Do Spendor A6Rs bringing out the best of my system

Help us to help you by saying what is wrong with the replay you get at the moment, and why you suspect the speakers are the culprit.

Chris

Its a theoretical question to some degree. The best SQ is elusive and confined to late evenings mostly. It took a long time to get really good SQ fleetingly. I didn't choose the speakers for the the system I now have, but the Uniti 2 I decided to return, so I wonder whether different ones might work better at any time of day, and whether my lounge is a difficult environment for these speakers (don't intend to have a separate listening room).  

Right now listening to TV through the DAC with toslink optical the sound effects to Endeavour are resonating nicely. Relatively flat a few hours earlier. 

Should I consider better speakers?

I can't comment on the Spendor, but the MB2 sounds superb. Taut but full deep bass that only good transmission line can do, and wonderful midrange. I've only heard it with a Bryston 4B power amp, so can't comment on how it would sound with 250DR, and of course it depends how they play the room. They are big on their stands. Fact 12 is tiny by comparison, but the sound it produces belies its size. Again I only heard with that Bryston amp. More constrained than MB2, with less expansive soundstage, but exceedingly good for such small speakers, having true and extended bass. I could live with them, though would prefer MB2, though domestically the Fact 12 poses less difficulty accommodating.

Christopher_M posted:

Help us to help you by saying what is wrong with the replay you get at the moment, and why you suspect the speakers are the culprit.

Chris

I must agree not a lot of point of changing anything till you get to the root of the problem might pay to involve your dealer to see if he can advise ?

Maybe it is worth playing with speaker positioning first

First sort out what you dislike / want to change in your system

Second sort out speaker/room interaction

Third take stock of the situation, and see what you now dislike / want to change in your system

Most Spendor speakers in that price bracket are hugely capable in presenting a well resolved natural midrange, but are less good at the frequency extremes and are a bit less dynamically expressive than some others (although not 'pipe and slippers' as some other people claim).  In my case I use a NAC-N 272 into a 300DR into Spendor SP2s (Mk1) and to me that system sounds exceptionally well balanced (but others may disagree).  So the 'mid range' (pun intended) Spendors can live with some sophisticated electronics - it depends on your room and your tastes.

Thanks to those who have made suggestions so far.

My dealer tells me that it is normal for the best SQ to be late evening, even the early hours. Hence I did not think there was anything wrong with my system given the parts it consists of. If this is not true then please let me know.

I did get the impression from reviews etc that speakers can have a profound effect on the characteristics of the 'replay' and wanted to seek the opinion of others as to which speakers might work well with my setup and make further improvements. Some speakers can work well near rear walls whereas others such as mine need better placement. I'm looking to get a replay which is not focused on one listening position (it works in a larger audience area) that gives the impression of the sound coming from a wider area than between the speakers or being localised close to either speaker. Good timing is supposed to deliver sound placement in the sound stage. The electronics are important, but I assume the speakers are as well. 

I like classical instrumental, choral, opera as well as popular music from the sixties onwards that has emotion and musicality. Adele,  Sandy Denny, Abba, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Dido, Bee Gees to name a few where the recording engineers and musicians have created sounds with warmth, detail, nuance given by the musician, true to the live sound apart from any special effects that may be applied. If I take Adele's CDs then now they sound amazing when the system performs, but Spotify Premium on the Uniti was not worth listening to. With hindsight I would say the problems then were a combination of Powerline and components not be being run in even after a 100 hours or more. Of course my system now is PDG on paper. Another example is Mozart's Serande No 10 for 13 woodwind instruments which I listened to again last week and was spell bound for the first time hearing clearly the individual instruments and able to appreciate the music itself.

So I think my speakers are pretty good, but I want to explore the possibility that better speakers with my electronics could improve the sound stage further. The most common comment people make is that a new better part allowed them to hear stuff they didn't know was there. My experience over the last year has been that vinyl and CDs that did nothing to me even 40 years ago when my hearing must have been much better, now sounds good. I can better understand the music.

I assume my system can be improved further so that more of my music collection comes fully alive all of the time and not just late evening.

Your thought will be apreciated.

The late at night comment from the dealer presumably refers to the possible effects of mains electricity 'contamination', though that depends very much on the local situation. If it is really noticeable, then there are options including isolating filters, transformers, etc depending on what actually is the problem.

The other difference late at night tends to be less acoustic noise from other people, whether in your home or neighbours, traffic, etc.  and the only cure for anything from outside your home is sound insulation (or move home).

And there is a possible negative with late night if there are others in the house or if there are neighbours needing sound level has to be kept low, in that there is a disproportionate reduction in sensitivity of human ears towards the bass end, so music can sound bass light when turned down.

Regarding speakers, if you do want to try others then once you have some suggestions you should try if at all possible to audition at home, otherwise, or for initial sorting, do take your speakers and amp to the dealer (unlesss they have the same) so you can compare the sound of anything with how yours sound in the different listening conditions, which may assist you identify the most likely contender(s)

I'm wondering if your issues come down to speaker placement. How far apart are they, and how far from you? Try them pointing straight ahead, and toe them in just enough to get a stable central image from a singer. I suspect you may have them tied in too much. 

The previous post on mains is relevant, but the mains is difficult for me to quantify. Our supply is off a pole, but routed underground in a trench we laid when we built our large chalet in our 'orchard' 28 years ago. The electrician adding the externally routed dedicated spur commented on how good the earthing was.

We are lucky to be detached and at a good distance from neighbours electrically and physically, but I have no idea how much noise and fluctuating demand there is. We are a mile from the substation. We are free from traffic noise and have triple glazing. Our fridge and freezer are about 5 years old. I'm not sure what else in the house might be noisey (PCs?) now the Powerline stuff has been removed. We get 24Mb/sec ordinary broadband using the master socket with 10m ADSL modem cable (15m is the max recommended), so not much noise there I guess.

As I understand it, the DR power supplies are supposed to deliver enough current at a more steady voltage to ensure better that mains fluctuations have less effect on SQ.

I'm happy to forget about the long time it took to get the system 'run in', although comment on whether this is to be expected would help everyone as I know there is much talk on this forum about such matters.

I like Huge's post on speakers because it's an opinion on the impact of speakers on replay. I note that the Spendor SP2 is less slender than the A6R and more akin to the PMC monitors such as the MB2 SE. Maybe we compromise on SQ for the sake of styley! My first speakers were Goodman Magnum K2's bought in the late 1960s. Technology has progressed a lot since, but maybe one still can't get a 'pint out of a half pint bottle' even now. 

Therefore, perhaps as Huge suggests the A6Rs do the important mid range well and present a really good system to good effect, but are not so good in the bass and higher frequencies. There is enough raw bass from mine, which when present in the recording delivers rhythm I guess. The Mozart Serande No 10 includes contrabass woodwind instruments (clarinet or bass  I guess), which are fun to listen to. The high frequencies even when one can't hear them are reputed to provide spatial information important for the sound stage, and maybe the higher harmonic components that reproduce the subtleties that I enjoy if only able to late at night. I think the higher frequencies are the ones that I loose out on at other times.

Does my analysis make sense and does anyone have a suggestion as to which speakers might deliver an improved overall replay up to the limit of what my system is capable of driving?

I would of course want to audition any speakers for at least a week at home. The problem is that not ever dealer will necessarily have them for demo, and it takes a long time to try them all out.

Thanks again.

Can you discribe how you've set up the system apart from the speakers? What racks and how many, are they close together, how are the components arranged on them? Are there any switching mode power supplies lurking on your dedicated spur? With only 4 sockets you must be using some sort of extension block too, what is it and what is plugged in where and in what order? Sometimes the setup detail you consider of minor importance can make all the difference and your system seems to be right on the borderline.

Hungary Halibut, my speakers are 2.7m apart and my head is just over 3m perpendicular distance more left of centre because of the deep fireplace. The dealer set the toe which is focused just in front of my head rather than behind. 

Thanks for your post.

In that case try pointing the speakers straight ahead, and toeing in little by little as I suggested above. The way you have them now will give a smaller and more restricted soundstage. If you do as I suggest you should get a bigger and more open sound. Remember that just because your dealer set the speakers up doesn't mean that they are set up in the best way for your room. 

Yet142, The rack are by Hi-Fi Racks Limited in 40mm engineered dovetailed Oak blocks with 100mm long legs, spikes and inset metal seats for the spikes. As mentioned above the power and a low voltage amplification are separated by what was intended as storage for LPs but temporarily has the RP10 power supply and the Uniti Serve. The 250DR sits at the bottom below the SuperCap DR and XPS DR. The DAC sits above the 'record storage', with the CD2X above and the 282 above that and the RP10 on top with the Aria to the left as far away from the cartridge as possible (there is no discernible hum from the MC cartridge). The Aria is permanently on as are the other boxes, but the RP10 is turned off except for vinyl replay.

The sockets are double with a fifth double switched for the RP10 PSU, a legacy of the RP8 which has a cheapish PSU with a long DC lead like the Uniti Serve. No non HiFi equipment powered off the spur.

The dealer set the system up last May/June when the deeper racks were delivered, the first not having enough depth to allow the interconnects to be plugged in because of the rear rack legs. The racks are 485mm wide between the legs with 12.5mm above the larger boxes. The dealer specified racks, and I chose Akorner which look good in the corner. The TT platter sits at 1.4m so vertical expansion is limited!

I haven't done the 20 in-outs for all the plugs scheduled for January or the leads into the boxes. Not sure whether this is essential or folklore.

Hope this helps. It would be nice to get the best SQ at all times except when the kitchen/utility is busy.

Thanks in advance.

HH is right in that reducing the toe-in on the speakers will usually (dependant on the room) extend the soundstage beyond the speakers.  Unfortunately the way this works is to reflect more of the sound off the side walls (the first reflection points), so this also alters the sound slightly adding a bit of colouration (partially due to added confusion in the phase information).  The arrangement you have currently (speakers set to cross a little in front of the listener) tends to give a bit more precision and accuracy in the sound at the expense of the width of the soundstage.

For my own setup I prefer the arrangement you have currently.

The important thing is to try it and see what you think. All it costs is a bit of your time. 

OK my speakers are not Spendor's,  but they are floorstanders & the principle applies.  They're about 1/3rd along the 7m 'long' wall & therefore well clear of 'side' walls.  I've found they work best with a lot of toe-in & have them 'crossing' just in front of the listening position.  As HH says,  try it,  it costs nothing to experiment except time (its a good idea for avoiding the wrath of significant others to take the spikes out during this 'fiddling around') 

Huge and HH, Thanks for your suggestions. I have made the biggest change to reduce a lot of the toeing, and first impressions are that the warmth has increased but possibly at the expense of precision as indicated by Huge. It's nice to have the explanation, which despite trolling the web was not found in past years. I think I prefer precision through less reflected energy, but I will continue gradually adjusting and listening to a range of music.

The question still remains regarding others speakers that might create a better sound stage with more precision/ less distortion. I am after a neutral sound as I guess my boxes are largely neutral which renders all instruments/voices as accurately as possible within the limits of the current boxes. I like the detail and nuances of instruments/voices.

Thanks in anticipation to Everyone. 

I think you are going to be disappointed- it's simply not possible to say 'get speaker X and it will do everything you want'. For example, soundstage and precision are very low on my list of priorities and I wanted speakers that major on musical involvement. I don't like speakers where you can hear where every drum in a drum kit is located. That's artificial and distracting to me, yet others love it. I'm not bothered about precision - real music is not precise, depending on what you mean by precise of course. 

That said, in my room when the music is playing you cannot tell that it's coming from the speakers - they disappear into a very coherent soundstage. But it doesn't really do much in the way of height and front to back imaging, which again some people love but I'm not bothered about. So long as the music is engaging and sounds natural, real and unforced I'm happy.

So yes, you can do better than your Spendors, but to find better you must know what you are looking for. Then you must put in the hard work listening to speakers at your dealer and then at home. 

Filipe

It sounds to me that deep down you won't be satisfied until you have better/different speakers. Nothing wrong with that.

Why not try the Spender D7 on a home dem which I found to give a sound that I much preferred to the A6Rs. In my opinion they are in a different league. You certainly have the front end to justify better speakers. 

All in one stack? At least that's how I read it.

I have 282 and CDX2 with a hicap and 250 on Fraim lite (no longer my main system). There is often advice to put the pre on top but with this combination I've tried a couple of times in two different rooms and always prefer the CDX2 above the 282 finding the alternative rather harsh, this is however without an outboard DAC so the optimum may well be different for you but it could be worth a bit of box juggling to find out what you prefer. This arrangement didn't work for a 552 below the CDX2 when the other way round was best (a nearby 500ps may have caused this however).

Cables should hang unrestrained and preferably not touching or parallel (there are exceptions to the latter e.g. the Snaics from the supercap). AC power cables should never touch the rack or signal cables nor preferably the speaker cable the wall or the speaker apart from the terminals.

Is the DAC set to floating or ground and have you tried the other setting?

Leave the 250 at the bottom but the XPS and SC can be swapped to get the best cable runs.

Are the sockets wired in a chain? There are different opinions on plug order if they are. I find the CD player (which provids the signal ground in my system) nearest the power feed with the other source, pre and then the power, psc (when present) and the TT ps put the music together best, reversing the power amp pre and source order gave more impressive separation but the overall musical coherence suffered.

In none of my assessments were on the basis of sound stage by the way, communication, especially of emotion, is what I'm after first.

If your room layout allows, have you tried having the speakers firing down the length of the room rather than across  ?   This change paid big dividends for me in a similarly sized room.  https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...o-they-sound-so-good

Thanks to HH and DD. Accurate spatial placement is less important to me than being able to differentiate instruments/voices should I choose to concentrate on specific ones. Talking to musicians I grasp that they do this when performing from within. I like the nuances of a performance which can make a performance more engaging.

One of the reasons for making my first post was that I followed a recent thread when someone wanted to use a PMC Fact.12 with a Uniti. Many of the responses warned against it on the grounds that the poor sensitivity of the speaker required more oomph than the Uniti provides. I tried PMC twenty.23 before deciding on A6Rs when I was buying the Uniti I later returned. The PMC lacked something compared to the A6R in the demo room, but it might have been the limitation of the Uniti 2 rather than the speakers. Hence, might it be better to choose speakers based on minimum sensitivity (90db for 80W RMS PowerAmplifier say) with some allowance made for loud music being played so as to avoid damage by clipping or bass overload.

My dealer has suggested D7s, so DD's suggestion is fine. Do I forget about the PMC Twenty.26 on grounds of sensitivity and maybe the Fact.12, but not the Fact.8? Has anyone tried a D9? Quite agree that preference comes into it so I will have to listen. Any other suggestions based on my preferences?

Filipe posted:

My system consists of a 282 with SuperCap DR and a 250DR.

For Digital music I have a NAC plus XPS DR with a CDX2 plugged into the DAC and Unite Serve on trial while I wait to try the Core. I have a Lenovo IX2 in a RAID 1 configuration (mirror).

CDX2 cannot plug into a DAC. Instead, I would try powering the CDX2 from the XPS-DR. The output from your CDX2 would go to your NAC282. This should give you outstanding performance from CDs.

C.

Christopher_M posted:

Filipe posted:

My system consists of a 282 with SuperCap DR and a 250DR.

For Digital music I have a NAC plus XPS DR with a CDX2 plugged into the DAC and Unite Serve on trial while I wait to try the Core. I have a Lenovo IX2 in a RAID 1 configuration (mirror).

CDX2 cannot plug into a DAC. Instead, I would try powering the CDX2 from the XPS-DR. The output from your CDX2 would go to your NAC282. This should give you outstanding performance from CDs.

C.

Perhaps CDX2.2 to nDAC on digital output via DC1, Chris?