They do have a bit of toe-in. Probably not too obvious from the photos.
Night 3 (it will be a long one…)
I found some spare cables (3m) that were good enough for now. My NACA is 3.5m but there is no way I am taking it out of the speaker stands after all the effort to get them in there in the first place!
Wife didn’t notice anything until I told her 30 minutes later… Her head is still in the office I guess. The good news is I won’t need a divorce lawyer tonight! To be honest the rack is too black for this corner so I don’t see it happening in the long term.
I haven’t had the chance to listen to it carefully yet. Let’s see what tomorrow brings… Annoying that the speaker cables will be different during the comparison, but so be it. The NAP250 is now packed and I used the extra shelf to keep some distance between 555PS and nDAC. Powerline is also back to the PS.
I see your logic and I raise to a 252/SC/250 I am a bit reluctant in targeting the 282 as I often read that it might be a bit too …energetic which is not necessarily a good change for me. The only way to move in this direction would be to start with a Supercap on the SN2, but I guess that would throw the balance out completely… Let’s see what black boxes I find lying around at my dealer in a couple of days!
It’s time for a whisky and music with lights off I guess… Cheers!
After all this plugging and unplugging, I have put everything back in place and improved cable dressing a bit. It sounds pretty wonderful at the moment.
In the meantime, a second-hand HiCap DR came up for sale nearby at a good price and the itch was too big for me to resist…
I still need a SNAIC-4 to connect it to the amp though. So it will be some time before I hear what it can do.
The nice thing with the HiCap is that it more or less fits inside the fireplace behind the Fraimlite, so there is still space for one extra full width box in the future… Unless Naim comes up with a shoebox DAC-less streamer transport… Come on Naim, you know you can do it! Or should I find an empty shoebox (not from my wife’s Louboutins for sure) and put the Allo in there!
PS: I re-read some past threads discussing about Allo Digione vs ND5 XS2 over here and I didn’t get the feeling that the Allo is so much worse… So I am not sure if I will hear a big difference if/when I try the ND, especially given that my demo of the 555PS didn’t bring much benefit.
Still curious about any differences you found when the rack was placed to the left. Obviously not enough of a difference since everything is back where it started. All of my cables, despite looking a jumble have been re-routed and organised in a better way (I hope). I’m just waiting for my tt to come back after a bunch of upgrades. The quadraspire wall shelf had collected a lot of dust under the tt, despite my attempts to keep everything (relatively) clean. Even took the opportunity to treat the shelf (cherry) with some lemon oil. Now just have to wait.
It was definitely better, that’s for sure. More “open” space with better imaging. The tonality itself was probably similar. But the move was vetoed by SWMBO as expected!
Also here, a lot of Naim dust was cleaned up in the process!
Wrong speakers for the room, maybe? I’ll let everything settle once the HICAP is in place and I will see where I go from there…
I’ve found (and it may not be true) that rear ported speakers are more critical of proper placement. If (like a lot of us) the room is going to dictate speaker location, I’d be leaning towards something front ported. I had to buy (blindly) and after enough reading settled on Harbeth (M30.1). I’ve been very happy with them and at least to me, they were fairly easy to get to work in my room (basically, the location was decided before the speaker).
After suffering the same issues you are having I found the only solution was different speakers from a different manufacturer. My rooms not huge about 19m square and like your self are very limited on positioning of the kit and listening position. I tried everything to tame the in your faceness of it to no avail. Room acoustic mods ruled out early due to the other half and tbh I don’t blame her it’s a living room not a studio. I tried moving the TV from the middle, cabinet from the side moving speakers this way and that nothing really made it any better only worse and I would end back where I started. I used DSP for a while which was great but of no use to my analogue side which then lying unused.
So in the end I decided something has to change and took advice from some on here who suggested to try new speakers as they are likely over loading my room.
So I did and demoed many and tested the one I liked at home to see. It fitted perfectly. I went for sealed box in the end as this helped control the low end more and allow more flexibility with positioning and tamed the often very bright hf. I am now very happy. The room still has its affect to some degree but overall it’s not overwhelming us now and not fatiguing at all. I hear far more in the music than I have done for years.
Its shown me that finding the right speakers for the room and electronics is paramount. You cant have one of these parameters it needs both to have more system synergy. No black box can fix this at all, unless it’s DSP and then that still has its own drawbacks.
Agree completely with the last comments. Front ported or sealed box speakers is definitely something I should try to get a first-hand feeling in my room. @CrystalGipsy, out of curiosity, which speakers did you end up with?
Carpet coming back today and SNAIC4 on the way… Then it will be on a local optimum for some time!
To be honest the rack is too black for this corner so I don’t see it happening in the long term.
I am a bit reluctant in targeting the 282 as I often read that it might be a bit too …energetic which is not necessarily a good change for me. The only way to move in this direction would be to start with a Supercap on the SN2, but I guess that would throw the balance out completely… Let’s see what black boxes I find lying around at my dealer in a couple of days!
Or should I find an empty shoebox (not from my wife’s Louboutins for sure) and put the Allo in there!
