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January 24, 2009 - 11:35am
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How to improve sound from Pinnacle BD-1000 plus A/V receiver?
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Not sure what you are trying to say about the sound, but I have had the opportunity to audition this model in a very large room at a B&M store and felt they sounded very good for a budget speaker with a nice finish. Are the speakers brand new? If they are give them some more time to sound their best.
Lin
Yes, they were brand new in the box when I got them.
What I'm saying about the sound is that while it is very clear and precise and detailed and crisp, it is somewhat thin. The sound from 11 feet away in my chair doesn't sound like it is "right here", but rather "far over there". My old speakers put out a sound (rather bad one due to several cracked cones) that felt and sounded like it was right there with me in the room. These sound like they are being projected from a distance.
I don't know... that might not be any more clear.
Speakers need to be broke in? I've only got about four hours of use on them. Just hooked them up yesterday.
Give them at least 20 hours before you pass judgment on them. If they still sound 'distant' then we can look into the question more deeply.
Alright, I'll play LPs for three days when I'm not watching TV and then evaluate them again.
You know, I called a high-end audio store to ask them about speaker wire. After I told them what my speaker and A/V combo was, the person suggested their budget Kimber cable at $2.50 per foot. But then he said gauge wasn't very critical for the 5 foot long cables I'd need, and that speaker wires can't improve the sound of the speakers anyway. It made me wonder why there are a bazillion different kinds of speaker wires, some costing hundreds of dollars, if they don't improve the sound coming out of the speakers. So I decided not to buy his Kimber wire and just stick with my old Monster wire.
Trust me, you don't want to open this can of worms.
It's pretty controversial with many different opinions.
I think everyone would agree that, in your situation, you should probably look to speaker placement and such first. The obvious point is that speaker placement is free and can have the most dramatic impact on the sound next to buying new speakers.
That said, these speakers may never sound as "full" as your infinity's did, while they may have better sound qualities otherwise.
Do you have a sub?
I'm a bit constrained in that department, as I have a small living room. It's a 12 by 20 foot room with the speakers on one 12 foot wall about 5.5 feet apart (gotta leave room for doors in each corner), and a fireplace 20 feet away directly across the room that might be a bit reflective in terms of sound waves. Reorienting the setup 90 degrees in either direction will make it hard to arrange furniture. I had it arranged that way once and it made the room seem too crowded.
I have a Velodyne CT-100 but I no longer use it since there is no space for it at the end of the room where my equipment is set up.
If you have space for it somewhere in the room, try it with the lowest x-o possible, it may work surprisingly well.
Lin
Speakers really do take a MINIMUM of 100 to 150 hours to break in, some quite a bit longer than that. Try putting a CD on repeat while at work for a week or two. The sound will change for the better pretty dramatically. Try tat before doing anything else to "fix" the problem.
I'll try that. Does volume make a difference? Will it be as effective if I leave the volume turned down very low? Reason I'm asking is that I work out of my house, and loud music during working hours will be distracting.
Yes volume level is important when breaking in speakers. It doesn't need to be really loud but soft would be a lot less effective. The goal is to physically exercise the speaker surrounds and the spiders inside the drivers. Also I forgot to mention that you'd want to use music with a fairly wide frequency range (deep bass) and good dynamic range. Large scale orchestral music would be ideal.
You can position them face to face wired out of phase with a blanket over them. The drivers will get more of a workout and you will be able to get more work done.
Lin