Disappearing down a rabbit hole!

Roger2611

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Hi, this is my first post here so please bear with me!

I need some help please, for quite a few years I had been running an Exposure 2010S amp and CD player through a pair of PMC TB2 speakers and, other than being a bit bass light I was happy with the sound I had, having sold off a bunch of bass guitars I decided to upgrade my speakers and brought a set of Monitor Audio Gold 100's, having integrated them in to my system I found that I love the increased clarity in the top end and I love the tighter more expressive bass end, however, I found I was driving the amp far harder and overall the sound failed to fill the room in the same way the PMC's did.....I spoke to Exposure and they confirmed my thinking in that the Monitor Audio's were more power hungry and that a power amp would help the situation, so I have purchased an Exposure 2010 power amp to go with the amp (Exposure confirmed that the amp was absolutely fine to work alongside the 2010S amp) I have now integrated that into the system and confirmed it is working, I am now driving the 2010S at far lower volume to fill the room...however, this seems to have come at the cost of the beautiful clear sound stage the amp used to offer, my best description would be that the power amp seems to have muddied the sound up?

My rabbit hole is that I seem to be adding items that should be improving my sound yet the sound seems to be going the wrong direction....any ideas please?
Rog
 
I guess the first question is how large is your listening room. Also take a photo of how you have them connected including all the wires. You may find that you have inadvertently wired something up incorrectly which could show in the photo's or that we maybe able to identify something else

The obvious one is have you checked the speakers cables are all correct and in phase. Have you also checked the binding posts to ensure they are all tight. If you are using your old amp to send a signal to the power-amp, have you tried some different leads to make sure there isn't an issue with them?
 
The 2010 power amp seems to have the same output as the integrated, so presumably you are bi-amping? Otherwise you're gaining nothing. The MAs are also 4 ohm & I can't see any specs that confirm the Exposure amps are happy with that, so worth confirming with them.

But as above, confirm that in all instances you have the speaker wire correctly connected red to red & black to black. All too easy to have one out of phase.
 
I guess the first question is how large is your listening room. Also take a photo of how you have them connected including all the wires. You may find that you have inadvertently wired something up incorrectly which could show in the photo's or that we maybe able to identify something else

The obvious one is have you checked the speakers cables are all correct and in phase. Have you also checked the binding posts to ensure they are all tight. If you are using your old amp to send a signal to the power-amp, have you tried some different leads to make sure there isn't an issue with them?
Thank you Shane, I will try and get some images of the back of the amp and the connections to the power amp, I am a long serving recording studio engineer so I am pretty happy that things are connected correctly, however, you have given me a definite area to check, I know that the sound stage was good and clear before I put the power amp in, so I would say that tells me that the speaker cabling was all good at that point, the addition of the power amp seemed to be what muddied the sound up so as a first point of testing I will swap the RCA connecting cables just to ensure they are not causing the problem.

Room size, I have 14 x 9 (ft) with the speakers along the 14ft wall using Apollo stands set at 45cms from the floor, the speakers are set30 cms from the back wall with a slight angling in towards the prime listening position, the speaker stands are filled to 70% with kitty litter to focus the bass better, the stands are on spikes and the speakers are isolated from the stands via the proper acoustic "rubber" pads so everything should be set up as well as can be done by ear, I have been moving the speakers in and out slightly trying to locate the ideal bass response distance from the wall, the Monitor Audio's are definitely a bit more picky about position relative to the wall than the PMC's were!
 
The 2010 power amp seems to have the same output as the integrated, so presumably you are bi-amping? Otherwise you're gaining nothing. The MAs are also 4 ohm & I can't see any specs that confirm the Exposure amps are happy with that, so worth confirming with them.

But as above, confirm that in all instances you have the speaker wire correctly connected red to red & black to black. All too easy to have one out of phase.
Hi,

Thank you, yes, I can confirm I am bi-amping the set up, I spoke to Exposure last week and they confirmed the amp / power amp were compatible with the Monitor Audio's and wiring wise all I have done is move the low frequency inputs from the 2010s down to the 2010 power amp, I will pull the whole system apart again over the weekend just to ensure nothing is out of phase but, as a long time recording studio engineer I have long since learnt the value of checking, double checking and then ensuring cables are clearly marked as to where they are supposed to be!
 
Hi guys, so an update for you, and I am still confused, I replaced the rca leads, no change, I tried sending the hf frequencies to the power amp and everything became tinny and unbalanced, if I send the LF to the power amp everything becomes muddy! If I swap eveything back to the 2010S everything behaves normally.....now for the real confusion, if I set the 2010S up purely as a pre-amp and use the 2010 power amp as the full range outputs (sending the HF through output 1 and the LF through output 2 (classic bi-wiring)) the system sounds utterly brilliant, far better than using the 2010S for the outputs! So firstly i am guessing I may have issues with my 2010S amp and secondly it doesn't appear the 2010S is compatible with the 2010 power amp! Confused, you bet I am!
 
Your terminology is a little odd. You can't send split frequencies to the power amp. So I can only assume that you mean you used the power amp to drive the HF & then the LF? From what you describe it sounds as though only the PA is outputting, so you're only driving either the woofers or tweeters. So the question is then why is there apparently no output from the integrated when the PA is connected?

As before, we really need to see some pics or a detailed description of your bi-amp wiring.
 
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using a single amp and biwiribg should have little effect. And in fact it sounds good. You get into problems trying to biamp. With true biampig, the woofer and tweeter are completely independent, and you use an electronic crossover so one amp handles the highs and another the lows. but you’re not describing such a crossover. My suspicion is that your biamped configuration isn’t valid.

I’m not even sure your speakers can actually handle biamping. They pretty obviously have a crossover, or your initial configuration wouldn’t work. if it sounds the same with biwiring the crossover is obviously still in place for that configuration. I don’t see how you could validly use two different amps without changing something in the speakers. And even if you could, you’d need an electronic crossover, which would have to be carefully tuned to the speakers.

it sounds like you should be happy with just using one amp.
 
I'm assuming that the OP is using the Exposure recommended config of integrated amp to connect to the HF speaker terminals and power amp to LF. Apart from the obvious out-of-phase speaker mis-connection possibility I'm also assuming the jumpers on the speaker terminals have been removed when the bi-amping config is used?

Screenshot_20210821-082140~2.png
 
If that's from an Exposure doc then pretty poor that they can't even get the labelling of the diagram correct. As I referenced earlier, they recommend 8 ohm speakers rather than the 4 ohm of the MAs. I think I would have been inclined to buy a more powerful amp rather than the PA, or less demanding speakers.
 
I'm also assuming the jumpers on the speaker terminals have been removed when the bi-amping config is used?

I would double check this - bi amp remover the jumper, single amp jumper in place. If the jumpers are in place whilst bi amping then the two amps will be fighting each other and putting power back into the output, not what you want.

Forget biwiring for now. Double check speakers are wired up correctly red to red and black to black.

In my experience bi amping has only a marginal effect at low/medium volumes but worth experimenting.
 
Taking the OP’s observations at face value (albeit they’re very clumsily worded) it suggests the integrated amp’s internal power amplifier section is not working when cables are connected to its preamp outputs.

I’ve read previously that the 2010S integrated amp uses a passive preamp internally. However, the preamp outputs (on the back panel) are driven by an op amp. Exposure has configured the integrated to allow both preamp sections to operate in unison when an external power amplifier is connected. Hence permitting bi-amping.

Perhaps the integrated has an internal fault that isn’t allowing both preamp sections to work in unison. Only one at a time.

A test of this theory would be to connect the external power amp to the integrated and have both powered up. But only run cable to the speakers from the integrated amp (don’t run any speaker cable from the external power amp). If little or no sound comes out of the speakers then it suggests this theory is correct.

There are some obvious caveats here to exclude other causes but I can’t be bothered to type an essay from my phone.
 
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Your terminology is a little odd. You can't send split frequencies to the power amp. So I can only assume that you mean you used the power amp to drive the HF & then the LF? From what you describe it sounds as though only the PA is outputting, so you're only driving either the woofers or tweeters. So the question is then why is there apparently no output from the integrated when the PA is connected?

As before, we really need to see some pics or a detailed description of your bi-amp wiring.
Terminology is always a pain! Due to the restricted space for the amps / CD player getting a decent photo of the wiring set up is virtually impossible without unplugging everything and setting it up again (which sort of defeats the object!) I will try and describe the set up and connections as best I can> The CD player is connected to the 2010S amp via RCA connectors and, as of last night, the pre outs on the 2010S and connected to the inputs on the 2010 power amp, the power amp has 4 speaker outputs per side so eight in total, the speakers have a pair of HF inputs and a pair of LF inputs (which can be linked together by jumper cables (currently removed)) so on the power amp I am sending 8 wires to the speakers, 4 to each side as 1 pair to the HF inputs and 1 pair to the LF inputs so, as I understand it, a classic bi-wire set up with the 2010S amp acting purely as a pre amp now, and the system sounds as spectacular as I knew it should! Now where I think I have identified issues is in the following areas, if I take out the power amp and just use the 2010S as an integrated amp the system sounds a little flat and I am using the master volume at over 50% to get a decent volume (whereas with the power amp I only need max 25% volume) so that is suggesting the 2010S is not performing at its best? I had tried using the 2010S to power the HF inputs on the speakers and the 2010 power amp to power the LF inputs on the speakers which made the system sound muddy, if I swapped it around so the power amp was powering the HF frequencies the set up sounded really tinny which, if I am thinking this through logically seems to back up the theory that the output from the power amp is much higher than the output from the 2010S integrated amp (at the moment) I do think there is an issue with my 2010S amp as something in what I was hearing persuaded me to want to upgrade the speakers and having put the Monitor Audio's in I was still underwhelmed with the sound I was getting which to me suggests the 2010S has been under performing for a while? Hopefully that makes sense! Thank you for all your input so far it is greatly appreciated
 
I concur with your diagnosis. Are you able to return the PA & either get the integrated looked at by Exposure or replace it?
 
I'm assuming that the OP is using the Exposure recommended config of integrated amp to connect to the HF speaker terminals and power amp to LF. Apart from the obvious out-of-phase speaker mis-connection possibility I'm also assuming the jumpers on the speaker terminals have been removed when the bi-amping config is used?

View attachment 1558394
Hi, thank you, yes, this is exactly how it was set up and I actually cross checked my connections with this very diagram, and I can confirm the jumper cables have been removed! Following some experimentation last night it appears that my 2010S is not performing at its best with it being down on power and lacking the lovely clean sound stage the 2010 power amp is delivering so I will be getting the 2010S off to Exposure next week for some love and attention!
 
I concur with your diagnosis. Are you able to return the PA & either get the integrated looked at by Exposure or replace it?
Thank you, I am going to try and get the 2010S back to Exposure next week for a rebuild, if not, it works perfectly as a pre-amp, so worst case scenario the 2010S just becomes a pre-amp and the 2010 power amp does the speaker powering!
 
Not sure if this has been mentioned, but as it seems that you have wired it up correctly, please change the LF/HF speaker connections round on both speakers so the power is driving the opposite part of the speaker (please ensure you do the same to both sides as it can cause unwanted damage on all parts) to see if this opens the sound up a little. If it sounds the same, then it might indicate that it's the speakers and not the amp. This is just to make sure. If you have already done this, please ignore :)
 
I’m sure the Exposure combination is great but as a complete system, your hifi will be very inaccurate because of the way your room changes the sound of your speakers. If you move them to sit against the side wall for example, they will probably sound significantly different.

I think you should try a Lyngdorf TDAi1120 which will give measurably far better sound from your speakers than anything near the price.

Until you have heard what RoomPerfect can do with your speakers in your room, I don’t think you wont appreciate how transformational it is.
 
I see the reasoning for going with the power amplifier, but my own recommendation would’ve been to change the 2010 integrated to the 3510 integrated and avoid the cabling nightmare that is bi-amping. This would keep the system simple, and not take up as much space in relatively small listening room - the last thing you want to do is build up your box count.

When the Exposure power amp comes back, I’d get your dealer to drop it round and set it up for you. Get him to make sure it is performing as it should before he leaves. He can try the 2010 amp vs the 2010 amp and power amp to see if there’s some compatibility issue or whether it is a wiring issue. There may well be something that can only be detected on site. He could also bring a 3510 with him for you to compare to your current set up.
 
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I am the distributor for M&K, Lyngdorf and Steinway Lyngdorf products. The reason I represent these brands is because 30 years ago I realised that buying the best hifi in the world would not give accurate sound.

The typical errors that you room creates are over 15db. This means that some sounds will be heard 4 times louder than others because of your listening room. If you are looking to upgrade an audio system, the most logical place to start is with the weakest link, which will be errors created by your listening room.

The only possible method of correcting room errors accurately is with some form or electronic correction. Lyngdorfs RoomPerfect is the only system that preserves the sound of the speakers used while removing the huge errors that the room creates.

The difference this makes in most room is huge.

As the video above illustrates, you will hear it from the next room or over YouTube.

The theme of the thread “DISAPPEARING DOWN A RABBIT HOLE” perfectly describes the problem.

Changing from one good amp or speaker to another cannot fix the problem but is what most retailers recommend because the traditional hifi brands they support have no method of fixings room errors.

This approach is leading you down a rabbit hole.
 
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