About my blind Amp purchase!!! Help

[vickey]

Dear folks,

This post is about my blind purchase and my confuse state
I purchase Creek Evolution 5350 (120x2 W) from UK (direct import) due to non-availability of any dealer in Pune or Mumbai,
though I could manage so save 14K by direct import along with 1 year int. warranty but not worth to my current confuse state

The reason behind this selection:
1) my Stock CDP is of same brand (Creek)
2) wanted more adequate power for Avita (rated 100W)
3) like its finish and read all good reviews

I pair this with Cadence Avita and my first Audition experience is really bad
The straight comparison with my Stock Amp NAD 326 bee (45x2 W)

Sound stages are not wide and warm, the bass is boomy. If volume goes little upper then 25% (little above 9 o clock) I feel Vibration in all stages. I really disappoint with this experience, may be Amp need some time to break in and even Avita too need break in as they are just 2 months old

Other details:
- Room size 13x10 with little furniture (no audio treatment)
- Seating position from speaker is 6 feet
- Source: Creek Evolution-2 CDP
- Interconnect: VDH D102 mk.3
- Speaker Cable: VDH Tea Track (bi-wire with WBT locking banana)
- Audio tracks: Hotel California, Enigma, Money for nothing and AR R

Please help me or correct me to get out of my confusion

Thanks a lot,
~Vickey

 

[Bluu]

I suggest you give it some time. All your equipment needs to burn-in to sound the best. Also, please treat your room. Add furniture, bookshelves, plants, curtains, rugs etc. There are other threads describing room treatments. While none of this guarantees that the synergy is your system will come through, it will definitely help the overall SQ.

Can you describe in more detail what you mean by "vibrations"? What kind of rack is the gear kept on?

So, burn everything in for about a 100 hours and treat your room to see if you can notice a difference.

If all else fails, sell the amp and don't buy the next one without an audition!
Cheers!

 

[hydra]

I'm just guessing here, but maybe the speakers are producing more bass than before, now that they are being fed more power. Maybe you need to pull the speakers away from the front wall (towards your listening position) a bit more, to account for this.

Other than this, I guess the character of the output of the speakers would have changed with a new component (= new amp) in the setup. You might need to revisit the speaker placement and your listening position to account for the change. The difference would probably be affecting your room more as it is slightly on the smaller side.

In any case I think you had better wait for the amp and the speakers to run in properly before taking any drastic steps.

 

[gobble]

Give it 25 hours of burn-in @low volume then check after a weekend.

--G

 

[vickey]

Can you describe in more detail what you mean by "vibrations"? What kind of rack is the gear kept on?

There is nothing physically vibrate, all sort of sound that I hear from speaker gives some sort of repulse.
CDP and Amp kept on wooden shelf which fix on the wall with strong support and floor is soft carpet

Thanks a lot,
Vickey

 

[Bluu]

I agree with Hydra. Also, I'm guessing that there is too much reflection of sound in the room at high volumes. Try a combination of speaker placement and room treatment. Let us know if you hear any differences.

 

[hifipal4all]

Even after the burn-in process if you are not happy with the sound, try to get a tube amp & test it. Generally Cadence speakers sound very good with tube amps. Your source (Creek CDP) & calbles are fine.

 

[vickey]

Thanks a lot to all HiFi members
I will follow these steps and respond after week

Vickey

 

[askii2]

I have been trying to work around boomy sound in my living room for some time. I plan to get a calibrated microphone to analyze my room response. I don't know when I'll get it though, as my US visit keeps being postponed. I'll post my analysis in this forum once I am done (could be a month or so from now).

 

[afj]

vickey, your room is small and perhaps the setup is too powerful for the room size. cut your bass and treble levels down on the amp and listen to it. or to get a better idea if you can move it into a bigger room somewhere just to audition it will be great

 

[askii2]

This would be good for finding what the problem is. However bass-treble controls are too broad frequency range based. If you reduce bass, it affects all frequencies below 1kHz.

I have already got a feel for my room acoustics by emitting a simple sine wave with frequency varying from 30Hz to 500Hz. Room resonances can be heard clearly around 100-110 and 150 Hz. Since this measurement is based on perception, I want to make an accurate measurement using a calibrated microphone before trying to fix the resonance.

In my case once I measure room acoustics, I'll most probably go for notch filters at resonance frequencies. A notch filter affects a narrow range of frequencies and leaves all other frequencies untouched. It's far more expensive than a simple bass-treble or a 7-10 band equalizer. It's more expensive than a 64 band equalizer as well. But it does the job it's supposed to do without affecting anything else.

vickey, your room is small and perhaps the setup is too powerful for the room size. cut your bass and treble levels down on the amp and listen to it. or to get a better idea if you can move it into a bigger room somewhere just to audition it will be great

 

[vickey]

vickey, your room is small and perhaps the setup is too powerful for the room size. cut your bass and treble levels down on the amp and listen to it. or to get a better idea if you can move it into a bigger room somewhere just to audition it will be great

I tried moving my setup into leaving room (18x15 feet)
this movement happen after week Amp burn in...
I tried different speaker placement e.g. 1 meter from rear wall and 3 feet from side wall. There is no difference in SQ

Planning to call Mr Cadence engineer @ my place next week

Let see, will post result after engineer visit


Vickey