First time getting into audiophile – frustrated with Mofi Sourcepoint 8

[bsjin]

I have been shopping for audio system for music mainly (and movie at times) for about 2 months.

I have tried out KEF Q Concerto meta and Mofi Sourcepoint 8 so far at my house (and tried KEF R3 meta at a friend's place)

My amp is NAD M10 V2, and sub is svs micro 3000. I have done Dirac room correction multiple times.

I personally much prefer the clarity on the KEFs, esp in mid/high ranges (snares, hats, vocals), but loved the warmth and imaging on the sourcepoint 8s (although the highs sounded a bit "moot").

After listening for a week or two, The Mofis get a bit fatiguing to listen to, and I never get the "wow" effect from the details I got from the KEF Q Concerto Meta. I have tried boosting the mid/high ranges a bit through Dirac, which fixed the issue somewhat, but still not impressed.

I am already spending few thousand dollars, and I am still within my return window, so I would love to shop around for some more speakers.

I personally love the sound of my friend's KEF R3 Meta setup, but would like to try something different as I've now realized that the market is huge .

I am even considering going active speakers route like Genelec 8341A, LS60 (wasn't too impressed compared to R3 meta, but room correction wasn't done when I demoed it), and perhaps other setups.

My listening area is my living room which is around 350 sqft.

I value sound in the following order

- clarity/instrument separation
- 3d imaging
- warmth/fullness

Would love to get your thoughts on either how I can improve my current setup with the Mofis, or a completely different setup.

 

[OldHvyMec]

I would say placement of where you set and where the speakers are is a good place to start. Use room correction after you try pulling the speakers out into the room and make sure the room is not a big box with nothing in it. Room treatment makes or breaks the best of speakers. Usually the flatter the response on paper is the better place to start. It's not an absolute having (flat as a board) frequency response for the simple reason that everyone's ears are different and depending on your age, you might have hearing loss.

Some speakers in some rooms will never sound good to some people and they will astonish others. You usually experience this between the young and old, and usually the choice of genre.

If two weeks later the speakers are losing luster (so to speak), TURN THE MUSIC DOWN!

Half of what you hear is the room; never forget that. Once you have taken the time to make sure you have done things like close curtains, make sure there is something pretty thick at least on the floor in front of you, open or close a door to port the room if it's sealed and THEN try room correction. It's one of the main reasons I still use DIY speakers and always build in L-Pads to the mids and highs. I still have tone control somewhere in the chain. I use a separate bass management system so it is very forgiving on almost all FR speakers today (50hz or < to 20khz or >).

Simple things like adjusting the angle of the speaker along with tweeter heights can make all the difference in the world. Tip them back, tip them forward, toe them in, toe them out and like I said adjust the camber and the caster if you so choose. I have one pair of speakers that tipping them back 15% is a pedestal modification that the factory recognized as a preference for some.

Nothing is written in stone when it comes to rooms, speakers, design, treatment, your ears, bla, bla, bla.

Regards

 

[Mort]

My listening area is my living room which is around 350 sqft.

You probably won't want the 8341a for a room that big without a sub. But it has the clarity you want.

 

[dualazmak]

My listening area is my living room which is around 350 sqft.

Welcome to ASR Forum!!

In addition to above @OldHvyMec's suggestions...

Do you have some sound-deadening space (or treatments) behind the SPs and behind your listening position?
For example, like my case shared here;
- Not only the precision (0.1 msec level) time alignment over all the SP drivers but also SP facing directions and sound-deadening space behind the SPs plus behind our listening position would be critically important for effective (perfect?) disappearance of speakers: #687

If you would share rough sketch/diagram (or photos) of your listening room, including furniture window(s) door(s) ceiling-height/material carpet curtain(s) etc., many of us hopefully will be able to give you more suitable suggestions, I believe.

 

[terryforsythe]

Would love to get your thoughts on either how I can improve my current setup with the Mofis, or a completely different setup.

With every speaker design there are tradeoffs. People have different preferences as to what they value most. Also, the room has a significant impact on how a speaker sounds. I encourage you to become familiar with understanding speaker measurements and how they can give insight into how they will perform and how they will interact with a room.

Understanding the Measurements

In this series I discuss the different data sets I provide in my reviews and explain what they each mean and how they are important to you.

www.youtube.com

Now, with regard to your specific preferences:

- clarity/instrument separation
- 3d imaging

Many factors influence these aspects of speaker performance, including the room in which the speakers are placed. I suggest a speaker with linear on-axis and off-axis frequency responses, a linear directivity index, low harmonic distortion and low diffraction. Also, concentric drivers perform well at 3d imaging. If you go with something that has separate drivers, try to get a speaker where the tweeter is as close to the midrange driver as practical.

Finally, if you go with a conventional passive speaker, one that uses air core inductors for the midrange driver (or woofer if 2-way) will avoid core losses that negatively affect the upper midrange. Personally, I prefer active speakers from the perspective of sound quality, but a concern is whether the speaker can be repaired 10 years down the road if an amplfiier goes out and the speaker no longer is in production. (In one of my systems I am all active with external amplifiers, so that is not an issue).

- warmth/fullness

With DSP you can tune the speakers for your tonal preference to a certain extent.

 

[terryforsythe]

LS60

I really like the LS60 speakers. I have a pair in my office.

 

[mcdn]

If I had your issues I would:
1) get a second sub - this will have a 90% chance of addressing the warmth/fullness issues and you will never regret the purchase
2) when you redo Dirac with the second sub, make sure you have a healthy boost of 6dB in the bass below 100Hz. Flat bass in-room sounds very thin.
3) try wider dispersion speakers, the Mofi and Kef options are wonderfully engineered but quite narrow in their dispersion. Philharmonic BMR would be the obvious choice.

 

[boxerfan88]

- clarity/instrument separation
- 3d imaging

1. For best imaging, one needs very tight FR tolerances between L & R speakers. You can't do much about this aspect for now.
2. Try these experiments:

• Distance between speaker & side-wall/front-wall should be the same or similar
• Position speakers in a equilateral triangle with the MLP (move MLP closer if that is required to reach equilateral triangle)
• Toe-in speakers, and aim the acoustic center to apex approx 1 foot behind MLP. (use laser alignment tool will make it easier)
  • Or, follow the MoFi manual if they specify the toe-in.
• Switch off DIRAC (or just limit DIRAC correction to 200Hz-300Hz).
  • IME, full range correction sounds horrid to my ears. YMMV.
• Test, fine-tune, test.

Disclaimer: whatever I state here is from my experience and colored by personal preference

 

[amper42]

I have been shopping for audio system for music mainly (and movie at times) for about 2 months.

I have tried out KEF Q Concerto meta and Mofi Sourcepoint 8 so far at my house (and tried KEF R3 meta at a friend's place)

My amp is NAD M10 V2, and sub is svs micro 3000. I have done Dirac room correction multiple times.

I personally much prefer the clarity on the KEFs, esp in mid/high ranges (snares, hats, vocals), but loved the warmth and imaging on the sourcepoint 8s (although the highs sounded a bit "moot").

After listening for a week or two, The Mofis get a bit fatiguing to listen to, and I never get the "wow" effect from the details I got from the KEF Q Concerto Meta. I have tried boosting the mid/high ranges a bit through Dirac, which fixed the issue somewhat, but still not impressed.

I am already spending few thousand dollars, and I am still within my return window, so I would love to shop around for some more speakers.

I personally love the sound of my friend's KEF R3 Meta setup, but would like to try something different as I've now realized that the market is huge .

I am even considering going active speakers route like Genelec 8341A, LS60 (wasn't too impressed compared to R3 meta, but room correction wasn't done when I demoed it), and perhaps other setups.

My listening area is my living room which is around 350 sqft.

I value sound in the following order

- clarity/instrument separation
- 3d imaging
- warmth/fullness

Would love to get your thoughts on either how I can improve my current setup with the Mofis, or a completely different setup.

I have two suggestions:
1. Buy the RME ADI-2 DAC FS and use the ADI-2 software to tune the speakers exactly they way you want them. Load the ADI-2 software on your computer, connect the USB cable between DAC and MacBook Pro. Now play your favorite tunes and tweak the loudness setting exactly the the way you want it. It can give you amazing clarity and fullness. By the way, it's on sale at B&H for $300 off today.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=rme%20adi2%20dac%20fs&N=0&InitialSearch=yes&sts=ps

2. If you want a better sounding speaker for close to the same money purchase the Revel F228Be on sale for $6,000. It sounds a lot more natural to my ears and offers wide dispersion that's perfect for a 350sqft area. https://theaudiosolutions.com/products/revel-f228be-floorstanding-loudspeaker-each-1

If you want the best option yet, get both and use them with a Purifi amp. Have fun!

 

[Daverz]

Erin's measurements may be a useful reference for further tweaking (more commentary in the video on that page):

MoFi SourcePoint 8 Speaker Review

MoFi SourcePoint 10

www.erinsaudiocorner.com

These speakers measure extremely well both on and off-axis, and you seem to have the tools you need to make tweaks to the frequency response, so I would keep trying to improve things by moving them relative to the walls, changing the listening distance, and adjusting the toe-in. A laser ranger is helpful for precise setup.