In reply to:
Hey Oz, how are your M60s going? Have you found a final spot to place them? Let us know your impressions now after several days from having them.
Well this Saturday morning I changed things around. I set up the 60's in the
large room which is where I'm hoping to keep them after we get renevated and the new office furniture in place. This puts the speakers flanking either side of a stacked stone fireplace. It also places the speakers right in front of two windows. Below the windows are two floor vents. Since I do not want the speakers too close to the vents they have to be about 14 to 18 inches off the wall. I was a little concerned about not getting enough bass being so far off the wall. Actually this was not the case at all. There are medium weight full length drapes on the windows. These are usually left open because our lot is very private and we like to let as much light in as possible. The speakers sit about 8.5 ft apart from each other. When the room is final I will be able to get them 10 to 11 feet apart. But I figure 10 will probably be fine. Right now I cannot achieve that because the entertainment center is in the way. Sitting about 10 ft away from the speakers I felt the sound stage was pretty good. I just would like to be able to pick up that extra foot or foot and a half. With my old HK 150 watt rms 2 channel amp driving them they are plenty loud when the dial is set about 50% or 12:00. The sound was clear and much to my surprise there was plenty of bass support even at 18 inches from the wall. The bass was full and not the least bit boomy. I tried listening both with the drapes opened and closed. I felt like I liked the sound better with them closed but that could just be what my expectation was because I can't say I was actually hearing any difference. One problem I found was if I put the amp up to 60% or around 1:00 position I got some kind of distortion. It sounded like a clacking sound. I suspect that would be from exceeding the drivers maximum excursion. I not sure about this. If anyone has any ideas I'd like to hear them.
It might have been some extreme lows in the source material I'm not sure but I quickly lowered back to 50% and the speakers sounded clear as a bell again. I do not think this was the amp clipping. I don't think that would happen at 60 or 65% but I'm new to this kind of thing. I know with the old Bose 901's I used to turn the amp up to 75 percent somtimes because they were so inefficient and I would not notice any clipping. The other thing I found strange about this is when I did my first weekend of testing in the smaller room I'm almost positive I turned the amp to that level and did not hear that clacking sound. If anyone can shed some light please do. Don't get me wrong the speakers sounded great. I can't really see going up to that level I just had to try and see. I now know what everyone meant by the fact that in a room that size I could probably go with the 80's but I think the 60's will do the job and if I should ever decide to add a sub I think the sound will be killer. I could go with the 80's just to have a little more head room, but right now I'm leaning towards keeping the 60's. I really like the way they look better than the 80's anyway.(irrational I know)
I tested plenty of classical this weekend I was especially blown away by the CD "Message" by Peteris Vasks
also
some Trad. jazz
accoustic, folk, reggae and of course plenty of rock
Oh did I mention I didn't get much else done this weekend
