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Amp matching Wharfedale Linton

Jupije123

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Joined
Aug 19, 2024
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Hello everyone,

I recently purchased Wharfedale Lintons second hand, after listening to them at the seller's house. We were sitting basically nearfield and they were being powered by an Audiolab amp, which was I believe the 6000a model. I listened to some test tracks and was impressed enough to purchase them.

Now, i brought them home and hooked them up on my Marantz Pm6006 and am listening to them at about 3.5m distance. I am mostly satisfied except in tracks with lots of bass content. Particularly one of the test tracks I listened to at the seller's place (Make us stronger - Ghost rider). At my place the bass in that song has so much less definition and control, and sounds flabby and muddy. I have them pulled out about 50cm from the front wall, and wasnt listening at more than 75 db at listening position.
I am certain it was much better handled at the seller's house because I remember specifically mentioning during that track how it was tight and not muddy, which I wasnt expecting.
Now, I am a complete noob and beginner in this audiophile sphere, but I guess it could be down to:
- my amp doesnt send enough output power
- Erin measured speaker's impedance at minimum 3.5 ohm, my amp is rated at minimum 4 ohm
- I have seen people online mentioning damping factors of amplifiers, with higher ones being able to control larger woofers better. Marantz is rated at 100
- could be my room, but pulling them even more out from the front wall didnt help much. Room is about 4.5 by 6 m with ceilings at 3.3m.

Any advice would be appreciated.
 
Probably room modes. I doubt the amp is doing much of a difference, you could try a V3 Stereo or aiyima TPA3255 amp with a strong power supply thougbetter yet, measure your room and add eq to remove your room modes.
 
+1 for room modes.

Below Schröder, you're mostly listening to your room more than to the speakers themselves.

Good room: tight bass
Bad room: muddy and flappy

The further away you are from your speakers, the more room acoustics dominate.

Good room usually means room treatment and room correction.

First step should always be to get a measurement microphone and assess the room acoustics.

A UMIK-1 coupled with the free software Room EQ Wizard will do that for not very much money.
 
Last edited:
+1 for room modes.

Below Schröder, you're mostly listening to your room more than to the speakers themselves.

Good room: tight bass
Bad room: muddy and flappy

The further away you are from your speakers, the more room acoustics dominate.

Good room usually means room treatment and room correction.

First step should always be to get a measurement microphone and assess the room acoustics.

A UMIK-1 coupled with the free software Room EQ Wizard will do that for not very much money.

Thanks for the suggestion, I did just that! I already had UMIK-1 and REW and some rudimentary knowledge on generating EQ filters. I measured each speaker sweep four times in different positions and vector averaged their response:


1725561203559.jpeg



In brown is the FR of the left speaker and in the green of the right speaker. The room is asymmetrical and it is obvious, the left speaker is nearer to the side wall and it is shoved a little bit between a table and the TV, and the right is next to the open corridor with more space.

If I overlay the left with a target curve the bass "bloat" under 300 Hz becomes obvious, :

1725562101184.jpeg



That is missing in the right speaker (with the same target curve):
1725562256514.jpeg


I will cut a few of these peaks on the left speaker and see what happens. But now I am more interested in the big dip that both speakers exhibit at around 300 Hz. Isn't that too far up the FR to be influenced by the room? I thought for a second that it could be my measuring position, but I was maybe 10° above tweeter at the maximum. There weren't any obstacles between the mic and the speakers during measuring.
 
I dont think you should vector average different measurements from the same speaker.

Just do an RTA Moving mic measurement for both l and r speaker, eq till Schröder and be done with it. The Lintons dont need any eq beyond Schröder.
 
Thanks for the suggestion, I did just that! I already had UMIK-1 and REW and some rudimentary knowledge on generating EQ filters. I measured each speaker sweep four times in different positions and vector averaged their response:


View attachment 390436


In brown is the FR of the left speaker and in the green of the right speaker. The room is asymmetrical and it is obvious, the left speaker is nearer to the side wall and it is shoved a little bit between a table and the TV, and the right is next to the open corridor with more space.

If I overlay the left with a target curve the bass "bloat" under 300 Hz becomes obvious, :

View attachment 390439


That is missing in the right speaker (with the same target curve):
View attachment 390440

I will cut a few of these peaks on the left speaker and see what happens. But now I am more interested in the big dip that both speakers exhibit at around 300 Hz. Isn't that too far up the FR to be influenced by the room? I thought for a second that it could be my measuring position, but I was maybe 10° above tweeter at the maximum. There weren't any obstacles between the mic and the speakers during measuring.

Great that you have started measuring, but your scale is way too broad. Right now your range goes from 0dB to 150dB. Zoom in to a range of 1/3 of that, or more, so that you can see with much more detail how the response is varying in the bass.
 
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