Hi All

After a good few weeks of letting my CDX2/202/Napsc/150 with B&W CDM7NT combo settle down after moving and adding the 202 as an upgrade everything was sounding good at fairly low levels and I could hear how well the 202 was sounding over the 112.

I'd been listening at the low levels so I did not upset the neighbours who never go out so imagine my delight when I saw them all get in their car on saturday night. Time to listen a bit louder to see what the 202 sounds like at about 11pm on the dial....

... Well to be honest I was left a little dissapointed as the bass sounded terrible (like a wet fart as may mate put it!)
We moved the speakers slightly away from the wall, closer to the wall and it did not sound good at all. I know the 150 is the weak part of the set up but it sounded better at highter volumes with the 112

Is there anything I can do to liven things up (can't afford an upgrade as I have just bought a house and a new car) as for the money the set up has cost surely it should have a bit more sparkle than the 112/150 did.

Your help/ advice is appreciated

Steve

HI Stevie,
Usual questions:
room layout, what racks it all on, are you using the Naim cables, did you move the speakers afterthe kit swap, how long has the new stuff been switched on?/ etc

andy c!

To get this straight you moved house at the same time as changing to the NAC202 and this is the first time you've let it rip since moving in? If so I don't think you're comparing like with like when you compare the 202/150 with the 112/150 as the environment has changed completely. The problem you are experiencing is almost certainly not due to the 202 but due to differences in environment such as mains quality, room size, room layout, furnishings, etc... Ultimately you may find that your speakers just don't work as well in your new room as they did in the old one.

Hi

I have the Quadraspire Q4 ref which is all set up correctly and is level. I also use the naca5 (4.5m per run which is facing the right direction and I'm using the naim interconnects.

I had let rip in the new house with the 112 in place and I have just switched the two amps over on the rack so I have not moved anything else speaker wise so I don't think room environment changes are this issue with this.

The 202 has been powered up for about 4 weeks or so and I can hear how this has improved at low levels. I noticed the bass clarity when I turned it up and whilst playing Moby Extreme ways and the bass was flat. Even changing the tracks/ CD's did not help.

Steve

OK - my interpretation of your first post was not correct then! If you are comparing like with like then the only thing I can suggest is the 202 needs more time to burn in. Otherwise I'm stumped as the 202 should be performing much better than the 112 under the same set of circumstances.

Hi Steve

We all know that a 202 should murder a 112. What might be happening here is that the increased bandwidth and information retrieval of the 202 is opening the window too wide for inferior room acoustics?

In a nutshell; the 202 is probably producing a more powerful sound (particularly bass energy) which the room is struggling to deal with.

It is my experience that it can take several months of experimentation to wring a good sound out of a newly acquired listening room.

Is the room sparsely furnished? - that won't help.

Good luck.

Interesting

I bought a 202/200/CDX2/BW705 earlier this year and added HiCap to 202 and XPS2 to the CDX2.

I have had similar problems with boomy bass.

See my remarks on B&W N802 thread and "easy peasy, free tweaks that work" regarding B&W comments and speaker positioning in room.

A pain to sort these out but worth it when it's done.

Regards
Mark

Do you have a suspended wooden floor?

If so, then I may have been through pretty much the same when I upgraded my speakers to ones delivering a lot stronger base. This extra base energy was coming back throught the floor and the rack to (mainly) the CDP.

The ultimate solutions were a) a better rack and b) putting the speakers on concrete paving slabs. The rack was by far the biggest improvement but that may be partly because I did it first.

Even before the new rack I tried a set of bearing isolators on the previous rack (Tripod) and they did wonders - worth playing with if you can find a set. I now use them on the new rack as well.

Steve

Hi Steve

I don't have a suspended wooden floor and the rack is of a high standard aswell so I don't think buying a new rack would solve the problem.

I could possibly entertain the idea of paving slabs as the speakers are currently sitting on 10ps. I am currently have a couple of spare slabs at the moment so, again this may be worth a try.

I have seen somewhere that the speakers need to be 60 cm from the back wall . 60 cm is a bit unreasonable in my front room so I may try to move them out as far as reasonably possible and see where that leaves me.

Steve

Steve, thats the beauty with Naim-speakers...they are made to against the wall...very wife-friendly!

Jonas

Hi stevie d

I was told by another forum member to do this with my B&W 705s (at least 60cm from wall to back of speaker). I don't know the CDM7NT.

As I said on the N802 thread, too close to the wall for 705s "squashes" the depth of the image and also increases the bass. I don't like the sound of them with the supplied foam bungs at all.

You have to experiment a bit by changing the room around. Not a lot of fun I must admit.

A compromise was reached where the sound was much more even in my room. Including location of listener.

60cm off the wall is a pain and my wife moans about this, but it is nearly workable in our room.

I wonder what speakers like the SL2's sound like, where you can place them up against the wall out of the way. I'll guess I will find out with a home demo soon. However, you have to make sure you can find a big enough wall where nothing goes in between them. This is better for me than 60cm off the wall.

Anyway I hope you find satisfaction with the system and you manage to find those speaker positions that minimise the bass problem.

Regards
Mark

[This message was edited by mtuttleb on Thu 23 September 2004 at 11:49.]

Are there any other speakers that are made to be put near the wall, as a matter of interest?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jonas Olofsson:
Steve, thats the beauty with Naim-speakers...they are made to against the wall...very wife-friendly!

---

Except Ariva.

They sound better away from the rear wall.

Steve

I just replaced my cr%&py old HiFi furniture that houses all the equipment with 2 phonosophie 5F with "control boards" and this has added another significant improvement. Afraid that I underestimated the effects of a good rack for too long . You should be OK here though.

Next week I will get dedicated mains spurs with 10mm2 cable (one for power amp, one for the rest) and my lingo 2 on the domestic ring. This I expect to transform things further. Maybe you should consider this as well as experimenting different room positions. You may then be able to get the speakers closer to the wall.

Regards
Mark

Respect, Mark, you're moving with the speed of light. Wait until you've heard the CDS3...

Best regards, freundliche Grüße

Stefan