Rb 1090 and small bass respons??

[Bang for Buck]

Hello everybody,

Since two years now I struggle with the fact that my set has little bass.
Overall sounding a bit shrill. (not punchy weighty warm)
My pre amp is a rotel rc 1070
amp rb 1090
speakers canton karat 795 dc

I tried a lot off things but i'm questioning my pre-amp now. Almost no tone control and maybe rotel sounds a bit clinic of nature???

Does anyone have the same experience, or has a pre-amp attached where the sound is warm and full of body, weighty.
Because right now it drives me crazy!!!

[Aussie Geoff]

Hi,

It certainly won't be the RB-1090's fault... The RC-1070 is an OK pre-amp, not as detailed or musical as the best. if you want an improvement in overal quality auditon the new RC-1082 which IMO is way better / more musical etc....

However to be truely bass shy, I'd be thinking more room positioning for your speakers, they could be too close to wall or in a bass null spot. Have you tried moving them? Or possibly (rare cases) speaker wiring - try heavier gauge and bi-wiring your speakers.

Geoff

[soundhound]

Hi,

It certainly won't be the RB-1090's fault... The RC-1070 is an OK pre-amp, not as detailed or musical as the best. if you want an improvement in overal quality auditon the new RC-1082 which IMO is way better / more musical etc....

However to be truely bass shy, I'd be thinking more room positioning for your speakers, they could be too close to wall or in a bass null spot. Have you tried moving them? Or possibly (rare cases) speaker wiring - try heavier gauge and bi-wiring your speakers.

Geoff

I ran the same set up a few years back (different speaks) and it didn't lack bottom end.
I suspect Geoff nailed it in his advice.
Polarity can also do it. Make sure + goes to + and - to - between the amp and speaks.
If it is the room you should be able to walk around while its playing, and hear spots where the bass blossoms.

[Bang for Buck]

thanks so far guys.

I think the last post nailed it.
When i move around i certainly hear very very big differences in bass!!
But isn't that always???
If it ain't normal, then my room acoustics , placement of speakers etc. is the problem!!

For instance, the best bass is at position of the right side of the right speaker,
so i got more bass on the outside of the listening triangle than inside.

[mjb]

Speaker polarity is wrong on one side...

[Ted]

I've got a RC 1070 w/ a lowly :W RB-1080 and have never felt that there was any lack of bass, in fact when I got the set-up I was pleasantly surprised at how much there was. Not to be redundant, but as stated above play with your positioning...

[WI Rotel]

As other posters have noted your preamp has essentially nothing to do with bass response. Although you can see most of us discussing the merits of this amp/preamp back and forth, in reality, the differences in overall sonic character that the electronics have are slight. The big thing is the speakers, no amount of super amps/pres are going to inprove speaker that have some fundamental characteristic that you may or may not like. Another big issue is room acoustics, a lot of people complain that what sounded fabulous at the store sounds mediocre at home! All true since the acoustics of your particular space are completely different from the "auditioning room" at the store! As others here, your first job is to reposition your speakers around to find your particular sweet spots. Once you have found them, use the tone controls, that is why they are there! We are always discussing the bypass- getting the pure "signal" well that maybe find for an anechoic chamber, but I'm sure your room is anything but! A component that has almost disappeared from the market for reasons that elude me is the parametric equalizer, it made making fine tunning to room acoustics a lot simpler, specifically those that would do it automatically, my guess is that surround sound has made it superfluous, but again there is a lot of people that still love their "stereo".
If all adjustments fail to satisfy you, then, no matter how great your speakers may be "ranked" they simply are not the ones for your particular space or taste and its time to look for replacements.
The first rule of audio is: The speaker is by far the foundation and the most crucial part of the system, the electronics are simply "tweaks" to the speakers fundamental character. Amplifiers are a distant second, if your amp can drive your speaker to the loudest level you would ever like without distorting or burning up your done in that parameter. Buy the most power you can, prefferably well above the recommended by the speaker manufacturer.
Pre's are probably the least important part of the system by far as far as sound fidelity or character is concerned, unless its a very, very poor one the pre is more than anything a switch box. The less you know it's there the better, in the times of surround, of course, you want them to contain the latest and greatest format decoders and to do that part of the job without adding anything in the process. BTW as far as decoders are concerned they all pretty much contain the same stuff the decoder chips are made by only a couple of manufactures and they cost next to nothing the difference is that the better ones are more invisible in operation than the other ones. There really is no reason for a pre to cost 10K ( and not surprisingly some are) unless all the wiring inside is made of gold !

Well I guess the moral of the story is....... Unless your pre is broken or it doesnt meet your switching or decoding needs, replacing it will probably the result in absolutely zero change to the character of your system's sound .

[Tasmon]

I have had the same frustrating problem with by rb1090 and rsp1068 with B&W804S, in analog bypass had very little bass you had to have the sub to enjoy. My rsp1068 was sent back this week for an issue related to volume control. My dealer gave me a rc1082 as a loaner. All can say is this is what I had been missing all along, good deep extended controlled bass even at low volumes no sub needed. I will be purchasing this unit. Unless my rsp1068 had other problems, (could be) the difference between the preamps are night and day for stereo playback. In my case the problem was not the rb1090 but the preamp section of the rsp1068.

[Bluespower]

I couldn't disagree more with the comment made earlier about the insignificance of the pre amp. I have a similar set-up to what Tasmon mentioned (RSP-1068, RMB-1095, & 804s). The RSP-1068 in bypass mode is decent, but there is allot of room for improvement. The route I chose was to add a ModWright SWL 9.0SE into the mix (has HT passthru). While this isn't a cheap fix, it has given me the improvement I was looking for in my two channel listening.

I have a second system (RC-995, RB-981, & DM602s) in my office for playing LPs. The most recent upgrade was the RC-995. Excluding speakers, I can honestly say that the addition of the pre amp made the most noticeable difference of any piece of electronics I have cycled through the system.

[Mig17]

I bet your Rotel RC-1070 is faulty unit

[WI Rotel]

I bet your Rotel RC-1070 is faulty unit

That is also a possibility!
But remember in the real world with a functioning pre, bypass is bypass all that the pre will do is be a volume control. No tonality should be involved. As I have mentioned before one of the nice things about upgrading from the 1068 to the 69 is that the Stereo mode has been reworked, now it is indistinguishable from bypass except for better bass.
Yesterday I spent some time tuning my system by ear rather than with the sound level controller, one thing I discovered was that I was setting my sub too low. When I switched from bypass to stereo I would lose a lot of "punch" and bass presence, however, my sound measuring device told me all my levels were OK????? What gives?
First of all, and obviously, the frequency is different, the ear has a lower sensitivity to low frequency sound, thus though the meter told me one thing, real auditioning was telling me something different. The solution, adjust the sub by ear. I simply A/B the system with stereo vs bypass and adjusted the sub accordingly, result: They now sound exactly the same the additional low fequency of the sub now serves to shake the walls :W . I haven't tried it with video yet but I'm guessing it will work the same. I'll give it a quick try with the Chronos BD which has a very good and musical sound track.

[bigburner]

Bang for Buck, your speakers are probably not giving you the sound that you desire. You therefore have two options to fix this problem. Either replace your speakers or add a subwoofer to your existing system to emphasise the bottom end.

Nigel.

[Bang for Buck]

A sub????
Even when i got two 12" woofers off 380 w. rms in my speakers?

Isn't that overkill?