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I switched back and forth between the 4 ohm and 8 ohm taps and quite frankly could not hear a nickel's worth of difference. Of course I'm old and have tin ears.
Wow. Thanks for the many responses. Believe it or not, I started upgrading my system with the Mac stuff. I had Infinity Ren 90's from the 80's. You may find this hard to believe, but before I sold them, I had them hooked up to the new stuff and they sounded really good. I live in a NYC apt. and I can't have them 3 feet from the wall. about 1 foot seems to be max.. They are 7 feet apart and about 1 inch toed in. They just aren't full. Very little "soundstage", and no punch. I spoke with Albert before shipment. He was extremely helpful. He said it was OK to have them up against the wall because they were front baffled. My room is 20X21. I sit about 12 feet from the front of the speakers. I have to work with what I have. I am using the supplied little rubber feet under the disks. I have hardwood floors but the area rug runs almost to the front of the speakers. I'm considering removing them. I have a PS Audio powere conditioner with PNF Audio biwire speaker cables. (Read the reviews). I really thought they'd have a lot more "punch". ALbert has asked me to be patient. I will,but I'm fairly disapponted and need some suggestions.
Quote from: es347 on 28 Oct 2009, 05:09 pmI switched back and forth between the 4 ohm and 8 ohm taps and quite frankly could not hear a nickel's worth of difference. Of course I'm old and have tin ears. Yo Steve! You beat me to it. Now I don't have to bother. Betcha your not as old as I am. I'm 78. So there son Gotcha!! Cheers Charlie
there's already plenty of good suggestions in here, but i'm gonna try and give you my take. you said your speakers are 7 feet apart and you sit 12 feet away. personally, "i" find that "i" like the sound from my speakers best when the listening position in the same as the speakers distance from each other. ie...my speakers are about 8.5 feet apart and my listening position is about 8.5 feet from the front of the speakers.just for an experiment, move your speakers into the room so that they are 7 feet away from your listening position to see how that effects the sound. this will also give you much more distance from the rear wall. then move your speakers back to their original position and move your listening postion so that it's 7 feet away from the front of your speakers. if you like this equilateral method of placement, just experiment with speaker placement and position until you find a happy medium. good luck and have fun!kevin tps...i'm not sure what "front baffled" means. is that the same as front ported?
Great suggestions all! May I add that coming from the OP's speakers the SRs may indeed be less full at least in comparison. The Infinity speakers from the 90s used an fiber impregnated injection molded polyprop woofer. This particular model had 10" woofers per side. By today's standards these woofers are not as stiff as the SEAS Aluminum units and also not as fast. In other words by today's engineering standards they have poorer YM rations and thus longer settling times that's why Infinity always recommended that the owner supply as much juice as humanly possible . This all can give a fuller sound at the expense of bass definition and pitch.Nothing wrong there. I believe that every listener has the God given right to tune his system according to his own biases. What I'm getting at is to approximate this sound, there is something else one might want to try. This "full" quality is also a quality associated with speakers that are underdamped either on the amplifier end or on the speaker end. As such using the 8 ohm taps should theoretically have less damping into a 4 ohm load and should sound weightier and fuller but slower and less tuneful. McIntosh however, does their trannies differently from everybody else so this might not necessarily follow that existing rule of thumb. On the speaker end, there's something in the manual that most never try. Remove some of the dacron thus lessening the acoustic damping. If this works keep the stuffing removed and keep it somewhere as someday you might need it later. I do recommend however that the Dacron part be done after at the very least 300 hours of heavy play because taking the stuff out is much easier than stuffing them back in unless you have a skinny armed, small handed person at your service.As for punch. Punch's formant transients live mostly in the midrange at or above 100Hz. The aerogel units are stiff as heck so stuff like vocals should be A-ok from the start but will take some time for percussive events. Patience is required because in the start the stiff surrounds will translate these attacks to harshness way up in the audio band. After being run in and the midrange unit can move as freely as designed, the harshness will go and the punch will appear.Signed sincerely,JackD201, South East Asian Run-On Sentence Champion 2006-Present
perhaps look at the Mcintosh preamp. The MC 402 is generally considered a great amplifier; but perhaps the combination of the Mcintosh amp and the Mcintosh preamp is giving you too much of one thing and the VSA is highlighting this.I run the C46 and 501s and am mystified by your suggestion. What is "too much of one thing"?
Quote from: es347 on 27 Oct 2009, 11:12 pmperhaps look at the Mcintosh preamp. The MC 402 is generally considered a great amplifier; but perhaps the combination of the Mcintosh amp and the Mcintosh preamp is giving you too much of one thing and the VSA is highlighting this.I run the C46 and 501s and am mystified by your suggestion. What is "too much of one thing"?Perhaps I was wording it wrong, but what I meant to imply was perhaps the Mcintosh gear being combined was giving to much of the Mcintosh "house sound," and through the VSA speakers, the OP was unpleased with the sound. I was not implying anything other then perhaps their might be a synergy of equipment that was causing a sound the OP was not enjoying; not that any of the equipment alone was the issue. In my opinion, outside of speakers and room acoustics, the preamp can make a great difference good or bad.
Quote from: McTwins on 29 Oct 2009, 06:55 pmDrop the C46 issue, it has nothing to do with that. Agreed. Quote from: McTwins on 29 Oct 2009, 06:55 pmAbout ohms taps: if it is 6 ohms average you should connect to the nearest lower ohmtap when it comes to McIntosh amplifier. In this case 4 ohm. Actually the VR-4SR MKIII spec is 4 ohm average. So, in this case it should connect to the 2 ohm tap. ------------------------------------- So far we have: 1. Re-check for proper connections so they are in phase 2. Try the other amplifier taps and see if one sounds better (2, 4 or 8 ohm) 3. Check that Balanced/Unbalanced (RCA or XLR) and Stereo/Mono switches are in correct postions4. Try moving speakers away from wall 5. Try for closer to equilateral triangle listening spot 6. Excercise woofer cones for break-in (Edited - #3 added to reflect McTwins suggestion in the following post)Now if the OP wasn't MIA, we might get some feedback! Steve
Drop the C46 issue, it has nothing to do with that.
About ohms taps: if it is 6 ohms average you should connect to the nearest lower ohmtap when it comes to McIntosh amplifier. In this case 4 ohm.
Quote from: SundayNiagara on 29 Oct 2009, 10:45 pmAnd the correct answer is, number 4, ding ding ding ding ding! Yes, we know. You've posted that three times so far! Now all we can do is wait.....Steve
And the correct answer is, number 4, ding ding ding ding ding!
