[Zoe]

While I was out playing a free round of golf at Ram's Hill Country Club in Borrego Springs Calif. courtesy of my friend A.T. my dear wife waited for the FedEx truck to drop off my newly modded Panny XR45. The hour and a half long ride back was excruciating knowing that it would be at home waiting to be hooked up. The quick report is that I can't hear it because I am whistling along with the music so much!!!

My system consists of the Norh CD1, the Panny, and VMPS RM-40s.  The amps I have heard driving this system prior to the Panny are: Jolida 502b, John Casler's Cinenova Earthquakes, believe it or not the Norh SE-9, the Sony digital amp 3000CES (I think that's the model) and now the Panny. (Actually, John Casler's amp was being fed by his Denon and his Bryston Pre).

So far I have put on just 3 discs. First up was Bela Fleck "Live Art" (just a couple of tracks). Next was the opening first 20 minutes or so of Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" (RCA Gold Seal Colin Davis and the Bavarian Radio Symph - truly outstanding recording). Finally, what I have on now, the ultimate all time demo CD  Reference Recordings "Strictly Sousa" with the Dallas Wind Symphony.

Prior to today, the Earthquake was definitely the top dog. And the Norh SE-9 came in a distant last. (The RM40s sucked the poor little thing dry).  The Jolida probably tied the Sony overall but it was more of a case of apples and oranges. The Jolida was more musical by far but the Sony had bass which the Jolida just doesn't put out. Also, the Sony never got broken in I suppose.  

The Earthquake was clearly better than the Jolida and hearing it made realize that I owed it to my RM40s to put something good in front of them. Enter the Panny. I made the decision to go the modded Panny route based on Tyson's reports. He has heard a lot of equipment. A lot of good equipment. Call me crazy but I didn't think that he was a shill for anybody, so I trusted him.

I am not much for going on and on about this or that aspect of an amp. I would probably do better by posters asking me specific questions about things.  

But I can say at least this: The detail is there. I can't imagine what more detail I am missing. I suppose I am, I would be hard pressed to believe it. The impact is definitely there. The Jolida has a sense of heaviness and, not muddiness, but something like thickness or sluggishness. The Panny is nimble and shows off the Dallas Wind Symphony as an incredibly tight ensemble. Bela Fleck's group sounds more like a live band than some canned recording studio constructed performance.

The Mozart, too, was very good. I think the voices suffered a little vs. the Jolida's tubey warmth.  But we will see.

The bass may be a little out of control. There may be some putty work in store for me when I tune the PR. I still have my RM40s setup exactly as I got them from John Casler.  Anybody (Tyson??) have a suggestion as to what I should do to adjust them.  (Since I can't add more mortite, I guess the only thing I can do is take some away.  What would that accomplish?

I will be able to do a SACD vs. Norh Redbook all digital comparison using a hybrid CD to find out just what the differences are between those two routes through the unit, but not until I get my fill of some more great music.

All my cabling is now Bolder.  Power, digital and two pairs of M-80s.  Wayne shipped it already set up in "Party Mode".  

Sorry if this doesn't answer your questions.  I will try to help if you fire some specific questions at me.

I am very grateful to Wayne for his expertise. I now have a great sounding system that I expect to be happy with for a long time!!!

[azryan]

Awesome!

Did you live with the stock 45 at all to comment about the diffs.

Do you have any Bybees anywhere in the chain?

"The bass may be a little out of control-"

Could you describe this a bit more. Hard to say based on just this line.

"-(Since I can't add more mortite, I guess the only thing I can do is take some away. What would that accomplish?-"

Taking more putty away will loosen up the pas. rad. Probably a negative effect to the 'little out of control' you mentioned.

Did John tune your 40's for you in the first place. I was under the impression that they came overdamped w/ putty so you could take away what you need to.

Like you said... if you don't have any more you can't dampen them anymore -unless you used some thing else to dampen them further.

Maybe you could use that blu-tak stuff for hanging posters? I'm sure there've been people who've talked about putty alternatives.

You might just need some break in time on the caps of the Pannie?

[ekovalsky]

Unless you have a very unusual room, something is wrong if your RM-40's are "underdamped" with the mortite applied by the factory.  Almost everyone removes putty to tune the bass, most remove an amount ranging from a small pea to a lima bean.  If you end up remove a giant marble size piece of putty or feel the need to add more, look elsewhere in your system for something out of balance.

If you are listening in a concrete cube or other bizarre environment, and you do need more mass added to the passive radiator, you can buy more mortite at Home Depot.  I know Brian brings a bit with him when he takes field trips to tune owners' speakers, just in case a little more is necessary.

Also, make sure your pots are set at a reasonable level too (12-2'oclock range).  Sometimes they move during shipping or aren't set judiciously at the factory.

Neither my former RM-40 or current RM-X were "tuned" by the manufacturer or dealer.  Generally your speakers will be drop shipped from the VMPS plant so your dealer never sees them.  Jim may be the one exception since he lives close by.

My RM-40's sounded dreadful out of the box, the RM-X were great from the first listen but have progressively improved as I have tackled the passive radiators, level pots, and ultimately the tweeter "head".

The RM-40's took about six months to optimize  

The RM-X, despite being more complex, are evolving faster because of my prior experience with the RM-40's.

[Zoe]

A little out of control bass means that bass drum on Sousa sounds kind of dominating and rumbly/floaty. (How's that for a technical term?) I guess bass drums can be like that. Another way to describe it is that it sounds like there is no attack to the drum.  With my fav. Gonzalo Rubalcaba jazz CD, there is a similar thing goin on with the Kick bass drum. There you should really hear the attack.  I really wouldn't be surprised if someone came in here, listened and told me I was nuts. It really does sound very good. It just may be that the bass is not as "lean" as I am used to. Actually, one thing I don't listen to very much is electric bass and that may be what is confusing me. El. Bass has a sort of big round fat sound at the very bottom and I may be unfamiliar with it. I also haven't listened to all that much music yet either. We will see.

My RM40s had been in John Casler's room for upwards of a year so they were NOT as delivered from the factory. I will go to Home Depot and pick up some putty and fiddle a little.  As for the pots, I suffer from tinnitus quite severely and I don't really like the treble over cooked, so I have them set at around 11:30.  I tried turning them up a while back and they lasted that way about one day.

I am listening to Mahler's Sixth right now and the bass fiddles sound just like they should.  They have the distinct growl that I remember well from my orchestra playing days.

Ray Brown on the Telarc SACD (last recording he made before he died) sounds just fine also.

[ekovalsky]

Didn't realize they came from Casler's personal system.

[Zoe]

I forgot to answer two of the questions: 1) No, I never heard it unmodded, it got shipped straight to Littleton from J&R. 2) There are Bybees installed internally in the unit in the main LR speaker connection path.

[azryan]

Thanks for answering the questions.

I thought because they came from John's system that they might not have as much putty on the pas. rad. as when new as he tuned them for his room.

That's why I thought you might need to have more. I woulda thought John woulda put all the putty back on before you got them though 'cuz your room I doubt is exactly the same as his and your 'tuning' of them will not be the same as his.

Hard to say without hearing your system, but it sounds like you're describing more upper bass than the deepest sub-bass extention from the pas. rad.

You might need some bass traps in your room and/or to reposition the speakers. Pots and putty can't fix a room or positioning quirks.

Do you have a test tone CD to hear if you have any big peaks? Maybe you can download a freq. sweep. If you can find one that calls out the freq. while it's descending that'll tell you exactly where this or that problem is.

'Attack' from a kick drum and an electric bass is more the upper harmonics of the notes.
Hard to say though how electric bass should 'cuz it could sound like anything. Tight and clean and not very deep, or bloated, surpy and slow. Diff. guitars and amps and recordings.

Might have to turn the neos/spiral (or FST?) up to drop the dual woofer's overall output, then test what the extention is of the pas. rad. to tune that.

Complicated speakers for sure.

Eric's were at least a year old when I heard his 40's and he still wasn't done adjusting them. I don't why he said it took 6 mo.?

He made some drastic changes to positioning and room treatments (after someone else suggested them. he musta forgot that though? heh).

I asked him at least 3 times recently if he thought the woofers in his X's might be overdamped/not broken in much at all ('cuz I thought they were) and he never answered.

Figured since he's giving you advice on tuning you 40's it'd be a good place to ask him again?

[Zoe]

The hard part is knowing if they need tuning. Really, the whole thing sounds so good that it's hard to believe these very small observations are either worth chasing or able to be eleviated. I have a SPL meter from Radio Shack, so some test tone CD would be a good idea. Where do you find them?

[azryan]

I got two diff. test CD's from my library.

You could give that a shot maybe?

I thought you could download some MP3's of test tones. No need to worry about them being 'low quality' or anything. Maybe someone knows just where to find them. Sorry... I don't.

Also I think certain comp. programs are able to generate your own test tones and maybe you could make your own CD-R of freq. sweeps? My bro-in-law did that for me a while back.

Make each track a 10-20 sec. 10Hz sweep (or something along those lines) so you'll know exactly where a peak or dip is based on what track is playing.

[ekovalsky]

azryan,

seems like everything i say you think is false or a lie!  the rm40's took about six months before i was happy with the sound.  that's why i gave that time figure.

like you, i continually tried different room placement and each time i moved them some retuning was necessary.  same when different cables were introduced into the system.  when you heard them i was playing with an equilateral nearfield setup.  you have to realize that room position, woofer damping, L-pad level settings are all interdependant.  there is no "right" amount of mass damping and specific L-pad settings for the speakers -- it has to be optimized for the room and listening environment.

that being said, if i ever find the permanent location for the rm/x, i am very interested in replacing the L-pads with a high quality resistor of the appropriate value.  or replacing the whole internal crossover with an active unit, analog or digital.

i still don't think the rm/x are overdamped.  if i read correctly, you were most impressed with the bass you heard when you listened.  except maybe on the chinese drums.  well i don't listen to yin hok-man for pleasure (in fact i have a hard time sitting through the whole track) and on the classical, rock, new age, and jazz music i like the bass sounds GREAT.  very tight, very deep, no distortion, dead-on harmonics!  could i remove a marble size piece of putty so the chinese drum tracks would make the woofers go crazy?  sure, but i don't want the woofers out of control on the music i like.

as to breaking in, when you heard the rm/x they had probably about 50-100 hours of music through them. most of it low volume, and brian burned them in for 1-2 days on a pulse generator before shipping.  woofers may not fully break in for 400-500 hours beacuse of their design and material response to stress.

and i do disagree about our rooms.  despite the treatment i've added i'd glady swap rooms with you.  your room is built of omni-block or equivalent and is much larger, letting you pull your speakers far out from the wall with subs in the corners and plenty of seating.  to accomodate four comfortable chairs i have to keep the speakers near the wall with some equipment between them.  and i have drywall on the ceiling and untreated portions of the walls, glass doors behind the listening position, and basically nothing to diffuse sound in the rear of the room.  during the day i can open up the doors to the family room which helps, but at night (when i usually listen since i work all day) doors must stay closed because of wife and baby.

one other comment you made about volume levels -- you said you felt it wasn't loud enough and wanted to crank it up more...  we were listening with peaks well over 100db.  one feature of the best systems has been the desire to keep turning it up, even when it is quite loud.   many systems (not necessarily yours, just a generalization) once the loudness hits a certain level i feel the need to turn the volume down to avoid fatigue or uncomfortable listening.  the rm/x sound great no matter what volume, they can and will play at realistic concert levels but because of my family and respect for my organs of Corti i usually resist...

[mcrespo71]

we were listening with peaks well over 100db. one feature of the best systems has been the desire to keep turning it up, even when it is quite loud. many systems (not necessarily yours, just a generalization) once the loudness hits a certain level i feel the need to turn the volume down to avoid fatigue or uncomfortable listening.

This is definitley true!  I love my monitors and all, but in my room if I start going beyond 95 db, it get's fatiguing.  The RMX's I heard at Roop's would definitley have no problem going over 100 db's for extended periods of time IMO.  I don't think we listened that loud, since we didn't have a Rat Shack meter, but I bet we hit it on peaks and it really did sound effortless.  I would imagine I could hurt my hearing with RM/X's and not even know I was doing it.

Michael

[Wayne1]

Zoe,

I am glad you are liking the sound of the RM-40s with the modded Panny.

The RM-40s will need to be retuned to match the sound of your new receiver and cables. Perhaps Mr. Casler would be kind enough to supply that service to you. You did not say if Mr. Casler tuned the speakers to your gear and room when he delivered them. The a big advantage of all the VMPS speakes is the fact that they can be tuned. It is also a big problem with them because they can be mistuned very easily. I personally find the "factory" setting far too bright for me. I have my tweeter at about 9 o'clock and the mids around 10:30.

Every recording sounds different. The modded Panasonic/VMPS combo brings that out like no other components I have listened to. Many times I have had to stop myself from getting up and readjusting the settings whenever I changed a CD.

The "stock" RatShack meter is NOT a good item to use to adjust bass. It is very well documented that it does not show all frequencies in a linear fashion. There is a site that shows certain capacitor values to change to adjust the frequency responce of the meter to be more acurate. I believe there is also a company that sells a CD with test tones and frequency sweeps that have been EQed to adjust for the RatShack meter's problem.

The "rumbly/floaty" description sounds like a room mode peak around the 30-60 HZ region. My room had the same problem. The first thing to do is to try the system with more putty on the passives. Different rooms do need different amounts. The Panny used in Party Mode does give you the option of adjusting the levels of the amplifiers driving the mid/tweets and woofers separately. By hitting the "level" button on the remote, you can change the balance of woofer to mid/tweet 1 db at a time. That may also be able to help. There are tone controls that can be used to adjust the system, as well.

[Tyson]

Finally, someone that doesn't think I'm a shill  

I'm still waiting for my Panny to be modded and returned to me, but at the last listening session I actually thought the bass was overdamped, and that putty needed to be removed.  An overdamped RM40 can actually sound pretty similar to an underdamped RM40.  I would play around with removing the putty a bit first before adding more.  My general plan when tuning is to get the PR and bass tuned first, then worry about the pots later.  Get the bass sounding strong and percussive (with impact), and only after that is done should you worry about the matching of the level of the bass to the level of the mids/tweeters.  Of course there is some interplay here, so you will have to adjust back and forth a bit, but this method is the fastest/easiest one I've found for RM40 adjustments.

[azryan]

I want to respond to Eric's comments but here is the wrong place for this to go on so... sadly...
fight club looks like the place...

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=8640.msg73566#73566

[witchdoctor]

For out of control bass I reccomend room treatment from 8th Nerve. Try it before you go crazy tweaking equipment. Try a room pak.

[zybar]

Witchdoctor,

While I like and use the 8thNerve Room Pack + extra seems, these aren't going to do very much in the bass department.  

For bass I went with MiniTraps from www.realtraps.com.

I did talk to Ethan about their floor standing product (the name escapes me), but it wasn't going to have a big impact at really low bass levels.

George

[EProvenzano]

Hi Zoe,

Was the Jolida 502B that you refer to, modified?

Thanks
EP

[Zoe]

No sir.  Even the tubes were the originals.

The Panny, BTW, is breaking in and the treble is coming along nicely. The massed string/hash/garble/victrola sound that I hate and have always thought I would never get rid of is going away and starting to sound very good.

Pop - i.e. vocals and jazz are out of this world.  With the simple signal that vocals and jazz present to these RM40s this rig banishes upgrade-itis.

[AphileEarlyAdopter]

Probably, I missed it. What sort of power conditioning was used during the listening session at Tyson's place ? I am wondering about that, as the Bybees seems to make so much difference. In my experience, power conditioning makes drastic difference. So, if the Bybees make a difference over and above that, then that is very interesting.