my cables set up correctly. User error.

still nice to know my kids have not killed my speakers

 

[chebby]

Play some music through the speakers and listen to each tweeter very close (so not too loud). FM Radio is good for this as any hiss (even faint) will tell you they are working.

Holding an LP or magazine in front of the bass/mid driver makes it easier to tell if the tweeters are making sound.