Quote:
Originally Posted by
master666ncltÂ
One thing is sure, i have listened to RS8 with very high end amps and when i get back to home i have the impression i have bookshelf speakers...
if I can ask, did you own the amps or just listen to a setup in a demo room? if I already owned them, I would have kept them & used the receiver as a prepro but that's me
if at a dealer, comparing one room to your home acoustically is about as useful as comparing apples & oranges! bass response & acoustics in 1 room has nothing on earth to do with it in another room.
response at all bass freq's is highly dependent on the room dimensions and where you sit, relative to peaks & dips in the room at any given freq. which are due to wave reinforcement & wave cancellations. if what you said is really the basis of your comparison, I hate to break the news to you but you should spend time learning about acoustics & how room dimensions effect bass response. because you are making a totally erroneous assumption that the 2 setups are equal and the only difference is the amps! I can point you to websites like realtraps.com, gikacoustics.com and you can read about nulls, room modes, etc.
bass wavelengths are very long vs. high freq's. in any given dimension, the waves will bounce off the walls, ceiling & floor & add to each other or subtract from each other at very precise distances from ea room surface. because the waves are long, the effect of these cancellations & additions is
very audible! and only a little bit of moving your listening position can make a big difference.
if your seat is in the place where there are multiple nulls, then you will perceive weak bass regardless of how much power your amp supplies! if there's a true dip or null, you could feed 1000 watts to the speakers & it wouldn't make a dam bit of difference to the volume at that freq. it's the laws of physics
the answer in that case, is move your speakers or your seat a bit to get more or less bass output @ the freq you perceive is missing...better yet is if you use measurements & test tones. no room EQ system can compensate for nulls - you move the sub, move yourself, or move your speakers. if you want to test this, just play a song with a strong bass line, and walk around your room.
OK - now to details. are you saying weak bass in Pure Direct or with MCACC calibration on?
the calibration can make a big difference. plus
how you do the calibration makes a big difference. the calibration will actually boost or cut your
preamp channel levels to reach the designed input levels to the amps, plus increase or decrease 9 freq bands, starting at 63 hz, to match a target curve. did you look at the EQ data to see what it did? did MCACC cut the front 63, 125, or 250 bands? you can manually increase them to taste (read the manual)
how you position and use the mic makes a big difference.
1. where did you place it? it should be at your listening position, placed on a boom or tripod so that it's close to where your ears would be
2. mic should be pointed directly up to the ceiling, parallel to the floor, horizontally level, not tilted in any way forwards or backwards
3. mic should have a clear line of sight to ALL the speakers, so that seat backs, etc do not obstruct or in the line of sight between the mic & speakers
4. are you in the room, near the mic, when measuring? if so, get out of the room or at least not next to the mic
the MCACC EQ does not do anything to freq's < 63 hz. but of course, any EQ'r has a Q band where a cut will also effect lower & higher freq's. you can also try turning the Standing Wave filter or Phase Control off to see if there's any difference, although usually those will help improve your bass response. they are on by default.
where is your crossover to the sub? THX recommends setting speakers to Small & using 80 hz, even with so-called full range speakers. you say you have good bass with the sub but not without...is that in Pure Direct? if so, your receiver isn't doing anything to the freq EQ. what you get is what you get off. it's possible that your room is so large that your speakers "might" perform better with larger amps but you haven't enough to come to that conclusion, IMO. you
could use the Plus sub setting with fronts set to Large, so that both the sub & fronts get full bass, but that is not usually the best recommendation.
your Monitors aren't particularly demanding, being 6 ohm rated, 40-175 watt suggested power & 91 dB efficient. certainly easier to drive than my 85 dB efficient Magnepan speakers
compared to yours, my Maggies would take over 3 X as much power to achieve the same volume as yours! ( 91 - 85 dB = 6 dB). so I have a very hard time believing the Pioneer doesn't have enough power.
did you move the speakers or your seat in the current setup? you may have just moved them into a null (bass suckout) position. did you stand up & listen several ft in front of your chair & behind it? if so, did you notice changes in the bass? did you play a test tone disc to hear which freq's are louder & which are softer?
you can see, you have many things that could be contributing to your bass response, the least of which is the receiver's power rating
if you like to listen to near reference levels (0 dB on the dial) and the receiver is running out of gas, then I would think you also would know it by harshness, raspiness indicating increased distortion or getting close to clipping & compressed dynamics, not a general perceived lack of bass at normal volumes which is freq response. Planars like Magnepans do come alive with lots more power, but your Monitors are pretty conventional speakers in design & construction and pretty efficient, too.
hope this helps your understanding. if you want to discuss further, or provide more details on your room, some of us may be able to help with some suggestions .
but if you choose to believe another amp is all you need to solve your problem...then that's your choice.
Edited by ss9001 - 4/1/13 at 12:32pm
