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I have a private office in an older building that has been remodeled. The walls are concrete or plaster and my room is 10 x 18. I do mostly computer work, but I also do some media transfers for the university. For these transfers I have assembled a nice little system in here with all of the usual audio and video inputs along with vinyl.I just moved out my B&W 302s (which by the way imaged very very well and made a very satisfying system) and moved in a pair of 602s2 monitors that I had laying around the house after moving up to the Magnepan 3 series in the HT system.
The tweeters are really bright right now and I am looking for anyone that has set up 602's in the nearfield with good results. I go for imaging and tonal accuracy.
Right now the speakers are about 3 feet from inside to inside and about 4'4" from my chair with the axis aimed about two feet behind my head. The left speaker is about a foot from the left wall and the right is about 3 feet from the right wall. The face of the speaker is about 2 feet from the back wall.
Bass is good, the 302's were actaully good in here too.
Everything is good except the highs.
Here is the CD playback system that is going right now, please keep in mind that it is my third string system.
Carver SD/A 360 5 disc changer
Audioquest Jade interconnects
Pioneer VSX-403 reciever (stereo mode is about 65 wrms)
Cat 5 speaker cable (Will be replaced with Audioquest type 4 tonight)
B&W 602 S2 on B&W standsAny ideas?
Follow Ups:
Have you tried turning them upside down? I have a pair of NHT SuperOnes pretty much in a nearfield setup in a hard surfaced room and having the woofs at my ear level really works wonders. I fire 'em straight ahead, too, and get excellent imaging. (I use CustomHouse Cable Barracudas, which seem to be the smoothest I've tried, though I haven't messed with too many.) Since the 602s are a good bit bigger, maybe inversion would change the bass , but it doesn't cost a whole heck of a lot to try.
I recently grabbed a cheap used Pioneer DVD player and was really surprised at how smooth and easygoing it is for CD playback. The perceived detail may be less, the bass may be a touch looser, but I haven't cared a hoot. The 1996 Music Hall player I had been using sounds thin and harsh in comparison.
I had some 602's (series 1)about 2 years ago. The biggest improvement in smoothing the sound was from moving from stranded 12 guage to MIT T2 interconnects and MIT T2 bi-wire speaker cables. About the closed I got to the speakers was 7 ft. Given the size of your room, 4 feet seems a bit close in to me, but then I don't know the demands of your situation.
The 302 seem to have better imaging than the 602's. I think the 602 has a nice sound but somewhat veiled compared to the 302's. I think a small tube amp would give the 602 a nice sound. I've tried the 602 with my Jolida and it was very warm, not overly bright but a bit too sizzly for my ears. The 302 just seem to have a more open sound. You get weak bass from the 302 but its better than fake sounding bass of the 602. If your budget allows you to play around with tube amps I would try that.
I don't listen in the near field, but I also thought the 602's were a little on the bright side and have been working on that. Here's what I've found to date:Bi-wiring made them brighter and I thought less coherent. So back to Uni-wired. I went from 12 gauge very fine strand cable to 12 gauge with heavier gauge stranding. This helped a lot. Solid core would be the ultimate in this trend. I have long runs so I need 12 gauge to meet B&W's criteria of 0.1 ohm speaker cable resistance.
I use and NAD C350 integrated amp. I tried various pre out/main in jumpers and ended up with the factory ones.
I use to have an Arcam 7SE, but found it to be bright. So I went back to my older Sony XA1ES with 1/2 meter low capacitance cables.
I have the speakers on 24.5" stands and they were toed in. I recently tipped them back about 7 degrees to get my ears off of the tweeter axis and then found that I did not need them toed in to get a good image, so they're back to straight ahead. With your very short listening distance, tilting them back is probably not going to do it, so I'd suggest raising them to put the tweeter above your ears by a few inches. You definitely want to get your listening position off axis.
Overly bright speakers seems to be the curse of the high end these days. Probably a result of the morons running around looking for more and more detail. My son-in-law and I have learned to avoid products which are listed as "detailed" or "revealing". They have become synonyms for "bright". I have my 602's well under control at this point and do enjoy the clean smooth sound I get. Although on some CD's I have to use the treble control to cut the highs a bit. They are a stretch as a nearfield speaker, something like the BBC designed LS3/5a with a small sub would probably do even better. They were specifically designed for nearfield and worked wonderfully in tight spaces.
Hi this is my setup ---Now I Primarily lessen to music from 1963 to 1973 rock, blues, and folk some jazz
And Mozart
B+W 602s2
Arcam 7R biwired to a 8P (biamped)--40wpc-50wpc
Arcam 7se CDP
Music Hall mmf5 TT
28inch stands
Monster Cable speaker wire 20 ft,--Mi2s two pair
Monster Cable interconnects M1000I or something likes that.
I listen nearfield about six ft. away at low to mid volume .its my number one system right now.
My room is 12 by 22 by 9 ft. high
My highs in this system are on the mild sweet side. I think you should try some warmer wire and maybe a better amp.
As for CD, s I am not overly impressed even though I thought it blows away the mass-market stuff in
Every way. Now with the Music Hall mmf5 TT my whole system takes off like the high-end systems.
As I said before buy better wire all around. The B+W 602s2 need power at 40wpc they sounded
Like crap,at 90wpc biwired and biamped they sound great. Hope this helps a little. REDFLY
Try a felt ring around the tweeter.
Magnetar
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nt
NT
Magnetar
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