Help with setting up system.

Hey Steve

If you give us a description of the exact music making components we are talking about here you will be flooded with tips and tweaks.

First one to mention Mains Spurs, speaker cable lengths, grey vs black SNAICS and Hydra's is "IT" !!!!!

regards
GEOFF

Steve,

The key appears to be isolation of each part of the system.

The "old chestnuts" that I have tried with success appear to be:

1. Keep poweramps and power supplies as far away as poss from preamps and source equipment.

2. Try half cut squash balls under your CD Player (not CDS and suspended type players however) and preamp to aid isolation. Your turntable will probably need a proprietary isolation platform so stability is maintained.

3. Try to ensure that other household electrical items are not near the equipment.

4. Try to separate out power cables and signal cables from each other (this is not easy I have tried it). This idea is to try not to have each cable touching.

5. Make sure that your equipment rack is not positioned within a corner. I have moved my rack around my room and found that the sound does change when in different positions.

6. Make sure that all the connections on your system are clean. I do this by wiping all the contact areas with a clean cotton cloth and then plug/unplug the connection a few times. This needs to be done every 6-12 months.

7. Make sure that the drive units in your speakers are tightened to the manufacturers recommendations. Some need to be tight others a little looser so please check which your speakers need first.

The above are low cost / free to try. Other tweeks will also be recommended by others but will usually involve buying something.

Hope the above helps (I suspect you will already know most of it anyway).

Regards

Geoff,
When I list my kit you're going to wonder why I asked the question in the first place. I think it's a pretty decent set up and you'll probably wonder why I don't know a whole lot more about the dark arts of hifi set-up. Truth is until recently, when I upgraded to this level, I was happy enough plugging it all in and just listening. The only piece of kit I've gone to great lengths over previously being the turntable.

Anyway, the equipment in question is as follows:

CDS3 (and obviously XPS2)
Roksan Xerxes - Tabriz zi - ATOC9 - Stageline
NAT 05
NAC 282 - NAP 250 - HiCap - Napsc
Kef Reference One-Two Speakers on the end of 3.5 metre runs of NACA5
Music Works 6 way adapter
The floor is concrete and carpeted.

Don't get me wrong - I think it sounds great. It's just that from reading the postings I get the feeling you guys put in much more effort than I do in getting the set-up right.

My only restrictions will be that I can't have bits of kit strewn all around the room, they'll have to stay in the rack, and that I'm now pretty much spent up.

Regards.
Steve.

PS
Thanks Chris M.
I'm familiar with most of that. Maybe I'm not as dumb as I thought.
I just look it.
PPs
I'm gonna get slaughtered for that now I think.

quote:

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Originally posted by ChrisM:
Steve,

The key appears to be isolation of each part of the system.

The "old chestnuts" that I have tried with success appear to be:

1. Keep poweramps and power supplies as far away as poss from preamps and source equipment.

2. Try half cut squash balls under your CD Player (not CDS and suspended type players however) and preamp to aid isolation. Your turntable will probably need a proprietary isolation platform so stability is maintained.

3. Try to ensure that other household electrical items are not near the equipment.

4. Try to separate out power cables and signal cables from each other (this is not easy I have tried it). This idea is to try not to have each cable touching.

5. Make sure that your equipment rack is not positioned within a corner. I have moved my rack around my room and found that the sound does change when in different positions.

6. Make sure that all the connections on your system are clean. I do this by wiping all the contact areas with a clean cotton cloth and then plug/unplug the connection a few times. This needs to be done every 6-12 months.

7. Make sure that the drive units in your speakers are tightened to the manufacturers recommendations. Some need to be tight others a little looser so please check which your speakers need first.

The above are low cost / free to try. Other tweeks will also be recommended by others but will usually involve buying something.

Hope the above helps (I suspect you will already know most of it anyway).

Regards

---

agree with most of that but for the life of me I can't understand why corner placement of the rack (like mine) is a no-no.

I'm all ears......

red

My rack's in the corner of the room and music does sound different when I'm stood next to the rack probably because it's in an alcove, but surely not because the rack's there....

WOW Steve, as you say that lot must sound pretty good.

I can offer the following if it's any help

Another area to consider is the so called "room/speaker interface". You may already have your speakesr just where they ought to be for your room dimensions and furniture in which case great.

If this is something you have not done, try moving them around to see how the sound changes at your listening position. Quite small position changes can affect the sound, especially in the bass frequency regions.

GEOFF