Atc Scm 11 substitution

The toe-in recommended by the manufacturers is 30 degrees, i.e. they should be pointing straight at you. The acoustic axis is between the teeter and midrange unit and ideally you want this at ear height. That is how the speakers are designed. See pages 6 and 7 of the manual. I would strongly suggest you start there! 

Just a short call. I borrowed Naim V1 Dac. I did some comparing to Squeeze. I can not exactly  describe the difference, but there is. Music is more controled, more detailed and somehow softer to my ears. I listened to Place to bury stranger, which is high pitched noise rock, Sepultur Roots, Nils Petter Molvær and his Recoill, slovenian ban Laibach (you must check that band) songs that feel most uncomfortable. Not 100 percent okey, but I am dancing

Not dancing at the Naim price.

Sun King posted:

Just a short call. I borrowed Naim V1 Dac. I did some comparing to Squeeze. I can not exactly  describe the difference, but there is. Music is more controled, more detailed and somehow softer to my ears. I listened to Place to bury stranger, which is high pitched noise rock, Sepultur Roots, Nils Petter Molvær and his Recoill, slovenian ban Laibach (you must check that band) songs that feel most uncomfortable. Not 100 percent okey, but I am dancing

Not dancing at the Naim price.

 

 

Good chance another decent DAC might work too, then. Mojo is the obvious one, quite a bit cheaper than V1 - if you haven't already check out what others have said about it on this forum.

The Mojo is wonderful, simply wonderful.

Simon, Huge and all of you - thank you for your detailed suggestions. A lot of experimentation, but I will hopefully come to the pleasent sound. As I said, I am still under the influence of Naim Dac improvement. I will continue with listening today. One rookie question for Simon - how to manually attach the mains safety earth to the grounds?

I assume you don't have a Naim CDP as these always earth grounded... so even if you don't use it, just connecting to your Naim amp will help.

An alternate is to connect a wire to the top safety earth pin on a UK 3 pin 13 Amp plug... there is sometimes a small hole in the plug case for this... you then want to connect this wire to the outer connector of one of the signal out phono plugs on your SBT. Sometimes some mains Hi-Fi extension leads have a ground binding post for this purpose so you don't need to connect directly to the plug. Only attempt this of course if this makes sense to you and you understand what you are doing.    some vendors have FAQs for this ... 

If connecting v1 you shouldn't have to worry about it as isn't v1 earth grounded? For best result connect your player/streamer to USB input of v1.

are you using naim nac a5 speaker cable over 3.5m? That was a good suggestion.

Hellowen man, I am using Audioquest Type 4 cables.

Simon, that sound like sci-fi ... I will follow your advice. Thank you for the explanation.

I made a decision to buy a DAC.  Now, I have a chance to listen to V1 Naim dac. It sounds good. Many sugest Chord Mojo, or 2Qute. I don't have a chance to demo since we dont have a dealer. Are they realy so much better then Naim dac? I would like a bit of warmer sound. 

I am now in first week with V1 dac connected to Sqeez Touch. Since the first possitive immpression, I am not sure what am I hearing anymore. I connected dac via optical cable to CD input in the amp and use analogue Sqeeze output to tuner input on the Nait 5si (this would, as I think, bypass Dac). I listened to a lot of music and chance outputs often, wven turn the dac off. I can hardly tell any difference in the sound. So minor changes in the high tones, but basicly the difference is so small for such a price difference. Am i doing something wrong or ...???

Assuming that the only components in the system are SBT, DAC V1, Nait 5si & speakers, then have you set the signal ground switch on the DAC V1 to 'Chassis'.  If not please try that.

Have you tried connecting the SBT to the DAC V1 via optical without having the analogue connection from the SBT to the amplifier as well?
(Just not selecting the analogue input on the amp isn't enough.)

If you can't easily tell the difference between the DAC in the SBT and a Naim DAC V1, then there's something very wrong somewhere.  The DAV V1 won't alter the overall frequency balance at all, but you should get a much more refined sound.  If you still have frequency balance issues then there's a problem with the room acoustics or the position of the speakers in the room or the interaction between the speakers and the stands.

You have checked Jon's point about the speakers being in phase haven't you - that's very important.

I own the SCM11s and I don't find them harsh or fatiguing at all. I would emphasise that they're rather neutral speakers, so faults inherent to recordings and mixes will pretty much be evident. Give them really poor harsh recordings and that's what you'll get,

I'd fiddle with positioning/room acoustics before spending more money on electronics and/or speakers. Other people already made very sensible suggestions regarding absorption. Perhaps you can try your system in another (less reverberant) room and see what happens.

I don't know how loud you like to listen to music, but those speakers require a bit of juice (ATC recommends 75-300W amp). I drove mine temporarily with a NAP 155XS and I'd say 60W is really the minimum power you can drive them with. I never heard them in tandem with the aforementioned Creek, but I fail to see how can those speakers be better driven with a less powerful amp...

I'm begining to think Jon may be right, remember Naim speaker cable sockets are mirrored with the negatives (black) nearest each other and to add to the confusion the left is on the right and vice versa, unless you're looking at the back of the amp.

Hi.

I checked my connections. Red goes to red, black goes to neutral (gold) at speakers. This should be fine.

As far as dac goes, still do no know. Now i am disconecting dac, connecting Squezze. 

Hate this. I tought that journy from kef apeakers with rotel amp will be a great one, now with, for me, expensive hi fi, which I saved money for a long time, gives me more questions and not the sound that i would like to hear. 

Keep going, it's probably something simple.

It's hard for us to work it out based solely on description (and not hearing the system or the room) as there are so many different ways to describe the same problem add to that that the same word can be used by different people to describe different problems and confusion results.  But that doesn't mean we're going to give up and neither should you.

The system sounded good to you at the dealers, so it CAN sound good to you at home, we just have to find out what the difference is.  (OK 'just' is putting a simple spin on it, but clearly the problems are related to the differences between the equipment set up in your room and the equipment being set up in the dealer's room).

Right, by substituting the Naim DAC V1 for the DAC in the SBT (you have disconnected the analogue phono connection from the SBT and set the 'Ground' switch on the DAC V1 to 'Chassis' haven't you), you've eliminated the source as the main problem.  If the problem occurs all the time and doesn't vary in its manifestation, the problem is unlikely to be your mains supply; so...

We can now concentrate on how the speakers are mounted, where they are in the room, and the room acoustics. 

Perhaps a picture might help. 

Here are some photos.

Huge, thank you for support and guidance.

And yes, listening again - there is some subtle gentlenes in the music when listened trough dac. But it so, well, hard to describe, etheric.

https://ibb.co/fmoYza

https://ibb.co/dkH45F

https://ibb.co/kM3Nsv

https://ibb.co/fUkwKa

By the way, I change big rubber buttons, which you cen see on the first picture on the right side siting on the tv deck, with some sort of blue tack. Even listened without. Without was more boomy. More undefined low frequencies.

Are the connection correct on the amp?

Assuming they are th speaker in the corner can't be helping, nothing quite like a corner to boost bass but you look rether constrained by the room layout.

I'm certainly not as learned on room acoustics as many on here but the left speaker appears to be way too close to the side wall. This may be causing increased HF reflection and maybe a big part of the problem along with the rear wall. Some absorption behind your listening position may help. (I have been trying to learn a little on the subject lol) 

Have you tried experimenting with speaker position in your room. It may be worth moving them around even into positions where you do not intend to have them permenantly. That way if you can at least partly improve the issue you will know if it is the room and placement that is the issue. I have had my speakers all over the room to try and work out the best position and had some great advice from forum members. Small changes can make a big difference. 

Finally would your dealer be prepared pay you a visit and offer some practical advice and tips. You have paid him good money and are obviously struggling to resolve things. It is worth asking. If he is a good dealer he should be happy do this in my opinion. 

Huge, yes, I set dat to chaissis.

Stuart and Yeti, as far as I am informed, close box speakers can easily work near the wall or in the corner. Well, I may be wrong. 

But it is not the bass that is a problem, harsh high tones (or harshnes in gener) is. I try to move them around with very little effect. But this was one year ago, maybe i should tty doing it again. 

My dealer would try to sell me some more staff ... 

Huge, powers? You mean ups and downs in the electricity powering my sistem? Well, there was momemnts when my naim hums a bit. Not the speakers, the amp. Maybe

 Right now I am listening to Metallica's My apocalypse. Sound metter on my phone (I know, not accurate) says that loudness is around 80 db. Not harsh at all, but not quite at ease. Listenable.going trough dac.

How's the volume knob at 80db? 10, 11, 12 o clock?

Pedro, it depend with dac. It is acting as a preamp and I have to regulate both volumes. In general, I almost never get pass 12. Usually I am at somewhere around 10 to 11. Okay, with beer beside it can get louder

Are any of your cables touching the shelves, particularly the power cables? My CDX2 sounded rather ringing and harsh on some music when its power lead rested on the shelf. Push the boxes back until they don't.

Hi, a few comments...

There are two minor points...

Atacama Nexus 6 speaker stands aren't really good enough to match the ATCs; but that's not a major problem.  However it sill may be worth changing the fill, either filling them with dry sand or removing it if they are currently filled.

The other minor point: The edges of the television will also be causing a small effect by acting as diffusers.

However there are two things that really stand out...

First with the left speaker that close to the wall you don't want the speakers pointing straight down the room as too much of the HF will reflect off the wall giving a perceived HF boost.  Instead try turning the speakers in so that the speaker axis crosses about 10° or maybe even 20° in front of the listening position.  This is unconventional but can help considerably with over bright rooms.

Secondly in a close listening position like that, the back wall behind you also needs to have some HF absorption as you'll get reflections back to your ears, particularly with the bookcase in close proximity creating a corner reflector.

Stuart and Yeti, as far as I am informed, close box speakers can easily work near the wall or in the corner. Well, I may be wrong

Hi Sun King I may be wrong too but I think sealed boxes are much better for front wall placement. But being good very close to a side wall and firing HF into the corner close to where you listen may not allow for HF dispersion and give perceived harshness. (somebody correct me if I'm wrong please) 

I don't know about the DAC but the 5si alone at 11 o clock must be close to full power...