Its living room ~ 16*10
Upgrade Wharfedale speakers
- Thread starter Shafiqak
- Start date
reignofchaos
Well-Known Member
Pull those speakers up in the room. Up against the wall like that, they will sound really muddy. That is your bottleneck before component changes.
sachinchavan 15865
Well-Known Member
Your speakers are almost pinned to the front wall. It seems from the pictures that there’s probably just 5-10 cm between the speakers and the wall. This can produce a boomy bass overpowering the mids. Increase this distance to about a foot and see if the mids and highs improve. They should. Don’t pull the speakers too much away from the wall (like 2-3 feet) as these speakers need wall reinforcement to get the weight in the sound. Another thing you could do (if your amp has the provision) is to biwire the speakers (can’t make out from the pics if you’ve already biwired). It arguably improves the higher frequencies a bit as compared to using the bridge.
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If u are missing mids & treble, first keep speaker 2-3 feets away from walls, add sound absorption materials adjacent to speakers at first reflection points. To enhance mids & treble, you needs to use low gauge wire preferable 16 awg or higher, u can try tinned copper wires. Norge may also be responsible for low mid/highs. U also need to upgrade source, try using a Dedicated audio cd player with an inbuilt DAC. If still this doesn't helps, try upgrading high pass capacitor joined to tweeter in crossover, try using hentzen evo oil capacitor.Sure will try the cables first.. Not an expert to explain the issues, I feel it miss mid frequency and punch of high. Like a bit distorted when listening close..
Moving speakers approx 20 cm away from the wall improved things a bit. I will trim the extra length of cables as well..
Amp doesn't have biwiring option, only speaker has.
sachinchavan 15865
Well-Known Member
. Keep some slack in the cables for future experimentation with speaker placement.Speakers don’t have a wattage, The specs for these speakers say compatibility with 25-100W amps. That doesn’t mean you need 100W amp. A 60Wx2 amp can be sufficient, even a good quality 45Wx2 amp may suffice. But as some others have said, there might not be a need to change your current amp.
Try upgrading the speaker cables for further improvement. Will cost far less than upgrading your amp. Belden cables are both affordable and well-regarded. You could even try borrowing better cables from someone in your city to check the improvement first.
Consider investing in an entry level DAC. The Chromecast audio can be connected via optical to it. That should bring in another quantum of improvement in sound.
thank you so much.. Belden speaker cable, DAC with optical in and a 3.5mm to RCA cable are in the cart for now.. Will have these tried and update here..
Speakers don’t have a wattage, The specs for these speakers say compatibility with 25-100W amps. That doesn’t mean you need 100W amp. A 60Wx2 amp can be sufficient, even a good quality 45Wx2 amp may suffice. But as some others have said, there might not be a need to change your current amp.
Try upgrading the speaker cables for further improvement. Will cost far less than upgrading your amp. Belden cables are both affordable and well-regarded. You could even try borrowing better cables from someone in your city to check the improvement first.
Consider investing in an entry level DAC. The Chromecast audio can be connected via optical to it. That should bring in another quantum of improvement in sound.
what gauge is better, 12/14/16? currently its 14 on the system
Belden 8477 is surprisingly good cable, its 12 awg tin coated copper. You may buy an entry level DAC like topping E30/50 or the likes of schiit modi or Ifi Zen. Don't use headphone out to feed into amp, should use proper RCA cable from some good brands.
thank you
Shammi Dang
Active Member
All I see from the attached pics that you are loosing on the mids and treble because of the placement (most probable cause), bass is more enhanced. Even though the speakers are down ported then also the speakers are too close to the wall. Right side speaker is just touching the side wall and the back wall distance is also less, 8 to 10 inches will be decent. From the looks it seems that at this particular location you do not have space to move and adjust the speakers. Try moving speakers to a different location which is more open and has more provision to play around with distance placement just for experimentation and see the result.
Yogesh
Well-Known Member
Try adding a decent DAC to your system first. DAC in CCA is way inadequate for your other gears.
Even a starting range DAC like Schiit Modi, Topping E30, iFi Zen DAC etc would make a gigantic difference.
Even a starting range DAC like Schiit Modi, Topping E30, iFi Zen DAC etc would make a gigantic difference.
sachinchavan 15865
Well-Known Member
I agree. Since you can’t biwire, go for Belden 8477 (12 awg) for fuller sound. If someone were to biwire, I’d suggest 8477 for the lower and 8471 (16 awg) for the upper.
moved whole unit ~20 cm left and forward.. it made quite better..
You should use Belden 8471 to have better mids/treble. 8477 shall make it overpower bass. Instead use Transperent Speaker cables. Make RCA as short as possible according to your convience or try to rectify RCA. You shall hear biggest difference by capacitor upgrade (1500₹ only). If u have turntable, connect it or get it loaned and try it with your speakers.
sachinchavan 15865
Well-Known Member
If we go by the theory that cables don’t add sound (don’t amplify any frequency), but only take it away (attenuate certain frequencies), then won’t using 8471 instead of 8477 lead to weaker bass reproduction? Is a 16 awg enough to transmit the current needed for a standard size BS woofer? 8471, by attenuating the LF, might give the impression of a leaner/faster bass, but in reality just weaken it, thereby reducing the emotional effect of the music.
Boominess has to be rightly managed by reducing the undesirable reflections, not attenuating LF. And beyond what’s practically possible for a speaker-room combination, lived with.
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reignofchaos
Well-Known Member
Won't help - you need to move it at least 1.5-2 feet from the walls.
We have to read electrical properties of same cable in different gauges or we can ask ourselves why different gauges of same wires are made in worlds, just they have different current carrying capacity. The concerned speaker talked here don't have much current requirement at lower levels. Higher gauge wires have higher resistance at lower volumes hence thinner wires are preferred for low wattage/current speakers. His main issue is loss of mids/treble & that's why solution was suggested.
Best cable in the world is NO CABLE means lesser length is better. That's why issue can be diagnosed if he connects 1-2 feet length speaker wire by moving speaker nearest to amp.
Anybody suggestion would take granted room is almost dead which is users requirement to do it.
And about boominess, he haven't yet talked about it that's why boominess not discussed
So I ended up buying Fiio BTA 30 pro with DAC IC cables and removed polk audio sub from the chain.. Speaker cable yet to change but I reduced length to 2m.
The improvement is really awesome.
Thank you everyone for suggestions
The improvement is really awesome.
Thank you everyone for suggestions
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Added Q 3050i and Marantz nr1200, bought in a package deal. For some reason I like my existing Norge with Q3050i moree than NR1200!. I am using Fiio DAC in both combination. Am I missing something or its like that due to more power on Norge ?
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