The Two Channel Advice Thread

Discussion in 'Advice Threads' started by purr1n, Nov 10, 2016.

  1. hifiandrun

    hifiandrun Almost "Made"

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    Quick follow up - The new-to-me Dynaudio Special Forty sound - as compared to KEF LS50.
    (here is the original post).

    TL'DR: The Special Forty and KEF LS50 house sound were different. I like both. In most "Hi-Fi" area, the 2 x priced S40s bettered the KEF LS50s. The best sound stage and stable pin-point imagining of all my speakers after careful positioning. First time I felt speakers totally "disappeared". I agree with many general comments: The S40s would let me enjoy music, but they were neutral, fast, and bold, with a bit higher energy in the upper-midrange. The LS50s were better at "into" the recording, critical listening would like exploration and never felt boring, fluid and charming, even it has a hint of "metallic sound signature", it had better tonality, especially for vocals.

    First I have to say that I am grateful for the SBAFer who have been providing me suggestions. @Hooncake @rlow @Riotvan @Collusion. @Collusion's comment on my profile post was spot on - which read "I had a brand new pair at home demo just a couple days ago. Got pretty mixed feelings about them - silky/delicate sounding treble, but midrange is just off somehow. Bass was excellent - taut and snappy. (Amp: AVM C9)". Yes the mid-range was the area puzzled me the most. It was improved significantly after my room treatment and reached to the point where I could happily live with it and I'd call it "personality" rather than defect.

    1. About the room treatment.

    I have to correct my mistake - my room is measured 17'8'' x 12'10'' x 8'10''. The previous 20 x 15 ft numbers were from the official floor plan drawing, which was off by a lot. Thus the room is smaller and my previous number between speakers to side walls were incorrect. The shouty upper mid-range got tempered 60% by put a rug on the floor in front of the speakers. The rest 40% by three pieces of 2 ft x 2 ft x 2 inch commercial acoustic panels. It is funny that the panels must be sit on the wall to be fully effective. When I try to figure out the position of the panels, I put them on a temporary stand leaning toward the wall, it wasn't as effective.

    2. Positioning.

    Following suggestions from @Riotvan here, I moved the speakers closer to the wall but the mid-range became dull and recessed. I moved them back step by step, to a point, the mid-range suddenly opened up. After the room treatment, this was the new speaker positioning: from the tweeter position, 2'11'' from the rear wall, 3'5'' from the side walls, 6' apart (a little wider than before).

    After those adjustment, I started to listen to different types of music. I kind of think that people would subconsciously choose the types of music that would present best by their audio system. This was one of the reasons that I liked to change speakers time to time to see if my music preferences had been confined by my audio setup. After several hours of listening, I was confident that the Dynaudio S40s would be very good at some types of music which I hadn't enjoyed as much with the LS50s. For example, before I sit down to write this post, I really liked Moby's albums on S40s. Cellos presented by S40s sounded full bodied as the S40's bass can go lower to a point I felt my chest wall was resonant with some notes. Large scale music such as orchestra were great with the S40s. The precise imaging bring out individual instruments without blurry. While the LS50's sound stage was narrower but seemed with more layering than the S40s. The S40s' sounded on the neutral and a little "dry" side in general but with a sweet treble. The LS50s and my previous B&W N805s, N803s were sounded fluid, a little "wet", precise but conservative (well behaved) - could be the "house sound" of British speakers? I don't know.

    I think that I will still keep the LS50s as my "reference" speakers. First, I felt that any new speaker had to be better than the LS50 in several aspects to justify a long-term ownership. As an example, the KEF R3 is a very good all-around mode in the KEF line up, but I would not consider to buy R3 as an upgrade to my LS50. Second, I'd like to assemble my gears around the sound signature of the LS50s. Meanwhile, in just 3 days, I've grown fond to the S40s - they are wonderful speakers. I think I'd use the S40s as main speakers. Occasionally, I'd pull out the LS50s for cross reference when I am getting new gears. Happy listening.

    Edit: One more thing about placement - the positioning was a combination of placement and toe-in. The toe-in is very important for tonality. I ended up place them at what @Riotvan suggested - speakers mid-line pointed and crossed at 50 cm ~ 1 meter behind me. In contrast, the LS50 doesn't need that much toe-in and wasn't affected by that much neither.
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2020
  2. hifiandrun

    hifiandrun Almost "Made"

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    I am not a fan of bass. The S40s provided enough lows for me. Subwoofer is fun. I used one Rel T2 years ago. My problem with the sub is that it takes up floor space and more wiring.
     
  3. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    True, but the great thing about the Rel subs is that they are compact and intended for corner placements. Mine doesn’t eat up much floor space and the wire is run along the baseboard. But, understood if you want to minimize the amount of equipment clutter in the room.

    Glad you’re enjoying the S40s, they are very good and I agree a DEFINITE step up from the LS50s (which they should be, considering many multiples the price). I think you described the sound of them very well.
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2020
  4. JayC

    JayC Resident Crash Test Dummy

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    I concur with everything you guys have said so far. Had a good friend buy these and helped him set them up.. Placement was quite tricky, we have them probably similarly placed as you do in terms of wall positioning and toe in. The room isnt that big and almost no matter what we tried there was a big dip in the bass (i think it was around 80-100Hz?) that he somewhat ended up correcting using a minidsp unit, along with reducing a 50Hz bump. He's got one main profile loaded on that for regular listening and one that cuts bass under 70-75Hz for late-night listening so the neighbours dont complain.

    I quite like them, they can produce bass that you really feel, and combined with the staging and image they throw it makes a really nice package. Sure, they arent sparkly but they were pretty close to making us completely happy. No regrets, and he says he's keeping them for a few years but we all know how that works out..
     
  5. hifiandrun

    hifiandrun Almost "Made"

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    I forgot to reply about the sub-woofer question. I've read many says that REL sub will blend very well in stereo system for music, especially using their high-level (speaker level) input. I was planning to get one REL T7i for my LS50s before I ended up dropping the idea. Because I am using 2 x Aegir in mono mode. According to Rel website, REL highly recommends two subs in differential mono-block power amp setup. It seems combining two high-levels signals into one sub input may cause some grounding issue.

    By the way, today the S40s sounded like different speakers, in line with most official reviews, thus I wouldn't repeat all the details. I am thinking the break-in is a real thing for these Dynaudio speakers - I think they are going to be better. They've been getting warmer, significantly. The upper-midrange extra energy was gone. The S40s became "warm sounding" speakers, while still staying true to what being fed. My apologies for my roller-coaster updates. But that was what happened and changed in the first week, five days to be exact. I previously mentioned that the tonality of human voice was not as good as the LS50s. Now I felt the S40s sounded fuller and sounded true to vocals. I tried foam plugs for the bass reflex port but ended up not using them. The bass didn't dig deeper when turned up the volume but always sounded agile and tight and never became boomy. They might not be the last word in plankton, but the S40s produce music from rock to jazz to classic.
     
  6. Metro

    Metro Friend

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    For a single subwoofer in your setup, you could consider using the sub's line level input. I know that REL recommends high level input and you might lose the last bit of nuance, but you should still get good performance.

    In my case I am using a single REL T7i with an Anti-Mode 8033, which does a good job cleaning up my room bass response. Because of the 8033, I need to use line level on the REL but I get more benefit out of it than using high level input.
     
  7. Melvillian

    Melvillian Friend

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    I think the high level input on the REL gives you the lowest latency in their active system, but the line level should be fine.
     
  8. yonson

    yonson Facebook Friend

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    I'm glad you are liking the S40's, I'm really having a hard time of deciding between them and a pair of outgoing Contour 20's now that the i's are out.

    My Dynaudio Focus 340's made me a believer in Dyn's needing break in time. When I first purchased them (along with F260's) the 260's sounded almost perfect out of the box compared to the 340's. The 340's had NO bass output for the first 300 hours and it got to the point where ended up calling my dealer and asked WTF, why are these F260's embarrassing them! He said to be patient and give them some more break in time, and sure enough sometime shortly after 400 hours they finally came into their own and actually had more bass than the F260's, but IMHO the F260's are still the more fun speaker...
     
  9. hifiandrun

    hifiandrun Almost "Made"

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    Same here about the Contour 20. I chose S40 for two reasons. One, easier to drive; second, the newer Contour "i" come out this year, which means there were room for Contour to improve. Dynaudio didn't change the design of the S40 except the new look/color.
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2020
  10. yonson

    yonson Facebook Friend

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    Yeah, I'm not digging the new colors. I wish I had known they were discontinuing the Red Birch, I'm not even a fan of Red but damn those are striking and I would have picked up a set before they got too scarce had I known they were going away...
     
  11. JayC

    JayC Resident Crash Test Dummy

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    Yeah, i found a very sweet deal on a last pair of the red birch on the website of a store the day before the new colours were released and my friend snagged them without thinking twice. Got really lucky there to get a new pair for the price of a used pair!

    By the way, i forgot to mention - the foam plugs can be split into two and he's using the outer foam plugs
     
  12. nishan99

    nishan99 Friend

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    Does anyone have any experience with the JBL S3900?

    Not enough impressions online of those.
    I heard they get 30-40% discounted at brick and mortar stores.
     
  13. k4rstar

    k4rstar Britney fan club president

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    I heard them once at audio eden here in toronto. I cant really say much because of dealer conditions, but I think in the scheme of modern JBLs the 4367 is much better. bigger horn, bigger woofer, wider baffle, simpler crossover.

    vintage JBLs are better than both. blue face 4333A monitors with alnico drivers >>> any modern JBL
     
  14. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    I posted some impressions here is you’re interested; https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...t-speaker-impressions.8941/page-5#post-310978

    Will be interested to hear if it aligns for you post-break-in (most of what you’ve said I think is similar). I would have compared to 3-4 other speakers over time during the time I had them (only mention 2 specifically), and in a smallish room, so there I would expect some differences.

    Actually it can be pretty tricky comparing speaker impressions becuase the room and the setup Of the speaker can have such a major effect on the sonic result.
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2020
  15. murphythecat

    murphythecat GRU-powered uniformed trumpkin

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    you compared in the same room jbl l300 vs 4367? care to say more?
     
  16. k4rstar

    k4rstar Britney fan club president

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    no, I have heard 4333A and not in the same room as 4367. it is not the same speaker as L300, it uses different drivers with slightly different sound character.

    4367 has a very modern sound. the D2430K it uses has a 1.5" exit, a neodymium magnet, beryllium diaphragm and of course the large modern waveguide. it can give a big sound with high output but it still sounds like a modern speaker, there is no richness to the sound and you will likely desire an inherently warm amplifier. this is consistent with other modern compression drivers I have heard including Radian and RCF

    the 4333A uses the JBL 2420, from the 1970s this is still relatively modern but much closer to the compression drivers of the 1950s with an edgewound aluminum diaphragm and alnico magnet. it sounds warm and inviting, but at the same time is still more incisive and lively than 4367 because of the 2405 slot tweeter. on paper they have similar efficiency rating but the 4333A will get more done with less power input. considering 4367 will run you $7000-8000 USD and 4333A can be found in good condition for less than half that I will recommend the vintage option every time.
     
  17. murphythecat

    murphythecat GRU-powered uniformed trumpkin

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    i agree with the vintage JBL alnico compression drivers. they are magical, but coloured. Never heard the 4367 though. thanks for the insight!
    what speakers are you using nowadays?
     
  18. k4rstar

    k4rstar Britney fan club president

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    1978 la scala's rescued from a bar in montreal.

    [​IMG]

    I have a growing stockpile of vintage fullrange drivers for OB experiments later

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  19. batriq

    batriq Probably has made you smarter

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    Speakers are in the house!! Lots to setup still, like figuring out what to do with that cabinet, and retuning the bass. Any thoughts on how far they should be from the walls?

    [​IMG]
     
  20. nishan99

    nishan99 Friend

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    That's really cool!!.
    I wonder how those horned back firing woofers sound.
    Do they have the immediacy and tactility of a front firing woofers or are they more like the side firing woofers?
     

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