Another “what to upgrade first” request
- Thread starter Wringtonion
- Start date
I think a couple of changes/upgrades would suit you to start with.
1. Cartridge.
The OM cartridge is ideal for you turntable as it is high compliance which suits a low mass tonearm that you have. I would suggest keeping the cartridge and changing the stylus for a Stylus 10, or preferably a stylus 20. You will need to reduce the tracking downforce to 1.5 grammes with these so investing in a digital stylus gauge and an Ortofon cartridge protractor would be advised and will also stand you in good stead for the future. Changing the stylus will make a huge difference to the sound.
2. Loudspeakers.
These Eltax units were O.K. Maybe not the last thing in quality, but reasonable for the price. There are some things you can do for virtually nothing that will improve these speakers.
a) Move the speakers forwards from a back wall so that the front face is about 500mm (18") from the wall. Move them away from corners as well. Experiment with turning them slightly toe in as well.
b) Get them off of the floor. As the sound waves are emitted from the speaker they will roll down the front of the speaker and connect with the floor. This is called acoustic coupling and will lead to a muddy bass response. All you need to do is to cut a piece of plywood the same size as the base of the speaker and cut a couple of pieces or 11/2" x 4" timber. Screw or nail them together so the timbers run longitudinally under each side of the platform. There will be a 4" high gap under each speaker when viewed from the front. This will allow those bass sound waves curl back under the speaker and it will break the acoustic coupling with the floor. You will have cleaner bass. You can always paint the stands or cover them in cloth to beautify them a bit.
c) Only if you are confident - Carefully remove each bass driver (they unscrew from the front - gently lever them out. Leave the wires connected) and male up some small sealed plastic bags containing dry silver sand, Place these in the bottom of the cabinet to add some deadweight mass. Add a bit of rockwool insulation to the stuffing inside the cabinet as well, making sure you don't block the ends of the 2 reflex tubes and keep it away from the back of the bass drivers so the cones can't touch it. You can staple and glue compressed felt carpet underlay to the sides and rear of the cabinet walls inside the cabinet as well to reduce standing waves and help to damp cabinet resonance.
3. Room treatment.
As has been said before, a tiled floor or in fact any hard surfaces are not good in listening rooms. Allowing for other decorative demands and priorities, having curtains on windows, cloth wall hangings, bookshelves, soft furnishings. carpets etc. all helps to reduce reflection and echoes in the listening space.
Hope this helps - Enjoy the music.
1. Cartridge.
The OM cartridge is ideal for you turntable as it is high compliance which suits a low mass tonearm that you have. I would suggest keeping the cartridge and changing the stylus for a Stylus 10, or preferably a stylus 20. You will need to reduce the tracking downforce to 1.5 grammes with these so investing in a digital stylus gauge and an Ortofon cartridge protractor would be advised and will also stand you in good stead for the future. Changing the stylus will make a huge difference to the sound.
2. Loudspeakers.
These Eltax units were O.K. Maybe not the last thing in quality, but reasonable for the price. There are some things you can do for virtually nothing that will improve these speakers.
a) Move the speakers forwards from a back wall so that the front face is about 500mm (18") from the wall. Move them away from corners as well. Experiment with turning them slightly toe in as well.
b) Get them off of the floor. As the sound waves are emitted from the speaker they will roll down the front of the speaker and connect with the floor. This is called acoustic coupling and will lead to a muddy bass response. All you need to do is to cut a piece of plywood the same size as the base of the speaker and cut a couple of pieces or 11/2" x 4" timber. Screw or nail them together so the timbers run longitudinally under each side of the platform. There will be a 4" high gap under each speaker when viewed from the front. This will allow those bass sound waves curl back under the speaker and it will break the acoustic coupling with the floor. You will have cleaner bass. You can always paint the stands or cover them in cloth to beautify them a bit.
c) Only if you are confident - Carefully remove each bass driver (they unscrew from the front - gently lever them out. Leave the wires connected) and male up some small sealed plastic bags containing dry silver sand, Place these in the bottom of the cabinet to add some deadweight mass. Add a bit of rockwool insulation to the stuffing inside the cabinet as well, making sure you don't block the ends of the 2 reflex tubes and keep it away from the back of the bass drivers so the cones can't touch it. You can staple and glue compressed felt carpet underlay to the sides and rear of the cabinet walls inside the cabinet as well to reduce standing waves and help to damp cabinet resonance.
3. Room treatment.
As has been said before, a tiled floor or in fact any hard surfaces are not good in listening rooms. Allowing for other decorative demands and priorities, having curtains on windows, cloth wall hangings, bookshelves, soft furnishings. carpets etc. all helps to reduce reflection and echoes in the listening space.
Hope this helps - Enjoy the music.
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sound hound
Super Member
Thanks for the reply. I would wonder if it might be good for you to look into a pair of stand mount speakers. Usually, they image better than floor standers. Also, with your smallish room size, they might "breathe" better. If you haven't ever auditioned stand mount speakers, it might widen your perspective on speaker options. Do you have a retailer near you who would demonstrate some different possibilities?.
Sandman1221
Super Member
Blue Shadow you are just making stuff up!, unless you have the actual amp and have tested it with the appropriate equipment, please stop adding disinformation! Someone could inadvertently damage their amp following your afvice.
Blue Shadow
Waiting for Vintage Gear from this century
geez, that is what I was thinking about you. You do not seem to understand how amps were tested back around when you were born.
I don't believe many here think I'm making stuff up.
I am curious how you get to the result that using a 6Ω speaker on an amp that says 6Ω speakers are ok and the amp is going to overheat. That is some disinformation in my book. Contradicting the manufacturer. What do you have to back up this hypothesis?
Maybe with this info you can convince me that you know better than the manufacturer or maybe we can have a poll to see what the ak collective believes. Then we will know what the group thinks whether they be right or wrong.
Sandman1221
Super Member
Well I think that is what contributed to the failure of my NAD 317 integrated amp! The 317 amp was rated at 80 watts continuous @8 ohms, with a 95 watts maximum "at 8 ohms". It was not rated for 4 ohms continous use, period! Then the back panel said 4-8 ohms, based on speakers configuration. Well putting large tower 4 ohm speakers on that amp, and playing music loud, easily exceed 95 watts, and that is why it ran so hot for years. Heat degrades electronics. So the 4 ohm speakers exceeded the maximum wattage for the amp, and that is not good for the amp because it overheats.
Bill S, I think you are using the term "rated for 6 ohms" incorrectly. If an amp is rated for 6 ohms, the mfg should give a number in watts that the amp can put out continuously at 6 ohms. For the OPs amp there is no mfg number in watts for continuous output at 6 ohms. Therefore, using it on 6 ohm speakers is risky because the user does not know how much watts the speakers draw, and that of course varies based on the particular 6 ohm speakers.
Just saying an amp is "6 or 4 ohm capable" is not a rating! A rating implies a number is assigned, and no number in watts was assigned to the OPs amp for continuous use at 6 ohms.
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Bill S
Thread Killer
Most HT receivers have a minimum 6-ohm requirement but some will even work at 4-ohm. An 8 Ohm speaker will be just fine on a receiver that puts out power at a 6 or 8 Ohm rating. The receiver in question is a lower priced Sony stereo but my guess is the amp section is similar to AVRs in that line. Either way, it's not worth splitting hairs over just to be able to say you're right so I'll concede and say you're right. Back to the OPs original question now.
Yes and no. If you have a ho-hum amp better speakers can give you some SQ improvement, but probably not the full potential of the speakers. But with better speakers sound improvements will be more noticeable when you modify / change / upgrade other components. So my vote is to have speakers that are better than the rest of your system.
And of course room treatment goes a long way. And as mentioned decoupling your speakers from the hard tile floor will go a long way. An easy and very effective way, is with heavy duty washer dryer vibration feet.
howzat
Active Member
Your room is 4m * 6m which is roughly 12 feet * 18 feet - to me, this is a large 'listening' space so there is probably a bit of other furniture that might interfere with acoustics.
Sit in your favourite listening position and try various speaker positioning to see what sounds best. Next, try some sort of acoustic treatment (try inexpensive DIY first) to see if you notice any improvement. Next, look for an inexpensive used amplifier/receiver (most likely used/vintage) to add to the mix and compare it with your Sony. If you get this cheap enough you can keep it as well as the Sony. Having 2 amplifier receivers will help you compare speakers later. Next, find a streaming device that will allow you to sit in your favourite listening position and adjust sound corrections to suit your room (example Wiim Pro). Your Sony has has Bluetooth and a remote but if you get an older/vintage amplifier/receiver you can add this functionality by connecting most streamers to an AUX input and using your phone as a remote.
Once you have a feeling for how amplifiers work in your room, with your music, you can start to experiment with speakers, and turntables, and, and, and.....
Read a lot of Audiokarma threads and watch a lot of Youtube videos and enjoy your music as you experiment. You will probably swap a few things in and out before you find what you like but as long as you don't spend too much up front, you can upgrade as you can afford it.
Sit in your favourite listening position and try various speaker positioning to see what sounds best. Next, try some sort of acoustic treatment (try inexpensive DIY first) to see if you notice any improvement. Next, look for an inexpensive used amplifier/receiver (most likely used/vintage) to add to the mix and compare it with your Sony. If you get this cheap enough you can keep it as well as the Sony. Having 2 amplifier receivers will help you compare speakers later. Next, find a streaming device that will allow you to sit in your favourite listening position and adjust sound corrections to suit your room (example Wiim Pro). Your Sony has has Bluetooth and a remote but if you get an older/vintage amplifier/receiver you can add this functionality by connecting most streamers to an AUX input and using your phone as a remote.
Once you have a feeling for how amplifiers work in your room, with your music, you can start to experiment with speakers, and turntables, and, and, and.....
Read a lot of Audiokarma threads and watch a lot of Youtube videos and enjoy your music as you experiment. You will probably swap a few things in and out before you find what you like but as long as you don't spend too much up front, you can upgrade as you can afford it.
Blue Shadow
Waiting for Vintage Gear from this century
You blew it up, plain and simple. Overdriving it for years doesn’t condemn every unit because you can‘t handle your watts. Buy an amp with clip indicators and don’t let it clip much. Years of good service. Sorry for your loss
I’m ok with your definition of rated but you should accept the speaker impedance data supplied by the manufacturer as correct, too. A rating to use a certain impedance speaker is not required and the speaker won’t damage the amp if the speaker’s impedance is within the recommended values listed on the unit.
Actually its the other way round. If you look at the impedance and frequency response curves of most loudspeaker drivers you find that there is an impedance hump centred at the driver resonant frequency. This will be close to the bottom of it's operating frequency range. The lowest impedance will be just above that frequency - Often referred to as F3 against the resonant frequency F0. The impedance will remain fairly low with rising frequency from that point, gradually rising as the frequency increases. A typical 8ohm nominal rated bass driver will have a minimum impedance of about 6 - 7 ohms just above resonance rising to maybe 30 ohms or so at maximum operating range. Many loudspeaker crossover designs utilise a Zobel network for the bass unit (normally a capacitor with a series resistor, fitted across the driver terminals) to flatten this response curve in order to present an even impedance response to the low pass crossover filter.
Amplifier manufacturers take this into account when specifying minimum suitable nominal loudspeaker impedances. As music is transient in nature, you don't tend to have sustained tones at any particular frequency - i.e. it's always changing. The only exception to this i guess would be very loud deep pipe organ music or some techno synthesiser based sound where very low sustained frequencies can be found. Even with this though, the only effect in normal listening environments would be that the output devices in the amplifier would warm up a bit temporarily.