Rock music sounds bland

Posted by: Gasilver on 11 February 2018

Please help me- I feel I’m going a little mad and need some reassurance/advice!

Im now a proud owner of an RP10 with Apheta hooked up to a Rega Aria phonostage, Nac 202, Nap 200 through PMC OB1’s. I upgraded from my Planar 2 after auditioning the RP10 with a similar system at my dealers’.

My dealer set up the RP10 at home and checked over the rest of my system. I’m generally blown away with the dynamics and musicality of most of my record collection- clearly more involving than my bare CDX2.

I didn’t listen to any “heavy stuff” either at the audition or when the dealer set the system up. I was really expecting that Led Zep, Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon, kasabian etc would pull me in and excite me - this has always been a problem I have found when listening to the CDX2 in my system.

However I am left feeling disappointed with these albums on the RP10- they sound so bland and I can’t quite believe I’m getting such contrasting results I understand the importance of getting good vinyl recordings/pressings but I don’t think this is the reason for my problems.

On the assumption that my source and speakers are good enough to achieve the results I am after, do you think an upgrade on the pre and/ or the power amps will do the trick? Does anyone recognise this problem and has anyone been through this anxiety and come out the other end happy? Any thoughts gratefully received.

Posted on: 13 February 2018 by Huge

Innocent Bystander posted:
LarsDK posted:
Would really take James N advice, pmc are 87db and 6ohm so not easy load and 200 not most powerful amp.
i noticed same with esp complex rock when undergunning on power vs speaker, and with more power and easy speaker its all punchy.
easy to test by demo of 250.2..
br Lars
How on earth do sensitivity (which is pretty average) and a rated impedance which happens to be that for which most amps are rated, imply anything about how difficult a load the speakers are? What matters are things like the minimum impedance and perhaps cabinet damping of cone movement.

Correct.

Posted on: 13 February 2018 by Gasilver

So big revelation! Swapped out my Nordost Blue Heavens connected to the aux2 RCA’s to a Chord RCA to Din, now connected to the tuner input........ and wow!!!! Foo Fighters drums have punch and dynamics and Jimmy Pages guitar has real twang and vibrancy.

I’m going to look into upgrading pre and power, but for the moment this is sounding fantastic and in no way bland!! There is a heaven- but not Nordosts version!!

Also happy to report to anyone interested that the Led Zep iii remaster is rather good and Sonic Highways on vinyl is superb and smokes the Cd - must tell Michael Fremer!!

Thnks again for all the input.

Posted on: 14 February 2018 by Richard Dane

Gasilver - that's good news. I'm pleased you decided to change the Blue Heaven for a Chord RCA to DIN. I was pretty certain that would make a positive difference for you. Enjoy!

Posted on: 14 February 2018 by TOBYJUG

Gasilver posted:
So big revelation! Swapped out my Nordost Blue Heavens connected to the aux2 RCA’s to a Chord RCA to Din, now connected to the tuner input........ and wow!!!! Foo Fighters drums have punch and dynamics and Jimmy Pages guitar has real twang and vibrancy.
I’m going to look into upgrading pre and power, but for the moment this is sounding fantastic and in no way bland!! There is a heaven- but not Nordosts version!!
Also happy to report to anyone interested that the Led Zep iii remaster is rather good and Sonic Highways on vinyl is superb and smokes the Cd - must tell Michael Fremer!!
Thnks again for all the input.

Were those Blue Heavens the origanal ones with the flat cables ? Or the later with the usual round section cabling ?

Like you I found the flat ones flat sounding. They were intended as speaker cables but Nordost used them as interconnects, just wired to RCA connectors, so not optimised really for the job. Later versions and the Blue Heaven 2 are a lot better.

Posted on: 18 February 2018 by Phabh

I had the 202/200DR prior to upgrading to the N272/250Dr and now B&W 702 S2's.

What I found with the 202 was that the Napsc made a noticeable difference (you can pick NAPSC's up second hand quite easily).

Prior to the N272 I was using a Stageline for my phono stage which was excellent but I could not justify the £1000 price tag for a power supply given that the N272 would not power it.

In the end I auditioned a number of Phono stages and ended up with a Graham Slee Reflex which is excellent with my Michell Gyro dec Se.

With regard to speakers, if you are considering changing them check out the new B&W 700 series of speakers. The NAP200 should be able to power the 704 or 703 S2's. I auditioned lots of speakers including PMC/Kudos/Proac/ATC/Neat/Scansonic etc and nothing touched the 702 S2's for the money.

Where I auditioned the 702's I was also lucky enough to hear the PMC MB2-XBD ACTIVE SYSTEM a snip at £75k, and although you cannot compare the B&W's with these PMC's the realism from the B&W's is not 20x less than the PMC's. Don't get me wrong the PMC's sounded like you were in the front row of a concert with Jim Kerr (Simple Minds) right in front of you, which was a bit eerie. The B&W's are very articulate and have some punch have an excellent soundstage and are a lot easier on the ears...and the brain for listening to for a long time.

I found the PMC's and the Proac's lacked punch/presence and bass at this price point.