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No bass with Naim

ajm

pfm Member
I currently use Sonus Faber Cremona Auditor standmount speakers and whilst I like the mid and treble from these I've always found the bass a bit lacking so I arranged a demo at my local dealer to listen to a few pairs of floorstanders within my £3k to £4k budget to try and find replacement speakers that have a fuller sounding bottom end.

I listened in turn to the following speakers using a Naim Supernait3/NDX2 :
Spendor a4
ATC SCM40
Dynaudio Evoke 30
Sonus Faber Sonetto III

What surprised me was that all of the speakers seemed to have very little bottom end, similar to what I hear with my Sonus Faber standmounts. Even the ATCs, which I've read nothing but praise for, sounded similar.

Just out of interest they also let me listen to Dynaudio Confidence 20 (which are beyond my budget at around £10k) just to see if it was my budget that was constraining things and although I heard more detail through the more expensive speakers they still had the same issue with the bass.

I do like the Naim sound and but do you think that I need to try some speakers with a larger >10" bass driver like Tannoy or similar? I've always fancied trying some classic Yamaha NS1000s but not sure how these would compare to the more modern speakers listed above.

Is anyone else running a similar Naim system without it lacking in the bass?

Any recommendations welcome.

Thanks
 
Sounds like an issue with your dealers room. I've rarely heard a good sound in a dealers, you really want to try things at home.
 
Thanks for the reply.

I did try the Sonus Faber Sonetto III speakers at home but found that they didn't have any more bass than the Cremona Auditors despite their bigger size.
 
I have pretty good bass down to 30 Hz with 4 naim 135s into Sonus Faber Extremas and even better bass down to 5Hz with 3 12" subs and one 18" sub carefully located in the room. If you want low bass adding a sub is an option
 
Not sure if any of those speakers go particularly low tbh, have heard the spendor A4 and they are definitely not deep in bass and believe the atc’s roll off pretty early around 50hz or so. If you want bass I’d look for something which is reasonably large and goes down to 30hz. The amp your trying is unlikely to be an issue.
 
You've only got 80 Watts per channel.

That doesn't allow much for bass.
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I have 272 with Teddy xps and 300DR running Sonus Faber Sonetto V - I auditioned the Spendor A4 A 7 and D7.2 at home and the A 4 were pretty bass light. The bigger Spendors were better but I have a tricky room which has some harsh treble.

I then tried the Sonus Faber Sonetto III and they were really good - smooth treble and good bass - but the bass on the V’s is much better - but at the cost of a bigger size and of course a higher price!
 
Supernait 3 with Atc scm11 and using test tones I can get 38 hz in room response..80w is plenty to allow them to punch hard n fast
 
... I arranged a demo at my local dealer to listen to a few pairs of floorstanders within my £3k to £4k budget to try and find replacement speakers that have a fuller sounding bottom end.

I listened in turn to the following speakers using a Naim Supernait3/NDX2 :
Spendor a4
ATC SCM40
Dynaudio Evoke 30
Sonus Faber Sonetto III

What surprised me was that all of the speakers seemed to have very little bottom end, similar to what I hear with my Sonus Faber standmounts. Even the ATCs, which I've read nothing but praise for, sounded similar. ...
From experience of the SCM40s, if you prefer fuller, less dry bass I think you will need to try placing them near to a wall.

Also, in this review of the Sonetto IIIs (pdf) the reviewer describes their bass similarly to my experience of the ATCs. He puts forward the same way of dealing with a different preference.

I like the lean (but still extended), dry SCM40 bass but your preference may suggest dropping at least these two from your short-list.
 
I currently use Sonus Faber Cremona Auditor standmount speakers and whilst I like the mid and treble from these I've always found the bass a bit lacking so I arranged a demo at my local dealer to listen to a few pairs of floorstanders within my £3k to £4k budget to try and find replacement speakers that have a fuller sounding bottom end.

I listened in turn to the following speakers using a Naim Supernait3/NDX2 :
Spendor a4
ATC SCM40
Dynaudio Evoke 30
Sonus Faber Sonetto III

What surprised me was that all of the speakers seemed to have very little bottom end, similar to what I hear with my Sonus Faber standmounts. Even the ATCs, which I've read nothing but praise for, sounded similar.

Just out of interest they also let me listen to Dynaudio Confidence 20 (which are beyond my budget at around £10k) just to see if it was my budget that was constraining things and although I heard more detail through the more expensive speakers they still had the same issue with the bass.

I do like the Naim sound and but do you think that I need to try some speakers with a larger >10" bass driver like Tannoy or similar? I've always fancied trying some classic Yamaha NS1000s but not sure how these would compare to the more modern speakers listed above.

Is anyone else running a similar Naim system without it lacking in the bass?

Any recommendations welcome.

Thanks


What was your test piece of music?
 
I tried an Audio Note OTO SE earlier this year, which is a 10w amp - no lack of bass with AN-K, or Epos ES11; in fact, I had to use the Ks further into the room than normally recommended.

Sounds like room, or speaker positioning issues?

Also, my experience of ATC (albeit with SCM10, & SCM11v2, rather than SCM40) aligns with those of John Phillips (in respect of their lean bass performance).
 
You can't defy the laws of physics and one of them is that the lowest bass note that can freely propagate in any room is determined by its dimensions. Below this the sound is likely to be severely attenuated in the room but can probably be heard outside of it to the annoyance of your neighbours.

Few rooms will allow you to go much lower than about 60Hz which has a wavelength of about 5.5m
 
Lack of bass isn’t an issue with Naim amplification in my experience. As others have said, this probably points to a room issue… have you auditioned different electronics?
 
I had NDX and find it to be pinched in the middle and weak in the bass, although some people like that. Also, neither Supernait have bass definition which justify it's price. Naim reserved that only for separates. Try a different source for a start and I believe you would be closer to what you want.
 


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