I love this little system. It hasn't been through many changes since I set it up about 3 years ago. A couple of Amps, a couple of CDPs, 3 or 4 speaker changes, and a trailer load of cables. Does that qualify as few? ...or many? Ahhh, who cares, its fun.
I removed the bulk of the room treatments. Especially the corner Bass traps. Now, I am using a Rel sub with great success. Crossover very low to avoid the pile up of room modes at 50hz.
The red wedge foam behind the speakers may be replaced with Skyline diffraction panels. As I understand it the Skylines dont absorb midbass/midrange like the 2" foam does.
It sounds great. The Merlins are awesome. Vocals to die for. Tight and superbly accurate bass. Definitely not bright, as some suggested would be the case with SS amplification.
A few minor tweaks upcoming. A better stand with/for isolation. A better Rel Speakon cable, and a few cable auditions to maximize performance and satisfy the incurable condition of audiophilia nervosa.
Comments welcome, opinions, and suggestions welcome.
Edit: 01-19-08
Red wedge foam - gone. Replaced with pyramid foam. Better looking and a little better sounding. These speakers dont need a ton of room tweaking like my last speakers did.
Update: 07-01-08 Adona 3 level rack with composite and granite shelving. Pretty nice piece. Easy assemble. Good sonics.
Rel B3 Sub - Great sub, room placement was a little tricky, but reward with plenty of superb low octave energy. This one here to stay.
Great amp. Plenty of heat in the winter! Virtual Dynamics Power One straight to Porter Port outlet.
Resolution Audio Opus 21
Fantastic CDP. Running direct to Amp with no regrets. Small two box chassis is neat but requires two shelves and twice the isolation devices. Top notch sound. Virtual Dynamics David Power Cord and Audience Au24 Balanced ICs direct to Amp.
Merlin Music Systems TSM-MXe
Sealed design 6" midwoofer with 3" voicecoil 1.125" Silk Dome tweeter On 24" Sound Anchors Concrete filled stands. Single wired with Audience Au24, Merlin Jumpers, and Zobels.
REL Acoustics B3
Very Nice. Have tried several Subs, I prefer this one hands down. Virtual Dynamics PC
I have about 150 hours on the 6.2s right now. The midrange is superb and very very detailed. Highs are opening up. They were a littled too rolled off for the first 100 hours or so. I have done quite a bit of positioning and a few room treatments. The bass is very articulate and definately less boomy with break in and a few treatments. I plan to let them break in for another week or so, and then maybe add some more bass traps. I have one in the far corner.
Room is 11' x 11'8" x 8'2". Not entirely cubish but still problematic I am sure. Though I am quite pleased with the sound. I would like a bit more extension in the lower octaves, but what can one expect from a single 6.5" midbass?
The Red Squares behind the speakers are home made panels consisting of a wooden frame with compressed acoustic fiberglass covered by red canvas.
BTW, Crazy4Blues, you were right on the money! The spikes immediatly tightened the bass.
Crazy, at about 40 hours break-in the Sols have a superb midrange. So much information and clarity, all the while it is so palpable. These guys are really showing some potential. I have the spikes but for break-in and eventual placement tweeking. Well, they are large spikes and heavy speakers. I like to wear sandals you can imagine the rest. =). Not to mention the carpet damage. Did I mention how heavy these speakers are? Geesch.
Tvad, I intend to try some amps out in the very near future. I will probably post a thread asking for opinions. My line of thought was break-in and initial impressions with familiar gears. I'll keep that NuForce in mind.
On a similarly note, the Bryston is over 300 watts per, and I have done some break-in at fairly loud output levels. It seems to take a lot of signal input and hence a good bit of power in order to achieve these levels. 100dB at a foot from the drivers and sometimes for hours at a time. My question is the Bryston is barely warm. Now with my more demanding but slightly more efficient B & W's, at a similar level and duration, it (Bryston amp) would be fairly hot. I wonder what the effect of the Solilouys being a rather easy load with high impedance (nominal 12 ohms) has on ones power requirements? Or the amplifiers rated output?
I have read many times how easy the 6.2s are to drive. With even very low powered tube arrangements. However, they seem to be soaking up quite a large chunk of my available power from a marginally beefy Amp. I suppose the drivers are a little stiff yet and will loosen up with time.
Very cool. It might be fun for you to compare the 4B SST with a pair of Ric Schultz's modified NuForce Reference 8 mono amps. They will be in the same price range...actually less than the Bryston. The best thing is you can try them and return them if you don't like them.
Hey, I LOVE Soliloquys! Nice going! Don't worry--they'll tighten up (I used 5.3s for a long time). I have also used the Oval 9's. Good combo. You DEFINITELY need the Spikes for the Soliloquys--that'll clear up the boominess and allow _real_ bass to emerge. If you don't have them, it's worth it to order a set.
Thanks Jh2os. Tube monoblocks sound like a fun experiment.
Timrhu, the 6.2's only have about 30 hours on them so far, and yes the potential for trouble is there. A little boominess in the 60-120hz (guesstimate) range was strongly apparent at first but seems to be diminishing. I intend to put a minimum of 500 hours on them before being too critical. Position tweeking will probably help a lot. And the best news of all, this is my room, so I can address this issue with any treatment I want. I suppose its better to have too much bass and control it, than to not have enough.
Vocals and most midrange dominant instruments really sound good on these speakers. Overall, my initial impression is good.
Those Soliloquys are gorgeous to look at. I'm curious as to how well they work in the small room. I've tried large speakers in a similar sized room and had trouble with them.
Nice, simple set-up! I like it! I would highly recommend experimenting with tubes, as I am a recent convert. Maybe go direct to tube monoblocks from the CDP? Simple and clean.
