I have a bit of a buyers' remorse to be honest.
I am completely missing the low frequencies of the Reference 3 Meta in my room without EQ/DSP (Denon x4800h in pure direct mode + NCx500 stereo). I don't know if it's the lack of power from the amps or it's the speaker or placement. If I boost frequencies below 120Hz by 8-12dB in Audyssey or Dirac, it's better, but I have to stand up or go to the corners, because it's cancelled completely at my seated listening position. I can hear the Kefs struggling when I boost sub-bass. The NCx500 can move those membranes easily when boosted, but I can barely hear any bass even if I put my ear directly to one of the ports of the speaker. They can get loud (mids and highs unbearable), but no bass. I was really hoping that I won't need my old active sub to fill in those lower frequencies...
I'll do some REW measurements later today to see what's going on. I tried to move the speakers closer to the wall, nothing's changed in terms of bass, only the soundstage was impacted.. I cannot move them much further away from the front wall because the current listening distance is 3m and I'm already 1.5m close to the back wall.
According to soundnews:
"Each Reference 3 has two bass ports that are adding a lot of oomph, punch in the chest and rumble down low. In the package you can find shorter bass ports that are limiting the low-end delivery by a little, making it tighter and clearer sounding in untreated rooms."
"They were delivering a chest pounding impact, with bass notes reaching as low as 30 Hz on some particular tracks."
"When it comes to bass definition, punch and cleanness, Reference 3 are taking the iron throne as the most impressive ones."
Sandu replaced his dual mono Benchmark AHB2 with a single Chord Ultima 5 power amp + Ultima 3 Pre recently, he recommends "full-bodied and organic sounding amplifier/s" for. But, looking at the spec sheet of my NCx500, if it's really the bottleneck, I just don't get it why. What am I missing and where should I start? Is it the pre-out voltage of the Denon that's not enough for the Audiophonics power amp with 25dB gain?
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