over powering and muddled bass on audiopro floor standers

[newlash09]

Hi .. I bought a audiopro avanto 5.0 system on an online deal for 50% of the original cost at 500 pounds ( Being in India, I had absolutely no access to dealers for auditioning before purchase. This is how a nation of 1.3 billion buys audio gear - by online reviews alone). The floor standers have 8 inch woofers in built with inbuilt cross over circuitry. I have paired them with a sony str-dn850 and have performed room correction / calibration. While the speakers are lovely for watching movies with big bass rumbles and impact, I find the bass over powering, and muddy and lacking definition for music. Tried reducing the bass output in EQ settings of my amp, but still not happy with the results. Even tried plugging the rear port with stuffed socks, and still no improvement. Shifted these rear ported floor standers 3 feet into my small room ( any further in and my wife will have me standing outside ) I presently have my media room in a 11feet x 15 feet space.Thus, which of the three below proposed routes would be most ideal, and iam starting with the cheapest first

1) Add a powered sub woofer, so that the amp doesnt have to drive those passive woofers, and will become more relaxed. Adding a sub like the SVS pd200 ( This sub is expensive, when i google any subs for review i always end up on the american coast, any good english subs that can drop down to 20 hz are good enough for me) will add the appropriate and accurate bass attack as required and will eliminate the boominess. ( Iam adding a Sub woofer here )

2) May be the STR-DN850 is unable to drive those passive woofers at high volumes, leading to less bass definition and boominess. Should i add an Cambridge audio CXA 60 to add some clean power. Thus, are there any cheap speaker switchers than i can install to alternate connection of my floor standers between my sony HT amp and CA CXA60 amp without actually having to rewire the cables every time i shift duties between the two. ( Iam adding a stereo amp here instead of sub woofer like in point 1 )

3) May be I should be resigned to the fact that good sound does'nt come cheap and dump the audiopro avanto 5.0 floor standers and buy either a Sonos connect amp or bluesound power node 2 with B&W 685 S2 speakers for music duties. Though this would be my last resort , as it would entail a huge investement that iam not ready for at the moment.

Before anything else, my present floor standers give me a hard thump in the chest and get my feet effortlessly tapping, that i have fallen in love with. Iam no audiophile,. But this is the sound i've grown to like, and i wish to continue this romance to the hilt, albeit with more composure and definition, and no less in bite. Please do lemme know the easiest way out. Many thanks in advance. And I will be in the UK in january ( Will just miss the christmas sale ), to complete my purchase. And if anyone suggests buying a subwoofer as per point 1, I would be generously obliged if some one could direct to some good english subs. Thanks again.....cheers....And a very merry christmas in advance...

 

[MeanandGreen]

That is the problem here.

Your floorstanders are too big and are over pressurising the small room with bass. You need to allow room for large floor standing speakers to breathe. You would of been better off with standmount speakers in your room.

 

[macdiddy]

what a load of rubbish, I use a pair of Montior audio BR6 speakers as fronts in my home cinema in a room smaller than the op's and suffer from none of this "over pressurising of the small room" even with two subs as well.

After doing a bit of research online, it seems that after reading a few reviews for these speakers, most of them say the same thing in that the bass can sometimes overpower everything else, this I think is down to the fact that the bass drivers in the sides of the front spks are passive, so there is no control apart from what settings the amp driving them has.

Another thing I found in the specs for the speakers is that there impedance is only 4 ohms, most other home cinema speakers are 8 or 6 ohms which means your amp is having to work harder to drive them to a decent volume level.

One thing I have noticed after seeing a picture of the front speakers is that only one side has the extra bass driver, have you tried swapping the spks so that the side drivers fire into the room (or reversed), I only say this because I once saw a review of some spks with drivers on the side and they tried them both ways, finding out one way produced less bass than the other.

hope some of this helps.

*music2*

 

[MeanandGreen]

what a load of rubbish, I use a pair of Montior audio BR6 speakers as fronts in my home cinema in a room smaller than the op's and suffer from none of this "over pressurising of the small room" even with two subs as well.

After doing a bit of research online, it seems that after reading a few reviews for these speakers, most of them say the same thing in that the bass can sometimes overpower everything else, this I think is down to the fact that the bass drivers in the sides of the front spks are passive, so there is no control apart from what settings the amp driving them has.

Another thing I found in the specs for the speakers is that there impedance is only 4 ohms, most other home cinema speakers are 8 or 6 ohms which means your amp is having to work harder to drive them to a decent volume level.

One thing I have noticed after seeing a picture of the front speakers is that only one side has the extra bass driver, have you tried swapping the spks so that the side drivers fire into the room (or reversed), I only say this because I once saw a review of some spks with drivers on the side and they tried them both ways, finding out one way produced less bass than the other.

hope some of this helps.

*music2*

Floorstanding speakers are meant to be used in larger rooms. That isn't rubbish.

Putting big speakers with 8" woofers in that space is asking a lot. I agree with experimenting with positioning and firing the woofers inwards rather than facing the walls, but I really think these speakers are too much in that size room.

 

[Andrewjvt]

Large floor standers with 8inch woofers, could not the amp be lacking control contributing to the bass issue also?

 

[Vladimir]

I also think the amp isn't controlling the woofers and is very likely clipping most of the time.

Is the bass overwhelming even when you listen music at quiet to moderate levels? If so, then those speakers are voiced for cinema, not with flat FR, and the thundering bass is a promnent feature for this. If this is the case, a better amplifier won't solve the issue completely. EQ, DSP, change in the crossover, acoustic room treatments etc. would be also needed.

Try the speakers away from the back wall at 1 - 2m. This may look silly in your room arrangement but try it to see (hear) how much of the issue is due to the room acoustics.

From experience I can say there never is just one thing making a mess of my sound quality. It's usually a combination of room, amp, cables, speakers, rarely digital source.

 

[lindsayt]

Am I right in thinking this is the frequency response of your speakers?

Source: http://www.hifitest.de/test/bildergalerie/lautsprecher_surround/audio_pro-avanto_50_hts_7423/3

Looks a bit one-notey in the bass region, possibly from excessive port stunts. Combined with their budget pricing this might explain the poor quality bass too. But that's just speculation. As is every reply so far. As we've not heard and seen your system in your room. Not with it compared to a reference system.

Personally I would be hugely surprised if I bought these speakers and was happy with the sound quality they offered.

Trouble is, living in India you're a bit stuffed for getting great sounding speakers for not a lot of money. Something that's easy to do in Western Europe, Japan, USA. Shipping costs and import duties will bump up the price of any personal imports.

8 inches is small for a woofer.

Best suggestion I can come up with is to import something like a pair of Heybrook HB1's, HB2's or HB3's. With a good sturdy stand - eg Linn Sara stands, Partington Dreadnought. IE some smallish to medium sized sealed box speakers designed to be used up against a wall - that most important of all can be bought for less than £100. So that after shipping and import duties their total price will still be affordable.

Also, the tonal balance of any speaker can be changed a lot by their position in the room, their angling relative to you, the furniture in the room. Think of the sound waves as being like sea waves crashing against a cliff or a harbour wall. If they hit the outside of a smooth harbour wall they bounce back. If they hit a coral reef or a jumble of rocks they get broken up. If they hit huge sponges they get absorbed. For better room acoustics it's good to have soft furnishings and open bookshelves filled with CD's / vinyl / books.

 

[gasolin]

not enough power to handle the bass

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/how-much-power-do-i-actually-needrevisited

Try something that has more power

https://emotiva.com/products/amplifiers/xpa-5

 

[newlash09]

Thanks for the generous suggestions. Your opinions have reinforced my belief that my Sony STR-DN850 is unable to drive those passive sub-woofers and maybe even clipping.

1) Got tempted with the idea of adding an Emotiva XPA-5 as suggested. But sadly realized that my amp does not have a pre-out to connect an external power amp.

2) As suggested, the speakes were sold as a 5.0 home theater package, without the need of an external sub woofer. So, maybe they were designed with this voice in mind.

3) Had switched my speakers to make the side mounted woofers face each other. I.e inwards, found the bass to increase even further, though imaging felt more accurate. Thus, again turned them outwards.

So, does it make any financial sense to add an external sub woofer. If so, can anyone suggest a good wharfdale sub-woofer, as same are available online here. Or should I resign the present setup to movies, and start assembling a new system for music duties.

 

[Vladimir]

Have you tried removing all other speakers and just power the big fronts with biamping option activated?

A powered sub would be possible solution, but try before you buy one.

 

[Blacksabbath25]

i see that this is an av receiver .. have you got any of the sound effects running ? when listening to music as this av amp has a lot of sound effect channals on it plus it also might have bass boost on it to to help with films if you did not have a sub then the av amp will add a bit of bass to the channals . i would say go into your menu on the av amp and look to see whats been switched on as this maybe your issue here ? as i have looked your av receiver up and see it has good reviews on it for music sound . but like others are saying it maybe your speakers . but like i say look at your settings on your amp before spending money

 

[gasolin]

tried using the mic to aut adjust the sound according to your room?

Don't forget to set front speakers to large,which i think you have since you get bass out of them and to set speakers to 3.0/2 or what you can (5 speakers no subwoofer) set it to so it doesn't try to adjust the sound from a subwoofer you don't have)

10-12 " woofer with loots of power (You might red this thread http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/how-much-power-do-i-actually-needrevisited if you don't have enough power you can get muddy bass)

Also using a subwoofer you can use the crossover for the front speakers to make shure they dont plas deep bass and mabye the bass they then would play is not muddy because of the crossover from the amp