[Rclark]

Tonepub's mag had an article recently reviewing their bottom end amp, the UPA-2 and he didn't have much to complain about. Ran them with expensive speakers and compared them to pricier gear.

I wouldn't trade my Two for anything other than XPA-1's like you have and then if I were going to do anything to them, might have them modded, Bybee rails or the like. But those look like sweet amps with gobs of headroom.

 I hope to one day find a pair on the cheap just to have them.

 Try getting all that stuff out from behind your speakers, and minimize the stuff inbetween, give them more room to breathe. And treatments too, I'm at that stage next as well. Put your gear away from your speakers if you can. A lot of people like to cluster everything together in the same place but I think it is detrimental to the sonics.

[PDR]

If you like the Emotiva on your Maggies, you might really like the Sunfire gear.

[Rclark]

Oh no, not for these. I'm running Virtue and likely to stick with them when the Three comes out. Batteries not AC for starters.

 I just wouldn't kick them out if I had a pair.

 Sunfire, no thanks. Not a big HT sub guy and prefer performance over WAF and small size. Hell, the more I look at them, I don't think I care for Emotiva's subs either.

[Cheeseboy]

Ehh! CD, DVD or Blue Ray file em away in books and lose the shelves. 

My ceiling slopes from 10 ft. to 24 ft.  It is wall board with an acoustic spray on coating.  Read cottage cheese.   It made the AV123 850's sound horrible when we moved into this house.  My old Magnapans liked the sloped ceiling.  The LS6's seem to be friendly to them as well. 

I have a feeling you felt rather Manley when you set up those big Emotiva Monoblocks.  I think Manley or Rogue would be my next amp choice.

[Danny Richie]

SoCalWJS, you have a big flat untreated section of wall right between your speakers. That will really eat up your sound stage depth.

I have a 60" big screen in the middle of mine and when listening to music I used to through a thick comforter over it.

Now I have some of Dave's diffuser panels that I stand up in front of it.

Doing away with the surface reflections of my screen makes my sound stage much deeper.

[SoCalWJS]

SoCalWJS, you have a big flat untreated section of wall right between your speakers. That will really eat up your sound stage depth.

I have a 60" big screen in the middle of mine and when listening to music I used to through a thick comforter over it.

Now I have some of Dave's diffuser panels that I stand up in front of it.

Doing away with the surface reflections of my screen makes my sound stage much deeper.

Yeah, it's my DIY painted on screen for HT. Plan is to throw some sort of diffusors next to that wall (in front of the "screen") when listening to 2 channel, then move them to a different location for HT.
I keep waiting for Dave's site to get up and running so I can figure out which is best for my issues.
I've tried reading up on diffusors, but I think I'm getting more confused. Which do I need? What Prime # would work best? What depth? What material?. I should get serious about running REW to find out where my deficiencies are. I've measured by hand (using a RatShack digital meter and a couple of different CD's), but it looks like all of my major issues are below about 120-150, and the diffousors seem to want #'s that are in higher frequencies to work with..
I figure the (whatever) diffusors on the front wall along with treatment at the first reflection point on the ceiling (absorbers? Diffusors?) are a good next step.
Then Power treatment. Then cables.

[PDR]

Hehe....meant the amps RClark....not the subs..

[SoCalWJS]

Ehh! CD, DVD or Blue Ray file em away in books and lose the shelves. 

My ceiling slopes from 10 ft. to 24 ft.  It is wall board with an acoustic spray on coating.  Read cottage cheese.   It made the AV123 850's sound horrible when we moved into this house.  My old Magnapans liked the sloped ceiling.  The LS6's seem to be friendly to them as well. 

I have a feeling you felt rather Manley when you set up those big Emotiva Monoblocks.  I think Manley or Rogue would be my next amp choice.

Couldn't rationalize big, high quality tube monoblocks at that point in time. Maybe someday. It would have to be quite the sales pitch for Anne to buy off on that one.
(maybe I can sneak some hardware upgrades in if we ever do the addition )
Boy. Wouldn't some big Manleys (or whatever) add to the A/C bill?

For now, room treatments if I can figure it out.

[Rclark]

http://www.radford.edu/shelm/acoustics/bass-traps.html

that's probably my plan. with 8lb rockwool. You can build a stupid amount of those including floor to ceiling corner traps for less than $500.

[Rclark]

Hehe....meant the amps RClark....not the subs..

 Yeah, me too, no I'm quite happy, I think the only advantage XPA-1's would give me is headroom. I'll take a 250watt version of what I have now and be plenty good.

 Still would love a pair, and I don't think they're the weak link in that picture.

 (oh, gotcha, Sunfire Amps.. )

[mlbrand]

I agree with others that your hardware is not the problem here, it is acoustics and speaker positioning. My LS-6's are in an 18'x19' room, and they didn't really shine until I added acoustical treatment, and went with two sub-woofers. I then did measurements to determine the best location for my subs.

Your speakers seem to be a little close to the back wall. Sound stage depth generally increases as you move speakers away from a back wall, and the bass increases as you move a speaker towards the back wall. Note that your sound stage went away when you increased the bass.

[MichaelHiFi]

You started out with at least OK depth, then you added bass and lost the depth. But you really didn't lose what you already had, maybe you lost some of your midrange in the mix when you dialed up the bass region.

Your room doesn't look bad. In fact, from all the shots I've seen posted from LS6 owners (early on), your room is one of the best! IMO, these speakers can sound bright, even overbearing in a bad room, and getting good depth often isn't easy.

I really struggled to get good imaging out of my 6's. But in the end, they were awesome. They were replaced with Dynaudio Confidence C1's which offered better depth, but inferior sound. MBL's replaced the Dyns (after the Dyns burned  ) with even better depth in the same room, magic really.

But what really added dimensionality to the 6's was a tube preamp. Wow. Radiohead, In Rainbows, played miles deep. I miss that. Yorke's voice would just trail....

I think moving them further into the room might help with image depth and perhaps even spiking them if they are not already spiked. My wife and I were constantly playing with placement. I mean really experimenting. We even tried tilted them incrementally. No that didn't work. We seemed as I recall to settle on 40" from back wall with a pretty good turn inward nearly facing toward the listening position but still being able to see the inward sides. The best tweaks were the platinum sonicaps and felting around all those tweeters to help with diffraction.

Of course outside of tweaks that opened the 6's up were an expensive amp and tube preamp but you have a pretty solid setup and a world class speaker so be patient. 

Our room was dead. It was heavily treated, perhaps too much so but it's so hard to determine what's best in a room. In our "new" home our room eats midbass. Just swallows it up. Our system sounds somewhat lifeless. So I'm starting from scratch with sound room treatment fundamentals and work from there.

I've even considered those crazy tuning cups (ATI zen or something). I sat in a room and was blown away (or tricked) at what those did for soundstage. So simple. SO EXPENSIVE! (But then, how much am I going to spend for room treatments  )

Good luck and share with us what works.
I think your cat found the sweetspot 

[Cheeseboy]

Michael,

It wasn't the room treatments that made your room sound so great it was all 20 guys on the couch listening at the same time.  The dampening factor increased when they were all full of beer wine and food. 

I agree with you Michael.  He doesn't have a bad room.  Just a bad paint contractor.  I swear to god I'm coming to your house with some paint, some carpet and some cd, dvd and Blue Ray storage.    We'll put a frame on your DIY screen.   Better yet lets go hunting for a motorized screen that would drop in front of the center diffusion material on the back wall.

I have the same problem as my big TV is in between my speakers.  The sound depth could be so much better.  I think there is a drop down screen and projector in my future.

[SoCalWJS]

Michael,

It wasn't the room treatments that made your room sound so great it was all 20 guys on the couch listening at the same time.  The dampening factor increased when they were all full of beer wine and food. 

I agree with you Michael.  He doesn't have a bad room.  Just a bad paint contractor.  I swear to god I'm coming to your house with some paint, some carpet and some cd, dvd and Blue Ray storage.    We'll put a frame on your DIY screen.   Better yet lets go hunting for a motorized screen that would drop in front of the center diffusion material on the back wall.

I have the same problem as my big TV is in between my speakers.  The sound depth could be so much better.  I think there is a drop down screen and projector in my future.

I'm hesitant to put much money into anything in this room unless it can be used in the proposed addition (something similar to what Skiman has - we've made a bunch of sketches and Anne has an Architect that she wants to take a shot at the basics) The tape around the screen is gone, the stain in the carpet is gone.
It's all the extra cr#p that is in the room that needs to go that pisses me off.

[mlbrand]

Are those two sub-woofers behind your right speaker? If so have you ever tried using them in "two channel" (2.1 I guess) and crossed over with your mains?

[SoCalWJS]

Are those two sub-woofers behind your right speaker? If so have you ever tried using them in "two channel" (2.1 I guess) and crossed over with your mains?

Yes, those are subs, but....

They are connected to my Lexicon for HT. I use a Modwright LS-100 for 2 channel with a passthrough for the front L/R when I do HT. I haven't figured out a way to utilize a sub for 2 channel through the Modwright and still be able to use the LFE/2 subs option of the Lex.
The Lex does have digital EQ which is very good, but I prefer the sound through the Modwright for music and several concert Blu-rays/DVD's which feature a high quality 2 channel option.

[WC]

Yes, those are subs, but....

They are connected to my Lexicon for HT. I use a Modwright LS-100 for 2 channel with a passthrough for the front L/R when I do HT. I haven't figured out a way to utilize a sub for 2 channel through the Modwright and still be able to use the LFE/2 subs option of the Lex.
The Lex does have digital EQ which is very good, but I prefer the sound through the Modwright for music and several concert Blu-rays/DVD's which feature a high quality 2 channel option.

So what subs are they? I would assume the issue is with the subs not the Modwright, since the modwright has pre-amp outs that could be used with the subs. Most subs have issues doing double duty.

[SoCalWJS]

So what subs are they? I would assume the issue is with the subs not the Modwright, since the modwright has pre-amp outs that could be used with the subs. Most subs have issues doing double duty.

Featured in the photo:
Top: JL Audio f113 Fathom
Bottom: Velodyne F1500r

Not pictured:
MFW-15 located to the left just beside the left most front row seat (filled a nasty void at the primary listening position)
So I could potentially route the preouts of the MW to the JL then back to the mains? I am really starting to like the bass of the Ls-6's, it's just that the soundstage depth went away.
I even took my wife in to listen to the speakers after the change of the crossover settings. She said she liked the bass better, but that "the depth disappeared"
She doesn't listen very often, but that was her first comment and I wasn't really soliciting input. She has very good ears and I trust her input when I'm hearing new gear.

[WC]

So I could potentially route the preouts of the MW to the JL then back to the mains?

Looking at the sub connections, it looks like an either or proposition not both. The preouts on the MW will come out full range which will work in two channel if you would like to use the crossover in the sub. From the Lexicon you are getting an LFE signal which bypasses the subs crossover. Only way to get it to work properly is if the sub allows for both LFE and two channel connection with switching between them or your preamp has a HT bypass sub inlet, such as Emotiva's USP-1 pre or Parasound's 2100 pre.

[mlbrand]

So what subs are they? I would assume the issue is with the subs not the Modwright, since the modwright has pre-amp outs that could be used with the subs. Most subs have issues doing double duty.

I ask because I have a difficult to tame, almost square room, and 2.1 channel with subs crossed over at 80 hz sounds WAY better in my room than the LS-6's full range by themselves. In my room the LS-6's and the deep bass (subs) need to be in different locations for the best sound, even with bass traps and lots of acoustical treatment. But to each his own, and every one has their own individual room and gear limitations. Good luck in your 2 channel bliss quest!