Proac D18 - Incurable Brightness?

We have D40R's from a 500 system via NACA5.  NACA5 might be an idea whose time has come for your system, too.  Try to borrow a pair from your dealer.

NACA5 might be an idea whose time has come for your system, too.  Try to borrow a pair from your dealer.

+1

I can't remember whom but somebody on here the other day was complaining of brightness with Proacs and no about of switching cables made any difference.  

Although I have no real experience I'm therefore beginning to wonder if Naim/Proac is a good synergy but ultimately will depend I guess on speaker/room interface.  

However, I once read of brightness and a  tiney sound associated with QED so assuming all is well with the rest of the system then ask a friendly neighbourhood dealer if you can try some NACA or Chord Odyssey. 

Good luck,

Lindsay

The QED is very much a budget cable and the system deserves better. It's certainly worth trying the A5, as well as TQB. I tried Odyssey once and found it a bit uninvolving, but it's certainly worth a try. If you look around, you can find all these options used, so can try them for a few months and sell them on if they don't work out. 

I suspect you have tried lots of speaker positions, but if they are pointing more forwards, the treble is less beamy and the sound more open overall. 

I don't know your speakers, amp or source but I did strugle with a bright sound. At the time I was running Thiel 1.6 which had all metal drivers. Things that helped were moving the speakers back to another node (from 64cm to 42.5cm to the back wall) this filled out the lower mid/upper bass sound at the cost of a little depth, the right spot took some finding with 1/2 a cm being important. Toe in was marginal as in  under 5 degrees. Changing a steel and mdf Target rack for Fraim lite but it wasn't cured until I made sure none of the cables touched the rack or the wall. At the time the rest of the system was CDX2/282/HC/250 NACA5.

I can't speak for D18's, but brightness has never been on my radar at all with my D30R's (driven by a 300DR). I find the Proac's very balanced in my system. That said, I've only ever used Naim speaker cable... initially Naca5 and in the past 4 months SL.

As for directionality... the D30's image like crazy, but they do like to be out from back and side walls. Mine are about 30 inches from the side walls and 27 inches from the back wall. I have them about 8 feet apart, and my listening position is about 8 feet from the speakers.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.  Seems like NAC A5 is at least worthwhile investigating under the circumstances.  

For those who mentioned positioning, for the majority of the time I've run them, despite all the experimenting, they've been 40cm from the rear wall, and 50cm in from each side wall, with about 1.8m between them.  I had been running them firing straight down the room, no toe in at all, and this seemed to give the best results overall.  However, I recently tried towing them in quite a lot, same position otherwise.  The high frequencies are no less dominant with toe in, which stands to reason, but what did surprise me is that the vocals sounded a bit smoother, less high frequency edge to them.  They do seem very sensitive to positioning changes of all kinds, and in the tiniest increments.  Strange creatures.  I still wonder if there is a position where the room interaction will work better and potentially cure the symptom I described.  Too far apart maybe?  

I feel like I'm making an overly big deal of it, I mean the performance is great technically, but just a little too often the vocals remind me I'm listening to a really good stereo.  That's the issue.  For all the lack of detail and musical insight by comparison, I do miss the natural organic vocal sound of the old Missions.  But I get the sense the Proacs can do better, it's just how has to be worked out.  I'm sure I'll bring them round to my way of thinking eventually.  :-)

Have you tried adjusting the spikes or whatever footing your using so that the speaker leans back a bit, or even tilted forward.  Might be that the seated listening position is more in line of the tweeter field rather than the right blend of tweeter and mid/bass. You could use a fine spirit level on the top to make sure both speakers have the same degree.

you could just try either slouching down more or sitting on a few cushions to determine whether there is any change !

SongStream posted:

...

 I had been running them firing straight down the room, no toe in at all, and this seemed to give the best results overall.  However, I recently tried towing them in quite a lot, same position otherwise.  The high frequencies are no less dominant with toe in, which stands to reason, but what did surprise me is that the vocals sounded a bit smoother, less high frequency edge to them.  They do seem very sensitive to positioning changes of all kinds, and in the tiniest increments.  Strange creatures.

...

 

All speakers are quite sensitive to positioning, but (to paraphrase George Orwell) some are more sensitive than others.  The effect you describe about toe in ameliorating a problem with high frequency exacerbation in vocals is typical of side wall reflections in an acoustically bright room.

Try putting some HF sound absorption (or diffusion) at the 1st reflection points on the side walls - this may be all you need to fix the problem.

The problem may be that the speakers have wide dispersion tweeters such that the dispersion from the lower octave of the tweeter's response is more widely dispersed than the sound from the upper octave of the bass/mid driver.  This means that you get the brightness from the tweeter twice, once direct and the second time from the reflection off the nearer sidewall, where as you only get the body of the voice coming direct *.  This creates a stereo image that appears to extend wider than the speakers.  However when you understand how Blumlein stereo works, you realise this effect actually artificial and as such it's a technical fault (despite how popular and how frequently praised this characteristic has become).  The cure is HF absorption or diffusion on the side walls.

*  In an acoustically perfectly balanced room, this problem won't happen, and in this case the wide dispersion will give a sense of 'air' around the performers; however, very few of us have rooms that are any where near perfect and so, for the majority, this is a actually speaker fault, not a benefit.  This fault necessitates us improving the rooms just to get rid of the worst of this problem.  Getting a near perfect room may be an aspiration, but in practice it's is rarely achievable.

Mmm, interesting thoughts, Huge.  That's got me thinking about the room and evaluating things in a way I hadn't before.  Between me and the speakers when sat in the usual listening position, is to my right 2.5m of thick curtains (when drawn) covering patio doors, and to my left a chimney breast (sticks out about 1ft) and beyond that a cushioned armchair against the wall, that sits not far in front of the left speaker (not suitable for serious listening, bad for one's left ear drum).  Now, the chair placement was acoustically strategic, and the room worked really well with the Missions.  As the Proacs ended up after initial positioning experiments in a similar position to the Missions, I had thought the room would be fine.  What I hadn't considered until now is that over time, the speakers have worked their way forward from the rear wall through experimenting with positioning, and also, tweeter dispersion properties aside, the Proacs are both taller, and have the tweeters in the right place; the Missions were upside down.  This leads me to suspect that the armchair is no longer doing its job, and what is probably needed is some acoustic treatment on the chimney breast.  Bit of a long shot, but I am now going to fashion some crude HF absorption for the chimney breast using a hefty bath towel and see what happens.

TOBYJUG posted:

Have you tried adjusting the spikes or whatever footing your using so that the speaker leans back a bit, or even tilted forward.  Might be that the seated listening position is more in line of the tweeter field rather than the right blend of tweeter and mid/bass. You could use a fine spirit level on the top to make sure both speakers have the same degree.

you could just try either slouching down more or sitting on a few cushions to determine whether there is any change !

Another interesting idea.  At the moment, according to the spirit level app on my i-thing (don't have the real thing to hand), they're bang on level front to back and left to right.  Haven't tried right to left, or back to front, but should be the same.  If one does slouch down, something that can occur naturally with increased tiredness, or excessive alcohol consumption, there is a definite softening of the HFs, so this may well be a trick to pursue along with other experiments.  They could end up like a pair of PMC 20.23s  Thanks.

Just a thought,

Though I find the NACA 5 to be very powerful in its presentation, occasionally I will insert my set of Linn K20 (NACA 4) and realize a more open, balanced approach (at least in my system).

If the speakers are on spikes, you could try a trick that worked for me: Place a hardwood board under each speaker, then lean very hard downwards on the top of each speaker to force the spikes solidly into the boards. 

This trick transformed a pair of speakers I was reviewing, from unlistenable to quite engaging.

Worth a try,

Jan

(you could also try removing the spikes and seating the speakers on a viscoelastic material, or blobs of blutac)

Hi Songstream,

An interesting thread.  My Proac standmounts have the same tweeter as the D18 and needed real care to avoid a sense of emphasised brightness & a touch of harshness to female vocals (as well as some higher pitched instruments).  

Then we realised that a large marble fireplace was acting as a most effective first reflection point for most listeners in the room.  Once we sorted that out, the sense of brightness calmed down considerably, as did the harshness in higher pitched vocals. 

So it wasn't so much a case of the speaker being bright, as it being sensitive to first reflection points, just as Huge indicates above.

Treating these and using NACA5 cable may well resolve the issue for you, as the D18 is not normally considered to be a bright speaker.

Best regards, FT

How are you running the cross-over links?

I've found on the Proac's I've had, the best practice is to run the positive cable to the positive tweeter and the negative cable to the negative bass.

AND use NACA5 as the links.

Never bi-wire IMO.

Secondly, do the best for the mains feed as you can. I have gone to great lengths and it's the best value "upgrade" you can do. It doesn't take special knowledge, just the right bits and bobs and a bit of DIY.

While you are borrowing a pair of NACA5, you might also add a HiLine or two to the experiment.  I think either or both of these could tame the brightness.

You might also eliminate any toe-in at the speaker and just aim them straight ahead.

Big +1 to Huge and FT's thoughts. As a quick experiment you can alter the speaker positions, wider with greater toe in and see what effect that has on the reflection points. Also change the depth of your listening position. If you get a sense that reflection points are the cause of the harshness then room treatment should help.

I have heard Proac studio 140 with supernait 1, not bright at all.

I doubt the D18 is a bright speaker, Proac are very competent, and in business for many years now. They know how to design a speaker properly, and D18 won many awards. 

The problem I think is curable by using NACA5, and checking earthing arrangements, is your DAC V1 ground switch set on chassis, and if it is, checking the earthing in your home. Many Naim problems like this can be due to sub-standard earthing arrangements.

Listening room/area can affect ProAc to go bright. Are your ceiling high enough? It need to be at least 10' to my experienced. For the cable, you can try Cardas to tune down the brightness. If all still not goes well. Try to change your amp from Solid State to Tube, I reckon Audio Note entry level Integrated amp with Class A 18W.

BNN posted:

Listening room/area can affect ProAc to go bright. Are your ceiling high enough? It need to be at least 10' to my experienced.

Not to question your own experience and certainly room volume effects speaker output quality, but I doubt that a 10' ceiling becomes a limiting factor in the grand scheme of the use of Proacs. All the more it tends to indicate room treatment or appropriately sized speakers for the room.

BNN posted:

Listening room/area can affect ProAc to go bright. Are your ceiling high enough? It need to be at least 10' to my experienced......

Yes I think this is more where the issue lies - you are probably finding the room dimensions interacting with the speakers are attenuating the lower mids making the speaker appear brighter. You can try moving them around the room - but it may be the speaker is just not compatible with your room

Simon

I have been using my D20's for just over 7 months now and their was a time when I was praying for a touch of brightness.    Now,and I am using Chord Odyssey 2 speaker cable I find they are fine that heavy bass has disappeared completely.    My room would be 17x12 feet.

Aren't the tweeters on Proacs handed? What's it like if you swap left and right speakers around?

C.

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