Speakers too big

[tvrgeek]

So picked up some ELAC Debut B5.2 for my desk. A bit of eq and very nice. But too big. Not physical size, how the sound is presented. Almost headphone like. Pin-point sound sources. I sit about 3 feet from each speaker. My old little FE85 based did not present in this way. I tried various mix using APO, but only helped a little. Just not relaxing. I am in a hard surface cubicle, corner and cabinets box me in. As it is a living room, I can't do any drastic treatments.

Any suggestions? Different choice in speaker? ( Same price range, so no, not buying LS50 Metas). I wanted the much cleaner sound and getting down into the 50's sure beats the 90's. I do not play loud at all.

 

[Galliardist]

I am in a hard surface cubicle, corner and cabinets box me in.

Are the things blocking you in responsible for this effect? You can't treat the room, but if you are getting reflections from those nearby objects you can try to treat those, perhaps. If you are listening on axis, try off axis (crossed, straight ahead, pointing outwards) and you might get lucky, as well.

Otherwise, try living with the sound you've got for a while. You may be able to learn to relax with the sound and it sounds like an improvement if you do critical listening there - I know I can switch between relaxed and attentive listening through good headphones, if that's really your analogy here.

I suspect this type of presentation just comes with cleaning up the sound and a decent pair of tweeters with nearfield listening. I wouldn't want to recommend you go backwards in sound quality again.

 

[Jim Matthews]

What are they like, if they are aligned to cross in front of you?

 

[tvrgeek]

I don't physically have the space unfortunately. Going to move the Elacs to the shop where they will be fantastic. The 'Coy" HF blend helped only a little. I wonder if some of the older designs like the Mirage up firing cubes would blur the imaging some . Tired lowering the overall midrange and it moved the center stage, but not the overall presentation.

Yea, these little jobs are orders of magnitude overall quality improvement. I can build better, but not for the price. Even that the price jumped $100 the day after I bought them. My old ones are modified FE-85's with a $6/pair car tweeter I belt them to only go Bing and Boing and intelligible U-tube voice. Now I want some gentle background music.

Maybe something like the old Diamond 9.0 would be the step up, but still "small" enough in sound. Old ADS maybe.

Good point on headphones. I am not a headphone user so this close pinpoint sound is very un-natural to me. I played with some pillows to see if I did treatments on the front and side wings helped and actually, made it even more pin-point. Of course, it is worst with the early "right and left" recordings but a lot of my generation music is mixed that way.

Also wondered if maybe a couple of reasonable in-wall would work better. Visually better and a foot further away.

SNOW. Ha Ha Ha. I am retired now and don't have to shovel my driveway!

 

[tvrgeek]

Confined space.

 

[tvrgeek]

My old surrounds. Less bass as I tuned them high, but less pin-point. Maybe a contributor, the phase at crossover is off by 5 degrees. XT-25's are easy to cross high, but those RS series are a challenge.

 

[tvrgeek]

Almost kept the Elacs in the living room. They are that good. Mine are still better, but makes me think about the up-line on Elac, Revel, Wharfdale etc. Better than the CSS T1 which was on my short list as it is almost identical to one I had planned? One of Bagby's SB designs is also virtually dead on my idea. Even though the drivers in mine are current, they are pretty old. I think I'll put up with the RS/Vifa's for now on the desk. The more I think about it, as set of in-wall fits my use case better. I have used Boston and Polk in the past. If they don't work, it is just some sheetrock and paint. No big deal.

 

[Steve Dallas]

Love the vintage books!