The Apex Club

[Frank Harvey]

Yeah sure i understand that. The point i was trying to make in my first post was that my setup has been working wonderfully since the initial setup and i couldn't be happier, but all for a sudden it sounds different to how i am normally used to hearing it. Nothing has been changed, no settings have changed, on software updates etc. But its very obvious to me that something has changed, to the point it feels uncomfortable to listen to HF, but the Cinema EQ helps a bit without messing around with anything else.

Is it possible that someone else may have chaged a setting? Even if it is just the treble control? It might be worth checking all your settings as very very ocassionally, a receiver can 'forget' things. For some reason, my SCLX85 has forgotten which inputs I've told it to skip when flicking through them with the rotary input selector....

 

[RickyDeg]

Yeah sure i understand that. The point i was trying to make in my first post was that my setup has been working wonderfully since the initial setup and i couldn't be happier, but all for a sudden it sounds different to how i am normally used to hearing it. Nothing has been changed, no settings have changed, on software updates etc. But its very obvious to me that something has changed, to the point it feels uncomfortable to listen to HF, but the Cinema EQ helps a bit without messing around with anything else.

Regardless, gosahl, I think we should be able to rule out any "defects" from your Apex speakers all of a sudden. Wouldnt that seem rather improbable in your case? And its not like there's a "brightness boost button" on em anyway I would think yours are perfectly run-in by now aswell. It does feel like something must have happened with your receiver (or any other link in the chain)... or possibly your hearing is more sensitive to HF all of a sudden (ok, thats a stretch, I know lol).

 

[gosalh]

Hi Dave

I have my settings locked on my receiver so no one can mess with it and my home theater room ia locked up and no one else has access to it.. I'll try running the audyssey setup again and see what happens.

 

[ric71]

Hi gosalh,
Very strange. Have you tried listening to each speaker on its own to see if they all sound the same or is it happening on say the centre channel.
Maybe your hearing has improved :O
I assume nothing the room has changed.

Ricky,
Interesting findings. Try the Arcam and also the Denon AVR 100.
The Denon is a warmer sound than the Arcam but I find the Arcam more detailed and smoother.
Maybe your Denon is the one for you and you don't need to upgrade it.
Get another sub or 2 he he

I think I will demo the Anthem just out of curiosity as not going to replace the Arcam.

 

[RickyDeg]

...Get another sub or 2 he he ...

LOL, I'm thinking the two AW-12's I already have is enough. Dont think my room can take more :rofl:

 

[gosalh]

Hi guys,

I've got my mate from Sevenoaks Sound and Vision (where i purchased my speakers and AV Receiver) popping over this evening to have a look at the system himself. He's bringing over his in-store demo Apex A40 with him so we can compare the sound. I'll post the outcome later on today.

 

[RickyDeg]

Hi guys, I've got my mate from Sevenoaks Sound and Vision (where i purchased my speakers and AV Receiver) popping over this evening to have a look at the system himself. He's bringing over his in-store demo Apex A40 with him so we can compare the sound. I'll post the outcome later on today.

Smart idea. Let us know the outcome!

 

[gosalh]

Hey guys,

Quick update. My friend from Sevenoaks S&V popped over yesterday evening with his demo A40 speaker. His A40 has had enough time to run in so that was checked off before we started testing.

The store A40 sounded much better and cleaner than my A40, how it used to sound to my ears. So i've packed up my A40 and sent it off with my mate so he can organise a return or repair. So conclusion that we came down to was that my A40 was faulty (all the other A10s tested out fine. Slightly worrying as it hasn't even been a year since i've had my speakers :-( maybe i've been unlucky. Thankfully I have a 3 year warranty them.

Anyway a new one should be on its way to me hopefully soon.

 

[RickyDeg]

Hey guys, Quick update. My friend from Sevenoaks S&V popped over yesterday evening with his demo A40 speaker. His A40 has had enough time to run in so that was checked off before we started testing. The store A40 sounded much better and cleaner than my A40, how it used to sound to my ears. So i've packed up my A40 and sent it off with my mate so he can organise a return or repair. So conclusion that we came down to was that my A40 was faulty (all the other A10s tested out fine. Slightly worrying as it hasn't even been a year since i've had my speakers :-( maybe i've been unlucky. Thankfully I have a 3 year warranty them. Anyway a new one should be on its way to me hopefully soon.

Oh no :exmark: That's guite a shocker, gosalh, I must say. Guess I assumed too much when I said there was little chance of a sudden fault with your speaker. Normally I'd address a late occurance of faults to electronics, not something as "passive" as a speaker. Unless one is abusive and utilize excessive playback volumes, of course.

To bad this happened for you but hope it gets resolved quickly. And here's to hoping I wont share this experience with my Apex! Perhaps Monitor Audio's Alex Brady care to share some input on this through Andrew?

 

[gosalh]

To add to my last post, i've never stressed out my speakers and always keep volume levels to safe levels in order to protect the drivers. Im probably just unlucky in this case. No big deal, the main thing is I got to the bottom of the problem.

 

[Anonymous]

:wave:

Apex 5.1 ordered. Should be with me Wednesday

 

[RickyDeg]

:wave:

Apex 5.1 ordered. Should be with me Wednesday

Excellent. Can't wait to hear your findings and see some photos of your set-up! Just dont forget to give your "final" verdict after at least 100 hrs of playtime. Mine sounded great out-of-the-box but now, after a few months, they truly shine!

 

[MUSICRAFT]

:wave:

Apex 5.1 ordered. Should be with me Wednesday

Hi Fionn

Nice one and i hope that you enjoy the performance of your Apex speakers for many years to come

All the best

Rick @ Musicraft

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the good wishes. And thanks for the good adivce and opinions over the thread. Helped me make my choice of speakers.

 

[Anonymous]

Just wondering if there is such thing as a stand/feet for the A40? It will be wall mounted eventually, but not just yet.

 

[RickyDeg]

Just wondering if there is such thing as a stand/feet for the A40? It will be wall mounted eventually, but not just yet.

Sadly there is not. This is one of the missing puzzle bits in the Apex-range, according to myself. Since the A10's have matching stands I would have hoped the A40 came with something identical, since many ppl (despite its size) might like to place it on a tv-cabinet in the same way as they'd place the front L/R A10's. Personally I have skipped the stands altogether and instead use Soundcare Superspike in a 'flat' configuration to decouple them from the tv-cabinet and minimize vibration. It works, though not perfectly ideal. You migth find another smooth solution til you get it wall-mounted. Just dont place it directly on the surface. Good luck.

 

[Anonymous]

My DIY A40 stands ...

 

[gosalh]

Hi Ricky, i got my new A40 today. Just fitted it. All is good with the World again....woohoo. Sounds much better than before. Need to run it in now.

 

[MMW]

I received my Apex system last week and I had a problem with my A40 too. My A40 it´s clearly a lot darker sounding than the A10s without the sparkle and transparent sound the A10 provides. Of course I know the A40 must sound fuller than the A10 due to the extra driver and a bigger cabinet but the treble issue is just very evident. I tried to swap channels and cables to discard an amp or cable failure but it´s clearly an A40 problem. I measured the frecuency response of all speakers and the A10s are essentialy flat and right to the specs but the A40 it´s 5db down at 10Khz. I contacted Monitor Audio last week but I haven´t received any answer yet. The speaker is going back to the dealer right now. By the way the rest of the system with just the A10s sounds simply amazing.

 

[Anonymous]

I set mine up this evening and thought the A40 wasn't quite right either. I'll listen some more tomorrow but it sounds like what you describe MMW.

Have a question, if anyone can answer...

The speakers are 8 ohms. My amp has only two options to set the ohm value, 4 or 6. What do I do here, and is this important?

Thanks.

 

[RickyDeg]

Hi Ricky, i got my new A40 today. Just fitted it. All is good with the World again....woohoo. Sounds much better than before. Need to run it in now.

I'm very glad to hear that gosahl :cheers:

I'm curious to know what your dealer might have said about the faulty A40? And did you (or the dealer) get any feedback from Monitor Audio themselves about it? As you can read in the posts above, other users seem a bit worried about their A40 samples aswell.

 

[RickyDeg]

I set mine up this evening and thought the A40 wasn't quite right either. I'll listen some more tomorrow but it sounds like what you describe MMW.

Have a question, if anyone can answer...

The speakers are 8 ohms. My amp has only two options to set the ohm value, 4 or 6. What do I do here, and is this important?

Thanks.

Not to jump ahead of anything here, since several users have now reported weird findings in their A40's, but your system is brand new. You must give them time to settle in, so remember the running-in period and how essential it is. If something continues to sound off with your A40 though, I would strongly suggest you contact the dealer like the others have done! As I mentioned in my other post my Apex system sounded great out-of-the-box, perhaps slightly "closed-in" at first, but as time went by everything fell into place. The subwoofer AW-12 was pretty underwhelming at first though, it was "boomy", but totally started to sing later on. Now its stellar.

What amp/receiver do you use? In most cases I would not worry at all about an ohm setting with these speakers, and definitely not switch to 4 or 6. But again, it might depend on your machine.

 

[RickyDeg]

I received my Apex system last week and I had a problem with my A40 too. My A40 it´s clearly a lot darker sounding than the A10s without the sparkle and transparent sound the A10 provides. Of course I know the A40 must sound fuller than the A10 due to the extra driver and a bigger cabinet but the treble issue is just very evident. I tried to swap channels and cables to discard an amp or cable failure but it´s clearly an A40 problem. I measured the frecuency response of all speakers and the A10s are essentialy flat and right to the specs but the A40 it´s 5db down at 10Khz. I contacted Monitor Audio last week but I haven´t received any answer yet. The speaker is going back to the dealer right now. By the way the rest of the system with just the A10s sounds simply amazing.

Without knowing how much run-in you've had time to do with your speakers yet, I do think it might be too early to tell for you. Your samples are likely not even close to being "warmed-up" and ready to "sing". Regardless of that, reading your post it seems your problem is the opposite of that reported by gosahl? Or did I misinterpret something? His sample had excessive brightness tendencies, yours is "darker sounding"? But his were definitely run-in. Seems like they could have delivered a bad bunch of A40's from the MA factory? But then again who knows? For sure though, just like you mention, in either way the A40 will sound slightly different to the A10, which is perfectly natural, but in my set-up the A40 and A10 play together wonderfully and I never really notice the sonic difference when sound pans across the front. It's fairly seamless. If yours is infact defect I hope it gets resolved with a fault-free replacement soon! Let us know!

 

[MMW]

Without knowing how much run-in you've had time to do with your speakers yet, I do think it might be too early to tell for you. Your samples are likely not even close to being "warmed-up" and ready to "sing". Regardless of that, reading your post it seems your problem is the opposite of that reported by gosahl? Or did I misinterpret something? His sample had excessive brightness tendencies, yours is "darker sounding"? But his were definitely run-in. Seems like they could have delivered a bad bunch of A40's from the MA factory? But then again who knows? For sure though, just like you mention, in either way the A40 will sound slightly different to the A10, which is perfectly natural, but in my set-up the A40 and A10 play together wonderfully and I never really notice the sonic difference when sound pans across the front. It's fairly seamless. If yours is infact defect I hope it gets resolved with a fault-free replacement soon! Let us know!

I received my Apex set tuesday last week and I noticed the problem at the very beginning. I let the speakers sounding 12 hours /day until last Sunday to see if there is any change. Of course the sound improves being more open and detailed but the problem with the A40 remains the same. As I said I know the A40 must sound different in due to different cabinet size and design and extra mid-bass driver but the differences in treble output were very evident. The A40 sounded clearly darker than the A10 loosing trasnparency and fine detail compared to the a10S. I know gosahl has had the opposite problem. I have seen that when my amp do the room Eq (YPAO eq adjusted to "flat") it needs to rises 4,5db from 10khz on (by the way regarding the A10s and in my room the amp almost doesn´t eq the A10s). Maybe this rather agressive eq could "stress" the high frecuency section of the speaker on the long term and leading to a tweeter failure? Just speculating about it.

I´ll let you know if Monitor Audio contacts me asnwering my questions about it. By the way the A10s are fresh from Monitor Audio cause my dealer was out of stock when I ordered the Apex system and the A40 was an unit that my dealer had in stock from mid 2010 (of course brand new in sealed box, not demo).

 

[MMW]

Without knowing how much run-in you've had time to do with your speakers yet, I do think it might be too early to tell for you. Your samples are likely not even close to being "warmed-up" and ready to "sing". Regardless of that, reading your post it seems your problem is the opposite of that reported by gosahl? Or did I misinterpret something? His sample had excessive brightness tendencies, yours is "darker sounding"? But his were definitely run-in. Seems like they could have delivered a bad bunch of A40's from the MA factory? But then again who knows? For sure though, just like you mention, in either way the A40 will sound slightly different to the A10, which is perfectly natural, but in my set-up the A40 and A10 play together wonderfully and I never really notice the sonic difference when sound pans across the front. It's fairly seamless. If yours is infact defect I hope it gets resolved with a fault-free replacement soon! Let us know!

I received my Apex set tuesday last week and I noticed the problem at the very beginning. I let the speakers sounding 12 hours /day until last Sunday to see if there is any change. Of course the sound improves being more open and detailed but the problem with the A40 remains the same. As I said I know the A40 must sound different in due to different cabinet size and design and extra mid-bass driver but the differences in treble output were very evident. The A40 sounded clearly darker than the A10 loosing trasnparency and fine detail compared to the a10S. I know gosahl has had the opposite problem. I have seen that when my amp do the room Eq (YPAO eq adjusted to "flat") it needs to rises 4,5db from 10khz on (by the way regarding the A10s and in my room the amp almost doesn´t eq the A10s). Maybe this rather agressive eq could "stress" the high frecuency section of the speaker on the long term and leading to a tweeter failure in Gosahl´s unit? Just speculating about it in case both units comes from a defective bunch.

I´ll let you know if Monitor Audio contacts me asnwering my questions about it. By the way the A10s are fresh from Monitor Audio cause my dealer was out of stock when I ordered the Apex system and the A40 was an unit that my dealer had in stock from mid 2010 (of course brand new in sealed box, not demo).