ProAc D20R Speakers

Seems to be a great sounding system, Proac's  are very special speakers and are a great match with Naim. Congrats and good luck.

You may want to try replacing the jumpers with some Chord Odyssey 2 as well - the difference I found in mine is quite pronounced.

+1 PaulH,   if you can solder,  this is how to do a proper jumper job with Odyssey,  the famous Naim "F"

Thanks for that.  But what exactly does it achieve.  I have never come across this before.  Is this what they mean by Biwiring??.

It's the best way of getting rid of the awful jumpers than manufacturers use to link the two sets of terminals. Biwiring is where you have two sets of cables. They are joined together at the amplifier end, and are a very bad idea with Naim.

F plugs as per the image a few posts up is exactly how I have my Naca5 configured for my Proac D30R's and it works beautifully.

On the bi-wiring front, I did actually try bi-wiring a pair of Totem Hawks when I was running a SuperUniti and a 250.2. The result was pretty awful... just a disjointed murky soup of sounds. I was somewhat surprised as at the time there were a few advocates for bi-wiring with the SU + 250.2.... it certainly didn't work for me.

I do have a bi-wire arrangement on my Proac D18s, just because its the cable that I had previously running from a Cyrus amp which invited bi-wiring as an option.  I struggle to see though why it should be particularly better or worse than running cable between the two set of terminals.  Is it not the case that two sets of terminals are connected to the amp?  Excuse my lack electrical understanding, but I can't really see what the difference is, apart from less copper between the speakers and the amp, perhaps that's a good thing??

For me anything closer then 20' from back wall never worked. Bass gets boomy. I'm happy with 24' but the more the better. 

My Proacs are the 148 but the dealer told me that for all proacs it takes months for the bass to settle. In my case it evolved for 6 months. It never sounds bad its more that it get more precise. 

Congrats, I've heard your model and I don't think a speaker can get much better then that.

4th day of running in.  About 12 hours all told.    Played Eva Cassidy vinyl.  The songs, Imagine and True Colours sounded as if Eva was singing behind a heavy draped curtain.  This was after moving the speakers about 12" from a back wall.   A bit  disappointed, but its still early days.

I'd get them toed in and set up properly. Play music on repeat while you are out. That will loosen them up. It's curious that you said they sounded lovely in your first post, and now you seem disappointed. 

Proacs take some time to deliver their potential ( > 200 h). Lots of up and down is expected. To Have them play the whole day with some iradio  could speed up things. But the wait is worth

I had ProAc D15s in a beautiful Yew veneer; utterly wonderful - at least after about 3 weeks of running in.  From new they were slow, lumpy and not that pleasant to listen to.  Once fully on song, I don't think I've heard a top end like it since.

Not sure I'd bother with the iPod music; get straight to CD and give those drive units a full range signal from the off!

Cheers,

Ian

PS. The 'F' connector arrangement is the way to go.

Try 24" from the wall if you can.

Like stringerbell said you'll have up and downs for a while. It's very important to not judge now. Expect very weird sound. They happen at first. Even naim amps sometimes fall off and need time or replug. I always keep a openness for those odd days. I usually reconcile on mornings when In  a good mood. That's when magic gets back and naim wit proac is mind blowing. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

I'd get them toed in and set up properly. Play music on repeat while you are out. That will loosen them up. It's curious that you said they sounded lovely in your first post, and now you seem disappointed. 

Yep, thats right.  I was listening to a cd by Diana Krall and it sounded fine.  Then the Vinyl with Eva Cassidy did not sound good.

I have been using an IPod with a 3 hour playlist to run them in.  I will now try a cd  on repeat for the rest of the week.  I keep the volume set around the 8-9 oclock position.  Bit scared of damaging the drivers.

Thanks for all the advice, I appreciate all the comments.

Mike-B posted:

+1 PaulH,   if you can solder,  this is how to do a proper jumper job with Odyssey,  the famous Naim "F"

 

Paul, my dealer said this connection offers very little in the way of improvement.  What say you.

I say I tried it and it made a huge difference to my ears!

Many others on this forum say the same.

I even tried putting the old jumpers back to make sure I wasn't just hearing things - needless to say they were soon replaced again!

staffy posted:

Mike-B posted:

+1 PaulH,   if you can solder,  this is how to do a proper jumper job with Odyssey,  the famous Naim "F" 

Paul, my dealer said this connection offers very little in the way of improvement.  What say you.

Don'cha just love dealers  .........  so what the f-f-eck does the dealer reckon that does do something in the way of improvement ???  ,  ohh !!! don't tell me, lemme guess ................. some jumper links,  only £200 sqwids, oooh suits you sir,  & with more joints than a Jamaican jump up, sound quality is assured

I think you'll have nice results once they settle in.

Im pretty sure you'll get GREAT results and satisfaction once you  partner them with ,say, a NAP 200 or higher and sources accordingly.

In both cases ,enjoy

A generic question for ProAcs owners. Do you run your ProAcs tweeters in or tweeters out?

They come tweeters in. But I run my D28s out to widen soundstage and allow for toe-in.   

Chag -

I ran mine facing eachother face on the the first 30 hours or so, mainly while the mid-bass drivers ran in.

For the next 15 years, I ran them with the tweeters towards the centre or inside, as Proac recommended.  Sounded lovely and I still have them in store for the next family music system (the fourth one...)

Chag... posted:

A generic question for ProAcs owners. Do you run your ProAcs tweeters in or tweeters out?

They come tweeters in. But I run my D28s out to widen soundstage and allow for toe-in.   

Chag -

Tweeters in for me... have tried them both ways and in my smallish room find tweeters in sounds better

Dont worry too much about bi-wiring. ProAcs are some of the best loudspeakers and soon you are going to forget about wire arrangements as it is so irrevelant when you consider the whole picture. Enjoy!

Without wishing to generalise (too much),

Proac: great speakers, awful links between the terminals, best to use F type cable connection (as illustrated above), no need to bi-wire.

PMC: as Proac.

PaulH posted:

I say I tried it and it made a huge difference to my ears!

Many others on this forum say the same.

I even tried putting the old jumpers back to make sure I wasn't just hearing things - needless to say they were soon replaced again!

I will wait for a month or so and after the are run in I will arrange to have the cables reconfigured.

After a week of running in I find the bass quite strong and powerful.  I can hear it when I am in the next room.  However the vocals are quite clear.  I can actually hear things from favourite cd's I could not hear in the past.

I take it 3/4 hours a day playing is sufficient at a  low to moderate volume.

Next week I have a new FlatcapXS power supply to add to the mix.

Thanks for all the advice.  I will come back after 3 weeks to review how things are changing.