Floor standing or stand mounted - and an itch to scratch?

RvL, not sure what you mean. Changing electronics from a one box to a two or three or four box system will not change the in room FR of the speakers.

I was referring to the # of variables the OP is/was auditioning and considering to change at the same time.

When you have time can you repost with 1/24 or 1/12 octave smoothing?

Looking at your graph it seems that the L and R speakers are not symmetrically placed with respect to the walls and furniture. The nulls around 60 Hz and 110 -120 Hz look like boundary effects, moving the speakers around and remeasuring might pin down the cause. AFAIAC, a null in the upper bass - lower midrange can be very annoying as it takes away the ‘body’ of the music.

A combination of room treatments and DRC would certainly help.

Floor stander or stand mounter, room effects will always be present and throwing electronics or cables at the problem will not help

Yes, of course.

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It’s described in my profile. Happy to give more detail if that’s insufficient.

But don’t, ever, try to boost the signal to remove dips caused by room cancellation: not only will it not work, but it is a rapid route to speaker destruction: Every 3dB boost means double the amp power - so, say, trying to remove a 12dB dip means the amp will be giving 16x the power compared to the rest of the spectrum - or, worse, trying to give more than it is capable of, overloading and clipping.

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I saw that, but struggle a bit with the interpretation. You have PMC EB1’s, but only for bass? And then ATC for mids and a Scanspeak D3004 tweeter? Or do you have your own box/enclosure and just used the drivers from the other speakers?

A few years ago I started designing and building some transmission line speakers - designing from scratch. As part of that I decided the mid and treble units would be in satellite type enclosures, sitting on the main (bass) enclosure, enabling the mid/treble to be toed for best effect, and the bass not needing to be rotated the same. I quickly knocked up a prototype for the mid/treble, and got to work on the bass. First bass prototype wasn’t right, so I remodelled a bit, and still not right, and I decided on more drastic changes, which I haven’t had time to get back to (though hopefully will before too long, having retired recently).

In the meantime I changed my old IMF RSPMs for the PMCs (cost £4k). Whils very good, I wondered what they’d be like with, in particular, the Superb ATC mid unit, so I removed the crossover from the PMCs, put my satellites on top, and set up the active XO using REW to measure - and they’ve stayed like that ever since!

My plan is to get back to the construction project, and when/if I get it sounding better than the PMCs (or even as good as), change over to that and sell the PMCs. And if I fail I will keep as is, or possibly modify the PMCs permanently by building the ATC mids and Scanspeak tweeters into the EB1i boxes. The trouble is it sounds so good that I currently lack the impetus to do anything!

Here’s a pic:

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Actually, some boost, 3-6 dB, is fine so long a the speakers are not overloaded. I expect the KEF R5 will take this boost, but shoebox sized speakers need not apply. However, that level of boost will not do much to fix the 120-140 Hz dips. Best to move the speakers around and remeasure. Those dips correspond to a quarter wavelength of 60-70 cm approx. I wonder if that is roughly the average height of the KEF woofers off the floor?

Unfortunately, as far as I know, none of the Naim integrateds or Unitis have power amp inputs so it is not possible to insert an equaliser or DSP box without some hacking, but that discussion would be outside the scope of this forum.

Appreciate this thread has gone down a v technical path following the OP’s topic, but just to say after 10 yrs of having floorstanding B&Ws, I changed recently to Dynaudio Special 40s and REL 7i subwoofer. Sound is much cleaner and with better nearfield listening. The bass extension’s still there, but the mid-bass sounds much more balanced. The sub integration’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good and I do think the S40s are fantastic speakers for the money (obviously biased…). Personally I think if budget’s not infinite, a pair of atandmounts with a small sub is a great option.

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Of much greater importance is the amp not being over driven into clipping.
You will note my post mentioned cancellations - no amount of boost will remove a cancellation, but trying can destroy the speakers.

Just to wrap up this thread, after much head scratching & piggy bank emptying I have now purchased

  • Naim Supernait 3
  • Naim NDX2
  • PMC twenty5i.24

Whilst still running in - playing @Wilfried 's recent excellent Qobuz demo playlist - initial impressions are WOW :heart_eyes: - it sounds sooooooooo much better than my outgoing KEF R5 speakers & Uniti Star. Having changed all “three” components at the same time it is difficult to know where the uplift comes from, but no doubt in part from each unit.

I can hardly wait for everything to bed in and come on song, but I know I will enjoy the process.

If I had to be totally honest I do marginally prefer the aesthetic of the R5s over the PMCs, but am sure the next owner will enjoy them as much as I have.

Thanks to all who contributed to this thread.

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Fantastic, I bet it sounds great. The NDX2 and SN3 are so much better than the Unitis and the PMC speakers are excellent.

If you haven’t already done it, get system automation going; then you can control the SN3 volume and change inputs using the NDX2 remote.

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Enjoy and it certainly should be an upgrade at more than double the cost (assuming all new of course) over previous system :+1::grinning:.

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@haffle congratulations on your purchase(s). You’ve got a killer combination there that has great synergy together. I used to have PMC GB1i speakers and moved to the 25.23s. I wasn’t completely convinced with the slanted look when I bought them but I’ve grown to love how they look and think I prefer the slant to the straight upright conventional look. Your 25.24 will keep improving over the next few weeks. In my experience a hi line between the SN3 and NDX2 gives a decent improvement. Enjoy your music.

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I do indeed listen to Baez (I was there for her last concert in the UK ) as well as Cassidy , Cohen etc . I listen at moderate volumes

My speakers P3ESR , I got them specifically for their ability with vocals ,a concept equally at home with the LS3 .

I switched to them fromPMC FB1 which were far too big . These days (with my Nova) I enjoy a delicacy and presentation that makes me extremely happy

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[quote=“feeling_zen, post:54, topic:23646, full:true”]
As someone who has two pairs of floor standers, and two (soon to be three) pairs of stand mount speakers I can say they all have their charms and they do different things in different rooms. It would hard to select a preference on performance.

Given that your current set up is on of the more interesting set ups on this forum.What speakers are you getting.

Written in a spirit of academic interest and pure nosiness

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One of the magic things about SBLs/SL2s is that they combine a basic two way stand mount (stand built in) with the bass loaded into that otherwise wasted space.Ground breaking design at the time and in my opinion remain as communicative as any modern speaker I have heard.

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Building a 3rd proper system, this time for a new kitchen dining room based around JBL L-82 or L-52. Blue grilles I expect.

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