BigBee
Established Member
Hi.
After a bit of advice if possible.
We moved house September last year from an end terrace to a detached bungalow. Stereo sounded great at the old house, NAD352 amp, NAD CD player and Monitor Audio silver six speakers (all three components are about 13-14 years old). Room the stereo was in was a bad shape as far as listening environments go, nothing like square with lots of nooks / windows and had a wooden floor with a disused cellar underneath - so lots of empty space under the floor. Got to the new house, much squarer room with a carpeted wooden floor but the stereo sounded lacking in power - it's a much bigger room.
We trotted off down to our local Sevenoaks December last year and demoed a few amps and settled on an Arcam A39 (it was reduced). Got it home and I immediately noticed certain genres of music seemed almost muffled - particularly in the higher range. I listen to a lot of rock from the 70s / 80s, particularly Rush and with that there's a lot of intricate high hat work going on, and that's completely lost. Sound also seems bassy - maybe overly so. For the most part the overall sound is better than the NAD, but it's just the fact that certain elements seem to be missing.
As I've still got the NAD, I have recently reconnected it and demoed various tracks on that then the Arcam, and higher frequencies do seem to be more pronounced on the NAD but as I say, overall the sound on the Arcam is better - it's just not as dynamic / lively or something... I have Googled 'muffled sound / Arcam A39' and find no hits whatsoever, all I find are people raving about how good it is. I have tried another CD player (an Arcam) as well as an ipod dock and all produce the same kind of results.
What I need to know if possible is, it is possible that the Monitor Audios don't match well with the Arcam amp, or even could the room acoustics be playing a part? Am thinking about seeing if I can at least demo another pair of speakers at home as as far as I can tell, it's unlikely the Arcam is the route of the problem - but I just don't know! I appreciate I should have done something about this a long time ago (we bought the Arcam last December) but as we've only just moved in we've had tonnes of other stuff to do.
Thanks for reading and for any advice / help.
After a bit of advice if possible.
We moved house September last year from an end terrace to a detached bungalow. Stereo sounded great at the old house, NAD352 amp, NAD CD player and Monitor Audio silver six speakers (all three components are about 13-14 years old). Room the stereo was in was a bad shape as far as listening environments go, nothing like square with lots of nooks / windows and had a wooden floor with a disused cellar underneath - so lots of empty space under the floor. Got to the new house, much squarer room with a carpeted wooden floor but the stereo sounded lacking in power - it's a much bigger room.
We trotted off down to our local Sevenoaks December last year and demoed a few amps and settled on an Arcam A39 (it was reduced). Got it home and I immediately noticed certain genres of music seemed almost muffled - particularly in the higher range. I listen to a lot of rock from the 70s / 80s, particularly Rush and with that there's a lot of intricate high hat work going on, and that's completely lost. Sound also seems bassy - maybe overly so. For the most part the overall sound is better than the NAD, but it's just the fact that certain elements seem to be missing.
As I've still got the NAD, I have recently reconnected it and demoed various tracks on that then the Arcam, and higher frequencies do seem to be more pronounced on the NAD but as I say, overall the sound on the Arcam is better - it's just not as dynamic / lively or something... I have Googled 'muffled sound / Arcam A39' and find no hits whatsoever, all I find are people raving about how good it is. I have tried another CD player (an Arcam) as well as an ipod dock and all produce the same kind of results.
What I need to know if possible is, it is possible that the Monitor Audios don't match well with the Arcam amp, or even could the room acoustics be playing a part? Am thinking about seeing if I can at least demo another pair of speakers at home as as far as I can tell, it's unlikely the Arcam is the route of the problem - but I just don't know! I appreciate I should have done something about this a long time ago (we bought the Arcam last December) but as we've only just moved in we've had tonnes of other stuff to do.
Thanks for reading and for any advice / help.