Question Spendor S8's sounded superb but now sound "muffled"

Peter Byrne

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I have recently moved into an old house and our lounge (5mx4m) has a concrete floor overlaid with 15mm MDF boards and covered with underlay and carpet.
I have set up my HiFi in same manner as at my previous house except the floor was made up with floorboards and carpet etc.
In the previous set up i found the sound to be superb but in the new house i cannot find a set up that gets anywhere close to the results i once enjoyed - so much so that i'm thinking about ditching the speakers in favour of a quality set of headphones.
I have experimented with all manner of speaker positions but cannot replicate the sound and am thinking that the floor and/or room is restricting the sound. The wall facing the speakers some 4m away is a partition wall whereas the rest are brick/stone. The speakers are fitted with spikes and they are making contact with the wood beneath the carpet.
Does anyone have any advice as to how i can liven up my speakers once again, without having to move home!
Thanks,
Peter
 
Assuming there's nothing wrong with your equipment, I suspect the 'muffled' sound you describe has more to do with the level of soft furnishings (and possibly wall coverings) than the floor. Could you decrease the soft furnishings temporarily just to hear the effect?
 
Thanks for that but equipment works well via headphones and all the same soft furnishings are in place in this house as in last house. The walls are emulsion coated with pictures etc but height is 2.7m as opposed to 2.4m at last place. Methinks it is a dead floor and no "soundbox" effect!
 
It's difficult to describe what we hear so maybe I've misunderstood what you mean by a 'muffled' sound?

I took 'muffled' to mean a lack of mid-to-high frequencies and, IME, I don't think the underlying floor structure will affect that (although the floor covering certainly does which in your case seems to be about the same as before).

Underlying floor structure can often influence the lower-mid and bass. My experience of solid concrete floors (with plastic tiles, underlay and pile carpet) is that the bass tends to have good impact (it hits sharp/hard) but often 'hangs-on' within the room and doesn't stop as quickly as it should. Floorboards (with underlay + pile carpet) tends towards a slightly (and I do mean slightly) softer bass overall which disperses quickly so doesn't 'hang-on' in the room. Swings and roundabouts I guess.

I also found that wall construction affects bass & lower mid too with double thickness old brick walls (with lime mortar)damping/absorbing the sound better than modern concrete block walls which, IME, seemed to be more reflective around lower midrange leading to slight muddling in that region.

These thoughts are by no means definitive as the rooms I've listened in have differed in other aspects too (size, shape, furnishings etc) however, I have used my playback gear in many, many spaces and these are my general findings.

Might require a lot of trial and error before, hopefully, the high quality sound returns. Good luck.
 
STEP 1 -

Make ABSOLUTELY SURE BEYOND ANY SHADOW OF A DOUBT that your speakers are wired correctly, that in every case, the Amp(+) goes to the Speaker(+) or that Red goes to Red, and Black to Black.

Nothing will suck the life out of speakers like one of them being wired backwards. And...despite extreme caution to the contrary, this is a very easy mistake to make.

Next, were are the speaker placed? That is, how close to the wall and how close to the corner. Just as an experiment, move the speakers about 2 feet forward of the wall behind and see if the sound cleans up.

Also look at the walls- bare or cluttered. Bare = reflections, Cluttered = diffusion.

Generally the room sounds OK. That is, while there could be some influence from the floors, it would seem not to the extent you are implying.

What were the dimension of the room in the previous house? That might explain something.

Steve/bluewizard
 
I had the same problem and in my case it was down to speaker positioning and wobbly speaker stands. Once the speaker stands were stable and solid then the sound came to life. I also found that even small changes in speaker positioning can have big effects on the sound quality and stereo separation.
 
Muffled usually means poor high frequency response. I think these can be bi wired, so is it possible that during the move, the jumpers might have come lose. Sorry to state obvious but sometimes it is the simple things that are overlooked.
 
Cliff has probably the best Step-2. If you are absolutely sure the speakers are wired correctly, and if the speaker have 4 terminal on the back of each, then there should be a Jumper Bar connecting the Red to the Red, and the Black to the Black.

Without the Jumper Bar or Wire, you are only getting Bass with no Mid/High.

Sometimes the Jumper Bar or the Terminal Nut holding the Jumper Bar down can come loose, and the slightest shift in the Bar is enough to break contact and then you lose the Mid/High.

I generally find Jumper Bars to be unreliable, so I made my own Jumper Wires with Ring Terminals.

Jumper Wire -

i64-ring1as-jpg.302792


Jumper Wires in Place -

i62-term2as-jpg.302790


Here is another configuration that uses actual Jumper Bars between the terminals. They are the flat bass colored bar connecting Red with Red and Black with Black -

"Parts Express Bi-Amp Speaker Terminal Cup Gold Banana Binding Post" from www.parts-express.com!

260-281_HR_0.jpg


Make sure those Bars are in place and making contact. With changes in temperature and general vibration, over time the Bars can shift slightly and lose contact.

Steve/bluewizard
 
Thanks everyone for your answers and i appreciate the time and effort to help me out.
Firstly "muffled" is indeed a difficult description - What i was trying to describe was a speaker set up that was previously vibrant that has now moved towards a flat/lacklustre sound, in my "new" set up.
This "dead" sound i believe is more from a lack of punch the base to mid tones which is why i was tending to think that the floorboards made the difference! I was under the impression that a raised floor with floorboards acted like a sound box and promoted base/mid lift, but that comment was not from a professional source so it could be rubbish!
My speakers are bi-wired and therefore do not require the terminal bridges - In my experience, if you have speakers with that capability you are missing out on an audio lift if you install the bridges and don't drive the two speakers independently.
I agree that the polarity of the connections has to be correct or the drivers will be out of phase but i have checked this out some time ago and i have installed everything correctly.
My speakers are fitted with steel spikes and are pushed hard down through the carpet/underlay to make a solid contact with the floor underneath and feel solid rather than wobbly.
I have tried numerous speaker configurations, positioning them between 30 and 100cm from the rear wall with the units at various angles between 30 and 90 degrees. The best result is for them to be located 30cm from the rear wall, 2m apart and angled in by approx 30 degrees which gives a focal point just in front of my seating position. This seems to be the best i can do after 12months of messing about with different positions which is why i was thinking the floor was responsible!
One suggestion that was made to me recently was to put the speakers on a plinth approx 100mm high that could act as a mini raised floor to see what the effect was and i was kind of hoping that someone on the Forum might have done something similar before i set off down that road!
Thanks again one and all.
 
Just as a matter of interest, last year i had the chance to completely dismantle my HIFi system in order to recarpet our lounge. This was the perfect time to check out the BiWire speaker cables. Whilst the red and black caps looked like all was well, one of the wires was out of phase!!! so this was easily rectified. First disc played seemed like the orchestra was in the lounge - All my HiRes albums replayed and they sing!!!!
 

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