Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Rear ports of M60

My AVR does have room compensation but I'm trying to run as "analog" as possible. For my 2 channel music I'm bringing my flacs and some of them are 96k high resolution out via usb to my M-Audio Transit to keep them from being downsampled into my DACMagic and then analog out into a preamp with no tone contrlols to my amplifier.

I think Randy nailed it with a simple rug and a few extra throw pillows. "Furnished" means enormously different things in terms of acoustics if your choices run towards Ikea or Ethan Allen.

It could also be that your amp is straining at those higher volume levels, what amp are you using to drive the M60s?

A few forum members have had success with using separate amps when trying to listen at high volume levels as there amps/avr's were straining abit to reach those sound levels. The extra power cleaned up the sound for them.

we just got tile installed in the living room, which opens into the kitchen that is also tile. Thats about 800sqish of tile i think... we have 1 5X6 rug in the living room, about 5 feet from the speakers. it worked out great... i didn't notice the my M60's becoming to bright, i was kind of worried about this, but the rug and the other furniture in the room seem to be doing the trick.


I have an all analog system as well. Krell processor, and Krell amps.. 250W at 8ohm 500W at 4ohm.

I would think if anything the introduction of a hard floor surface would mean the room would be louder....?

Bobby, as the other replies have indicated, plugging one of the ports affects the bass, but has nothing to do with your situation. You have the means to at least partially correct the problem, but you appear to be handcuffed by a "purist" dogma which doesn't reflect the reality that source material, rooms and speakers are imperfect, but can be improved by processing.

I never use any type of "direct" mode; I want to use the processing features that I bought my receiver for. For example, the "Audyssey" (not the "Flat")equalization curve has a gentle treble roll-off, amounting to about 4dB at 16KHz which helps on material which has excessive treble content. Applying a 3-4dB treble cut with the tone control might help if you can overcome your reluctance to use the features that are designed to help you.

I use an Emotiva RPA-2 amp rated at 200W into 8 Ohms and 350 into 4 Ohms so it's not a problem with not enough power I don't believe. I drive my FL and FR with the RPA-2 and my center with a UPA-1 into a 4 Ohm load. I felt I was missing something using my Denon 3808 as a pre so I purchased a preamp. I was right, the preamp at about 9 O'clock is louder than the denon at half volume. The line out for the preamp is around 9 volts and the receiver is around 1.2 volts. It seems many of the avr's preouts run between 1 and 2 volts, at least that is what I was told on a different forum.

Well, I'm not going to go as hard line as John, but I would recommend you try the equalization. What do you have to lose? You can always go back to the pure direct route if you find you prefer that sound.

I'd also try playing with the placement--an inch or two this way or that can make a surprising difference.

That is my understanding as well, the preouts on many AVR's is truly low voltage, but with that much voltage out of the pre/pro maybe it is the problem? The fact the Denon would need to be at over half volume for the same output out of the amp is just due to the fact the input voltage is lower and I highly doubt you were missing anything, the signal quality was most likely not any less just a lower voltage. Maybe try the Denon back in the equation if you can.

I think the 9 volts is more like a headroom thing. You might be playing along at .5 to 1 volt and then the music demands more where you can swing to 7 or 8 volts. By having that ability you get everything in the music. I think that the low voltage receivers may be losing some of the detail by not being able to produce the needed voltage. Here is a quote from a review on my preamp pertaining to the 9 volts:

Home Theater HiFi

"The fact that it will output (a.k.a., "swing") 9 volts is important, because you might be using 0.5 volt on average, but along come those darn transients, and "boom", you need the ability to raise that output voltage significantly for a very short time. The USP-1 can do.

Edmond,

Be very careful about not overloading the input section of your power amplifier -- a 9-volt preamp output could easily overload the input section of many power amplifiers. It could well be the source of some of the distortion you are hearing.

There is a reason that the pre-out levels (which do vary somewhat from one receiver manufacturer to another) are kept to a couple of volts, because most power amplifiers are spec'd to be driven to full output by a few volts. Check with Emotiva to see what input voltage your power amp can handle before the input stage starts going into distortion.

Does your Emotiva power amp have input level controls that would let you "tame" the input level from the preamp?

Regards,
Alan