Muffled Sound.

[Dr Oetker]

I have B&W P4 speakers, NAD C320 Amp, Yamaha CDX493 CD Player. Have had the system for years but have always found it to be too muffled sounding. Electric guitar that would normally be quite ear piercing just isn't and everyone sounds like their singing with their hand over their mouth! I have the speakers away from the wall and am using good quality speaker cable & interconnect. Is this just the nature of my speakers or could I significantly sharpen things up with a different amp? Any help greatly appreciated.

 

[Anonymous]

"Good-looking solid ¡speakers with great spirit and tenacity but with a dry treble. Not fans of classical music." - Hi-Fi world may be explaining the problem. I would say the speakers are the problem - have you made sure they are correctly wired, the tone control is defeated and the tweeters haven't blown?

 

[Dr Oetker]

Thanks for your reply. The polarity was reversed on one of the tweeters. I'd still like it to be sharper sounding though, I have to turn the bass right down and the treble right up as the bass swamps everything else with tone defeat on. I am using CableTalk 3.1 Bi-Wire speaker cables and a QED QNECT1 interconnect. I have tried my £25 DVD player to play CD's and it doesn't sound much better.

 

[drummerman]

[quote user="Dr Oetker"]I am using CableTalk 3.1 Bi-Wire speaker cables[/quote]

Great cable if its the one I remember (inflexible blue sleave, spaced conductors) with serious amount of good copper. Very open and good detail. Keep it.

Perhaps try some end of line Epos M5's or 12.2's if they are within your budget. Good speakers that survive an amplifier/player upgrade which I would also recommend eventually.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="Dr Oetker"]QED QNECT1 interconnect[/quote]

I have this - superb interconnect for the price! That's certainly not letting the system down.

 

[Anonymous]

The speakers are not the problem, in fact I would say you need a better amp to get the best from them, I would look at a more open and spacious sounding amplifier, the little nad you have isn't really up to the level of the P4, I had some P6 once, but I couldn't get on with the dry bright treble, look at a better amplifier, like icon audio, Sonneteer, for example and they'll give you a more open refined and natural sound.

 

[gregory]

i would have thought the cd player could be the problem, the amp could be upgraded at a later date but cd player i think is the weak link here. by the way the speakers you have are good un's

 

[Dr Oetker]

Made some progress! Have temporarily swapped my NAD C320 Amp with a friends Technics A600 Mk3 Amp and it sounds much better, so clear and now a pleasure to listen to. I think the combination of the P4's and C320 was just wrong, way to bassy and not clear enough. Can anyone recommend an amp that will be as clear as the A600 MK3 but even better for not silly money? Thanks.