Advice Needed

[christopher_j]

Greetings,

Im hoping I can get some advice with my new setup. I have just recently purchased and hooked up a miniwatt n3 amplifier and a pair of wharfedale 10.1 diamond speakers. This is currently hooked up straight to my pc's soundcard. I have been thinking of getting a dac but the soundstage i am quite happy with at this point.

My problem (or i think it is a problem) is that I feel that the sound even though has a great soundstage, seems to be lacking a little bass. As you may know the miniwatt only has a volume control so levels are set. My question is, is this sound the natural sound it should be or am I just used to the heavy bass a lot of cheaper hifi systems pump out, or is due to more of an in-compatability between speakers and amp. From what I have read the miniwatt can pretty much run most speakers well, so I dont know if Im just being picky. Is there anyway i can increase the base slightly using any computer programs or is it worth getting something like a preamp to give me more control?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated......Thanks

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

Im not familiar with your gear so others will chime in with specific opinions. Just on empiracal grounds the possibly poor base response could be coming from anything in the chain and/or system compatability (power amp/speaker sensitibity etc). If you are going to the trouble to add an amp and speakers I would have thought an external eg usb dac/souncard would be a logical upgrade, preferably with a native ASIO driver.

 

If you want to experiment with adding a little more bass you can achieve this in software eg JRiver has an equalizer, an is also an excellent media organisation tool and interface.

[christopher_j]

Thanks A.N, for your reply, Can a Dac affect the level off bass to a system, or give it more? Sorry Im still kinda finding my feet in the audiophile world, this is my first foray.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

any component part that processes the audio signal can. It may not be technically possible in the digital domain where the bits remain unchanged but certainly in the analogue domain audio gear has a sonic signature.Generally you want a flat frequency reponse, uncoloured, neutral and faithful to the source. If the source (recording) has the bass then it should be passed through to the speakers provided everything is up to the task. If you listen to mainly rock then some like to emphasize the bass as a matter of preference. without knowing your system or listening to it is hard to say, but likely a external dac would help all round.Others will add comments. Good luck

[mayhem13]

Hi Christopher. Your perceived lack of bass or low frequency content is a result of your Wharfdales.....which isn't to say they're a bad speaker, just not intended for bass extension by design. In order for a speaker system to create bass, it has to be able to move air via the woofers cone. Your Wharfdales cone is less than 5" in diameter, scantly enough for any real displacement. If you attempt to equalize the system with software or whatever, you won't be creating any 'more' bass, instead distortion as the woofer cone tries to move more air and the coil moves outside the magnetic field and becomes non linear in its motion.

 

You can use the room's boundaries to get a bit lower in frequency by moving the speakers closer to the wall or on a desktop, but this solution is anything but optimal as boundary gains are actually reflections which of course will alter the imaging/ soundstage.

 

Unfortunately, the only viable solutions are to supplement the Wharfdales with a subwoofer(s) or replace them with a larger speaker with lower bass extension.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

I agree with mayhem13 but also remember it is the quality of the bass as well as bass extension (going low) which you are after. Expensive studio monitors produce very pleasing base but not necessarily massively low bass. The other confusing thing is that small diameter cones can physically go low in frequency, as in earphones or for that matter the human ear drum, but smaller speakers wont move enough air to get the loudness necessary to fill the average room. so adding a sub may be the way to go but dont trade off extension for a good quality tight, articulated bass.Flabby bass sounds well, flabby and muddly or boomy esp if too big for a small room exciting resonant frequencies etc.It will tend to sound a bit like one boomy note instead of clean separate notes that can carry bass melody of the double bass or bass guitar. Others may add further but you probably dont ( or cant) want to go below 100-120 Hz and focus on quality.

 

agree shoving speakers into corners is a bad idea.

 

I never use equalization but its there in Jriver to experiment with.Mayhem is right,you just cant make the cones travel beyond their limits.

[Paul R]

Hi Christopher -

 

I would suggest two things:

 

First, although as Mayhem pointed out, the Wharfdales are not capable of producing earth shattering bass, those 5" kevlar woofers and dual ports do produce a lot of very clean bass as far down as they go, which is well into the mid 40hz range.

 

Respectable.

 

You may be used to hearing "boomy" bass that sounds a lot louder, but is really just kinda poor. One way to see if this is so is to try and recognize the different bass notes in a piece of music. I bet you can with the Wharfdales.

 

Second, you can probably adjust your room and/or speaker placement to enhance the bass a bit. The easiest thing to try is to move your listening position back and forward just a bit until you hear the most bass. It is surprising what six inches can sometimes do for the bass response. You might also try moving your speakers closer to a room boundary (i.e. usually a corner) and then moving your listening position around to maximize the bass.

 

Mostly likely, you will find a positioning that is very satisfying to you, both bass wise, and the very rich and neutral sounding midrange those speakers do so well.

 

It is also possible the little n3 just doesn't have the oomph (a highly technical term there) to drive the Wharfdales. At 86dB, they are not terribly sensitive and require a bit of power behind them to really sing, especially to sing bass. The n3 is 3.5w I think? I prefer solid state myself, so you might want to wait till more of the tube guys respond, but it may be you just need a bit more power there.

 

Yours,

-Paul

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

oh I forgot, the cheapest trick in the book. mechanically isolate your speakers from the floor. You want whatever energy being produced driving the cones to move air, not the floor. uses spikes or cones or some other feet.

 

I still say its in the 80-160 Hz octave that you are going to get the main action with smaller speakers in average sized rooms. The famous B&W silver signatures didnt go below 100hz I think from memory but packed a wollop !

[mav52]

Hi Christopher. Your perceived lack of bass or low frequency content is a result of your Wharfdales.....which isn't to say they're a bad speaker, just not intended for bass extension by design. In order for a speaker system to create bass, it has to be able to move air via the woofers cone. Your Wharfdales cone is less than 5" in diameter, scantly enough for any real displacement. If you attempt to equalize the system with software or whatever, you won't be creating any 'more' bass, instead distortion as the woofer cone tries to move more air and the coil moves outside the magnetic field and becomes non linear in its motion.

 

You can use the room's boundaries to get a bit lower in frequency by moving the speakers closer to the wall or on a desktop, but this solution is anything but optimal as boundary gains are actually reflections which of course will alter the imaging/ soundstage.

 

Unfortunately, the only viable solutions are to supplement the Wharfdales with a subwoofer(s) or replace them with a larger speaker with lower bass extension.

 

I think he's asking a speaker to do too much..change the position of the speaker and add a cheap sub would be my starting point and add some more wattage (voltage sensitivity, at an estimated 86dB/2.83V/) , ....Wharfedale Diamond 10.1 loudspeaker Measurements | Stereophile.com

[christopher_j]

Firstly I just wanted to say thank you for all the replies, and I will try moving the positioning of my speakers tomorrow. I have been listening to some music this evening, and I do find it very pleasing to the ear. I think as one of the earlier posts from paul mentioned I can pick up different bass, that I could not before. I think its a case of its more of a natural sound than what I am used to, than the heavy doof doof so to speak. Most of what I listen to tends to be more instrumental the likes on Neil Young, Wilco, arcade fire, bon iver etc. so this setup suits it quite well. I am quite happy with the sound staging just running out of the analogue outputs of the sound card that came with my pc. Will a dedicated dac really improve the sound enough to warrant making a purchase?

[Paul R]

Will a dedicated dac really improve the sound enough to warrant making a purchase?

 

Almost certainly - some external DAC will make enough difference to blow you away. The problem is, how much will you have to spend for that DAC? It is unlikely that a $150 DAC will make much, if any, improvement - while a $300-$600 DAC might, and a $600-$1500 DAC almost certainly will.

 

As you can see, it is kind of an expensive crap shoot - so the best thing to do is find a local store and ask to borrow a few DACs over a weekend. That will give you more of an opportunity to hear what kind of difference those kinds of DACs will make.

 

If you are willing to invest in a high quality DAC, Benchmark's DAC-2 and MyTek's DAC are both available with trial periods that give you time to do extended listening to them, and return them with only the cost of shipping if you decide not to keep them. Both of those DACs are certainly going to make a change in your soundstage!

 

-Paul

[bluesman]

shoving speakers into corners is a bad idea

 

Actually, judicious placement adjacent to one or more boundaries can greatly enhance bass response without negative effect. You have to be careful not to excite standing waves at any of the room's resonant frequencies, and being too close to floor and/or wall(s) can overdo it with most speakers. But it's worth spending an afternoon or evening moving the speakers an inch at a time and playing with listening position. With a little patience, you can often shift the -3db point down by half an octave or more. This can add meaningful clarity and definition to the bottom end of a speaker - remember that doubling the output power of an amp results in about a 3 db increase in SPL from most speakers (assuming you're not already pumping all they can take). And with this kind of "room equalization", you won't feel the need to pump the volume or low end equalization as much, so your woofers will work less and your amp will ask for less power at the same perceived volume.

 

oh I forgot, the cheapest trick in the book. mechanically isolate your speakers from the floor. You want whatever energy being produced driving the cones to move air, not the floor.

 

That depends on the floor and the speaker. Isolation from a resonant floor is good. But coupling to a solid, non-resonant floor can also be good. Houses built 35+ years ago still had subflooring on closely spaced full sized dimensional joists, so the floors and equally well built walls are relatively non-resonant. Today's construction uses thinner dimensional framing and many homes only have one layer of flooring - they can act as damped passive radiators. Steel-frame or poured concrete buildings are not going to resonate at audio frequencies, so acoustic isolation of speakers from their floors is usually a waste of time, effort and money. A small, light speaker can benefit greatly from solid mounting to an inert, non-resonant floor, stand or shelf.

 

Any energy from the drivers that's dissipated vibrating the cabinet around them is no longer pushing clean sound to your ears - some small speakers even sound significantly better sitting on the floor with a cinder block on top. Again, there's no hard and fast rule - you have to experiment.

[mayhem13]

.....without negative effect from boundary gains and a rear ported system.......?

 

In order to get that added extension you'll have to tradeoff against a 4-6 low Q peak at the normal systems rolloff knee. I'd say that's a pretty negative effect.

[bluesman]

.....without negative effect from boundary gains and a rear ported system.......?

 

I did say "judicious placement" and I didn't say it always works well - but it can, and it's worth a few hours of experimentation. Obviously, a rear-ported speaker won't do well up against a corner wall - but 3' away might do wonders for it in the right room. There's everything to gain and nothing to lose by trying.

[hifitubes]

Hi Christopher. Your perceived lack of bass or low frequency content is a result of your Wharfdales.....which isn't to say they're a bad speaker, just not intended for bass extension by design. In order for a speaker system to create bass, it has to be able to move air via the woofers cone. Your Wharfdales cone is less than 5" in diameter, scantly enough for any real displacement. If you attempt to equalize the system with software or whatever, you won't be creating any 'more' bass, instead distortion as the woofer cone tries to move more air and the coil moves outside the magnetic field and becomes non linear in its motion.

 

You can use the room's boundaries to get a bit lower in frequency by moving the speakers closer to the wall or on a desktop, but this solution is anything but optimal as boundary gains are actually reflections which of course will alter the imaging/ soundstage.

 

Unfortunately, the only viable solutions are to supplement the Wharfdales with a subwoofer(s) or replace them with a larger speaker with lower bass extension.

 

Also, the Miniwatt N3 (APPJ) is also noted to be a bit bass shy. It's a single-ended Pentode; Solid-State rectified. what tubes are you running in it? Can you borrow some re-issue Genalex N709/EL84?

 

Room modes and listening position, as well as your Wharfdales as fellow CA's have noted, may be exacerbating this. Can you borrow another amp to test how it performs?

[InfernoSTi]

I have the Miniwatt and it is bass shy. It is a beautiful little amp to bi-amp, though, and I had it set up for a while with the full range coming off the Miniwatt (line level speaker wires) into both my main speakers and into a subwoofer (again, line level connection speaker wire to the sub).

 

I used simple dual banana plugs like you get at Radio Shack. This allowed me to crossover the bass at just the right point (my speakers went south around 80hz). It worked like a charm!

 

Love that little amp...still have it for an office setup (someday).

 

Best,

John

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

I have been listening to some music this evening, and I do find it very pleasing to the ear. I think as one of the earlier posts from paul mentioned I can pick up different bass, that I could not before. I think its a case of its more of a natural sound than what I am used to, than the heavy doof doof so to speak.

 

Thats likely correct and why i emphasized not falling for the initial attraction (for non audiophiles) of poor quality bass.It is the same principle that should guide your system modifications in order to improve bass.

 

Having said that, based on others knowledge of your components, it is probable that your bass in your system is lacking and there is little one can do but to rectify the weakest links in the chain.Everything else is likely to be less satisfying tweaks or will potentially degrade sound and increase your frustration.Not saying you shouldnt try but just be realistic. You are not going to create earth quake cinema rumbling high volume accurately produced down to 40 Khz or less. Nor do you need anything like that for most music esp not the acoustic stuff you say you like.

 

I agree always with experimenting with speaker placement but generally the goal is to get them out of the corners to avoid standing waves and and placed where they are most neutral sounding not exciting the axial room modes.You also want to avoid 'first reflections' at the listening position. The alternative is to try and find a place that will tend to excite or resonate a frequency of bass just enough to compensate for a lack of performance from the gear. IMO a bit of a slippery slope here and certainly I would never shove speakers into corners.

 

Placing speakers up on spikes in my experience yields an improvement in SQ for reasons said.If they need coupling to the floor to compensate for flimsy cabinet contruction then maybe look into cabinet bracing or just save for better speakers.

 

The spikes, proper room placement, and (not an advocate of) a little EQ in JRiver are all free.If your amps cannot drive the speakers you either need a better amp or more sensitive speakers as has been said.

 

adding a external dac will probably improve things all round and fully agree with trying in your system first.

 

Find a high end dealer and listen to some systems with the music you like.Identify the way those systems are reproducing the bass so you have some benchmark to be comparing and nudging closer towards in your changes at home. Esp listen to some quality smaller speakers with bass specs say only down to 100 Hz and listen to their bass reproduction (you dont have to go ultra low to get great sounding bass). Its hard to reproduce quality bass at home unless you know what you are listening for.Obviously also listen for what else in these systems makes it pleasing to your ear.

 

Most of all, enjoy.

[christopher_j]

Thanks for the replies. I guess the problem i dont want to fall into too much is not enjoying the music, and worrying too much about the sound quality.....but then I guess if you are listening with the music and finding fault, you arent going to enjoy the music as much........its towing a thin line.

The problem with the dacs is that I live in Perth (australia, for those not familiar) and we aren't spoilt with hifi stores (so we pay a premium) and especially stores that stock dacs, i think i have found 1. So all of my purchases so far have been online, to get the best prices........so unfortunately I have to take a gamble on components and hope for the best.

Im concerned maybe my speaker cables which i made may be an issue. I bought a high gauge speaker wire from bunnings (hardware store) and connected it to banana plugs which i bought online. I dont have any stock pre terminated cables to test against, so i dont know if this may be a problem or not.........I can see how this 'hobby' can begin to be a money pit, and im only at the lower end ! but unfortunately with a family spending money on these things is a luxury, and as many of you would probably agree our wives dont see the value in our purchases

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

yeah, thats why I said most of all enjoy the music.Its easy to lose sight of this and get frustrated with the whole business. Keep in mind NO system is perfect,its all about trying to suspend disbelief for a while. The brain can help in that regard and that is not cheating.Suggest focus on the parts you like,not dislike, and then forget about analysing to just hear the music as a whole.

 

If I were in your position I think I would be looking for the best sound for the buck which will dictate a number of things.Firstly well recorded music costs no more than porly recorded music and poorly recorded music even on $100,000 systems sounds bad.You dont need more expensive HIRez dig files,stick with 16/44.You can rip all your cds with good programs but if already using Jriver it does an excellent job for no further expense. Use your existing pc as digital front end not a dedicated server and while there is argument about the influence of the computer on the sound its fair to say its not a huge effect (if any) when combined with an asynchronous usb dac/external sound card.Use a player like JRiver that offeres asio and wasapi support (also kernel streaming). Now I would be tempted to go down the headphone route as I find this is just easier and less expensive to get 'head-Fi' than with preamps/amps/speakers/interconnects/cables (as you know there is a whole industry and controversy centred around just the cabling).For a few hundred bucks you can get decent headphones and for $500-$1000 you can get approaching world class.Some dacs have heaphone jacks and volume control so you dont even need an amplifier.You can get headphone amps of course but there are highly sensitive excellent headphones that dont need it.Add in JRiver and you have a world of options to play with and organise your media. Excluding your pc (which you have anyway) an audiophile grade sound sytem for say $1000 bucks ? You would now be likely more than happy with the bass too. I just cant see all that happening in comparison to speakers/amps/cabling that would produce anywhere near the sound quality for the money.Your family is likely already happy with the sound of your existing system so they wont mind when you do some 'serious' listening with the headphones.

 

Either way which dac? if you cant borrow to try or get to listen in store then i would trust reviews by people you trust.Maybe the dragonfly? I have a babyface rme maybe $500-600 now ? It does an amazing job up against my reference levinson dac.It has multiple inputs/outputs,headphone capability, volume control,midi function and adc recording etc etc plus comes with a eq program with maybe some daw functions (havent used it for that).

 

cheers

[christopher_j]

Just been listening to some music this morning on mog / flacs vs cd player. Sound from the cd player is a lot more refined and tight. The pc sound card sound, is a lot looser and airy (if thats a term) at the higher end, so i think as you said a good dac will bring that all together. The dragonfly is a good cost option with good reviews. I have been looking at dacs for a few months now, or at least reading revies, forums etc. The one I keep coming back to is the schiit bifrost. I must admit the aesthetics of the components comes into with me also.

Can you recommend any good online stores in australia that give the option of trialling dacs ?

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

yeah, "airy" is a term as in "more air" , as in "more air around the instruments" as in "more air infused and open sounding".It is seen as a good thing implying extended high frequencies that give that open,airy and transparent soundstage.When combined with palpable and well foccussed imaging" a sense you can step inside the soundstage. The opposite sounds closed,shut in, canned, lacking in high frequency "air"

 

No i dont know of Australian online sites that will let you try before buy.maybe you can email some like audio connection in sydney and see if they have a 30 day return policy, you pay postage.

[Audiophile Neuroscience]

Just a thought, is there any way of achieving digital out of your soundcard ? If so you could send the diital output to another dac like maybe your cd player or AVR.If you already have an avr then JRiver kas a bitstreaming option (over hdmi,spdif and other) meant to send digital to the avr (in most cases uncompressed audio/video for the avr to decode) but see no reason it wouldnt work for just audio.

[maximum kahuna]

As a satisfied Bifrost owner, I highly recommend giving one a try. I also have a Peachtree DAC-iT and I would say the DAC-iT is hyper -detailed, while the Bifrost has a more rounded sound. Two things, first I'd advise getting the uber analog upgrade. Almost all of us who have upgraded their orignal Bifrosts with the uber upgrade are highly satisfied. Second, I don't want to start a flame war here over this, but many of us have reported that the Bifrost sound improves with "burn in." There's a 15-day return policy so play it a lot as soon as you get it, then give it a listen. I think you'll be satisfied.