New house - need advice on isolation and cable

[admin_exported]

Hello,

I have just moved to a new house and as expected the character of my system has completely changed. I have a Cyrus CD8SE, Rotel RP-06 Pre Amp, RB-06 Power Amp, Kef iQ5 speakers and QED Anniversary XT cable. Basically the system is now verging on bright and the speakers are placed on woodern floors so I am getting resonance and bloom. Can anyone recommend some new cable to tone down the brightness and some form of isolation product?

Cheers

 

[Anonymous]

granite offcuts from the local kitchen supplier (you may get cheap offcuts from the section cut out from the kitchen sink) ... should be at least 30mm thick ... some guys advertise granite plinths on ebay for approx £150 .a pair, but will be much cheaper from the kitchen supplier and is the same stuff

van den hul speaker cable may be a good option, but see if your specialist hi-fi shop will give you demo pair to try before you buy

 

[idc]

Hi Ranglo, I would look to room accoustics first. Try moving the speakers about and closer to the wall. Adjust your sitting position to try and get your old sweet spot back. If you have tried everything and you still have the problem then next step is the speaker. Is it spiked? If so try either a granite block if there is no or a very thin carpet or else philips screws through the carpet into the floor board and place the spikes onto the screws. You will not get holes in the carpet much bigger than the holes the spikes would make anyway. If the speakers are not spiked you can still try the above and get spiked isolation off ebay for under £20. If none of that works, then maybe start looking at cables. But after any change you should give yourself and your system time to settle down and get used to the new sound.

 

[Anonymous]

also try the silver high breed interconnects ... cheap off ebay ... approx £16 per 0,5m length ... lots of good reviews ... if you are not happy with them, you will get a full unconditional refund ...

 

[Anonymous]

For my last house's floating floor I found that granite place-mats made good bases for my spiked speaker stands. I used bluetak to afix them to the floor and spike shoes for under the spikes. Plenty of those on ebay.

For speaker cable you could try some Chord, perhaps the Silverscreen or the Odyssey 2 if within budget. I've found QED cables to be a bit bright.

Speaker placement is important so to eliminate boom, make sure they're away from corners and rear walls. Port plugging isn't really a great option for reducing bass but you could try part plugging with socks or foam packaging. Have them square to the room and not toed in to avoid beaming the higher frequencies to the listening position. Also consider furnishings in the room, e.g. have a nice thick rug in front of the speakers and put curtains up.

Room acoustics are key so see what you can achieve with placement and furnishings before looking at cables. Cable changes can be a bit variable and may or may not help. If it gets desperate, try a VDH interconnect!

 

[Anonymous]

dim_span:also try the silver high breed interconnects ... cheap off ebay ... approx £16 per 0,5m length ... lots of good reviews ... if you are not happy with them, you will get a full unconditional refund ...
If anything SHB cables are probably going to make the brightness worse.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for tips so far. I have just moved the speakers more into the room and reduced the amount of toe in. If anything there is a more open sound stage now, however bass is some what reduced compared to my previous place, but this is more due to the larger room I suspect. To be honest I am not to concerned as my next upgrade will probably be the speakers, maybe some spendors or pmc's?