No bass with Naim

[dweezil]

My 10 Watt Leak valve amp driving 15” Tannoys disagrees with you.

I thought most of the speakers on demo were far less efficient?

Maybe Tannoy is the way to go!

 

[sq225917]

Your speakers have a bump at 80hz followed by a big dip, this is right at the chest thump frequency, feels like bass, but it's not really. This is likely exacerbated by the rear porting.

The other speakers are likely without this exageration and extend to lower than 46hz.

So what your experienced is a lack of this pronounced thump, not less bass per se.

As ever it's room size dependent

 

[monkfish]

3 x 250's an 82 and associated power supplies and crossover, pair of isobariks, absolutely no lack of bass.

 

[ajm]

Thanks for all of the replies.

I've tried experimenting with speaker positioning in the room. Moving close to the rear wall and trying toe-ins etc but didn't really get any improvements although I've not got the equipment to do a proper room measurement.

I auditioned with various genres of music during the demo - electronic dance, indie, rock, funk/soul and vocal. Obviously some genres/recordings have more bass than others but the general feeling I got was the lack of bass.

I haven't tried different electronics purely because I like the Naim sound and would be happy with the sound I'm getting if only there was a touch more bass.

Your speakers have a bump at 80hz followed by a big dip, this is right at the chest thump frequency, feels like bass, but it's not really. This is likely exacerbated by the rear porting.

The other speakers are likely without this exageration and extend to lower than 46hz.

So what your experienced is a lack of this pronounced thump, not less bass per se.

As ever it's room size dependent

Interesting the comment regarding the characteristics of my current speakers compared to the ones in the demo room.

It wasn't so much that I felt a lack in the demo room of the pronounced thump that I may be used to with my current speakers - I felt that all of the speakers in the demo room had the same lack of bass that also I hear from my current speakers at home.

My room at home is fairly small : 15ft length x 9ft width with the speakers firing across the width due to necessities of room layout.

 

[hifi-dog]

Add a sub?

 

[Dave Decadent]

Maybe EQ is the answer?

 

[IWC Doppel]

You could model the output at the seating position using REW and the free simulator, no need to mic up at least you will see the basic room response

 

[IWC Doppel]

https://www.svsound.com/blogs/subwoofer-setup-and-tuning/what-is-subwoofer-room-gain

 

[Chris81]

You've only got 80 Watts per channel. That doesn't allow much for bass.

No offense, really, please stop giving technical based advices you obviously don't know what you are talking about.

 

[matfff]

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

If you want bass, forget NS1000’s. Nicest thing you can say about them is their very clear.

 

[pocketkitchen]

You could model the output at the seating position using REW and the free simulator, no need to mic up at least you will see the basic room response

This would be very helpful. The issue described is likely to take more than random kit-swapping to fix.

 

[ToTo Man]

My room at home is fairly small : 15ft length x 9ft width with the speakers firing across the width due to necessities of room layout.

In your current layout with your speakers firing down the 9ft width, depending on how far away you sit from the front and rear wall, you'll get a certain amount of reinforcement or cancellation at 62Hz and 124Hz from the 9ft mode. Assuming your ceiling isn't higher than 9ft, you'll get no reinforcement below 62Hz.

If you rotated your room so that your speakers fire down the 15ft length, the modal reinforcement/cancellation will shift down to 38Hz and 76Hz, which will facilitate deeper bass extension from your speakers if you avoid the null zones.

 

[JezmondTutu]

I can’t comment re passive SCM40’s, but the bass from my 40A’s is incredible - depth and power. Probably too near to the wall at 8” but hey ho!

All comments suggest you need a meatier amp than a Supernait 3, SCM19’s are probably a better match.

 

[Fatmarley]

I'm not familiar with the supernait 3, but Naim bass can be a bit lacking IME. Buy a dirt cheap quad 306 off eBay, with a cheap passive preamp, and I bet your bass problems disappear.

 

[John Phillips]

I can’t comment re passive SCM40’s, but the bass from my 40A’s is incredible - depth and power. ...

From my experience I agree, but it seems reasonably clear the OP has a different preference. So much recorded music is created entirely in the studio these days, with very limited reference possible to "natural acoustic bass", that it does become largely a matter for individual taste.

I do find quite a few loudspeakers definitely overdo the bass on the sort of music I hear in the concert hall. That's my reference. The SCM40As (which I have auditioned and I actually own SCM50As) don't do this and are much more believable to me. However, others do report that they perceive their bass as lean - compared to their personal preference.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

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

Erm, not quite, m/lud. If you have a 'closed box' room then the lowest pressure mode is actually dc. Hence a speaker that can output very low pressure variations may well give sounds in the room at frequencies well below the 'lowest mode' people normally assume can be produced.

In my main listening room (which isn't very big) I could get a fair bit of output down to about 35Hz even with ESL63s! - admittedly having boosted the drive to them at LF by modding the bass lift of a QUAD 34. Main limit was that I wasn't trying to play overall at trouser-flapping levels.

 

[JezmondTutu]

From my experience I agree, but it seems reasonably clear the OP has a different preference. So much recorded music is created entirely in the studio these days, with very limited reference possible to "natural acoustic bass", that it does become largely a matter for individual taste.

Hi John,

I do find quite a few loudspeakers definitely overdo the bass on the sort of music I hear in the concert hall. That's my reference. The SCM40As (which I have auditioned and I actually own SCM50As) don't do this and are much more believable to me. However, others do report that they perceive their bass as lean - compared to their personal preference.

It may be because my speakers aren’t decoupled or are too near to the wall, but honestly you’d not want more bass! They feel like they have more power and depth than my old Shahinian Obelisks and the Event Opals I had before. It’s bass that ounches you in the guts, was very surprised given they are sealed cabinets and not massive bass drivers.

 

[Woodface]

I would urge the OP to try active ATCs, you won’t have any worries about power then. Try an ATC pre-amp also.

I went from upper level Naim to ATC CDA2 into active 40s, couldn’t be happier. Naims amps do have a limited band width IME & are not that revealing.

 

[PerF]

Maybe confuse deep bas with boom bas ?

 

[ajm]

Add a sub?

I did borrow a Rel T7X subwoofer from the dealer to try at home. It definately added low end bass but I felt that there was a gap between where the bass finished from the Sonus Fabers and where the bass started from the subwoofer so it didn't really sound natural.

In your current layout with your speakers firing down the 9ft width, depending on how far away you sit from the front and rear wall, you'll get a certain amount of reinforcement or cancellation at 62Hz and 124Hz from the 9ft mode. Assuming your ceiling isn't higher than 9ft, you'll get no reinforcement below 62Hz.

If you rotated your room so that your speakers fire down the 15ft length, the modal reinforcement/cancellation will shift down to 38Hz and 76Hz, which will facilitate deeper bass extension from your speakers if you avoid the null zones.

Thanks for posting the graphs.

Unfortunately there are internal and external doors at either end so it is not possible for me to have the speakers firing down the length of the room.

From my experience I agree, but it seems reasonably clear the OP has a different preference. So much recorded music is created entirely in the studio these days, with very limited reference possible to "natural acoustic bass", that it does become largely a matter for individual taste.

I do find quite a few loudspeakers definitely overdo the bass on the sort of music I hear in the concert hall. That's my reference. The SCM40As (which I have auditioned and I actually own SCM50As) don't do this and are much more believable to me. However, others do report that they perceive their bass as lean - compared to their personal preference.

I'm definitely not after unnatural room shaking bass but when I hear a double bass, for instance, I want to hear the natural low end bass that I don't feel that I get at the moment.