Expert 250 - whither next?

[DelaneyB]

Hi
Wondering if there are any upgrades worth thinking about in the next 6 months.
I bought my 250 in Jan 2015 with a pair of Atom GT SE on some very substantial stands.
Sources are Mac mini with Audirvana Studio and a Rega P6

I had some connectivity issues initially on AIR so used a Moon Mind via AES/EBU for a while then when Air was fixed moved to that. The Mac had to be replaced with an M1 version 2 years ago so moved to USB and added a pair of REL subwoofers.
It's in a large downstairs room (8m x 6m) as we had the whole ground floor open planned when we bought the house. no curtains, oak floor over concrete screed. Don't play loud as a child sleeping upstairs in the evening.

Generally 9 years on very happy with the set up (it replaced a NAIM DAC/NAC252/NAP300 multi box set up), but some minor bug bears:
-Since moving to the new house the system feels a little 'lost' hard to describe really as its not lacking in volume but it doesn't seem to wow like it used to.
-The Mac mini/audirvana set up forever needs checking into the screen share to see exactly what pup up, request etc is stopping it responding to the Audirvana iPad app.
-The Devialet often has to be restarted to get it to play what is playing on the Mac.

Minor stuff I know but given it will be in its 10th year next year I thought it would be asking what obvious upgrades would be an option? We play all stuff - rock for me, classical for my wife, jazz for us both. Not that keen on a wholesale change as it's not really a financial priority to that extent. Just minor tweaks.
Tx
Brendan

[David A]

2 things stand out for me from your description of your :bug bears".

Dealing your second issue first, the Audivarna/Mac mini setup. You haven't said whether you're streaming via ethernet or wifi but you have said that the system has problems responding to the iPad app and you will be using wifi for the iPad connection. There's a possibility that the problem lies with the wifi connection to the iPad and the same issues will apply for the connection to the 250 if you're streaming via wifi. What wifi signal strength does the iPad show, is it a weak connection? If so then I'd look at getting a wifi extender to improve that connection. Also, if your 250 is not an Expert Pro then it will have an internal wifi antenna and my experience years ago when I tried streaming via wifi to my then 130 Expert Pro before it got the CI board upgrade and came back with an external wifi antenna was that my iPad handled wifi better than the 130 did. My initial solution was to use a wifi extender with ethernet ports and to connect the 130 to the extender via ethernet. It sounds to me as if your Mac Mini/Audivarna issues are network issues and that's where I'd be looking to fix that problem. In the end I had ethernet cabling installed between the room where my router is and the room where my system is and that fixed my problems with streaming.

I think your issue with the system feeling "lost" is room/speaker related. It sounds as if your room in the new house is larger, probably significantly larger, than your previous room. If that's the case then I'd guess that you're sitting further away from the system than you used to and the speakers may be further from the walls than they were in the old room. If that's the case then you've lost some room reinforcement by having the speakers further away from the walls and sitting further away from the speakers will mean that you have to turn the volume up more than you used to in order to really get the room to "sing". You're using stand mount speakers in a large space and while the subs will extend the low frequencies they're not going to help with the midrange where most of the music lies or with the upper frequencies. The simple fact is that you need to play things louder in larger spaces in order to get things to "sing" in the same way as they would at lower volumes in a smaller room.

I think you have 2 options. You can try changing your speaker and listening position setup by placing the speakers closer to the wall behind them and closer together and then sitting closer to them as well so that you're sitting in the acoustical near field or you can simply turn the volume up until things start to sound right. I know you said that you don't listen at loud levels because of the child sleeping upstairs but pick a time when the child isn't sleeping, turn the volume up until things start to sound good to you, and then go upstairs and listen to how loud it is in the child's room. You may be able to play things louder than you think without disturbing the child when it's sleeping.

My other comment is that small standmounted speakers tend to have lower sensitivity than larger speakers and that's going to work against them in larger spaces such as your current room. If you are going to look at an equipment upgrade I'd be looking at a speaker upgrade to a floorstander with a higher sensitivity rating than your Atoms but even with larger speakers you're still going to have to look at your speaker and listening position placement and consider playing things at a louder volume in order to get them to wow you in a large space.

If you change your speaker and listening position setup you won't get the same wow experience that you got in your previous room, the change in rooms has a big effect on how your system is going to sound and the wow experience in your new room is going to be a different experience to what you got in the old room. That's simply a fact about sound in rooms. I think if your current room is quite a bit larger than your old room then the difference in the wow experiences is going to be quite noticeable so if you're chasing the same kind of sound as you had in your previous room, then I don't think you're going to be able to get that. You need to tune your listening setup to the new room and work on getting the experience it's capable of delivering. I do think you may find that easier with larger speakers (that doesn't mean you should get rid of the subs, they can be beneficial with larger speakers as well). Larger speakers will load the room differently, and probably more effectively, than smaller speakers and they're likely to make it a bit easier to get the wow experience in a larger room but speaker and listening position placement can make a big difference regardless of speaker size, especially if you have constraints on how loudly you can play the system.

That's my suggestions.

[DelaneyB]

Thanks David,
Very helpful suggestions.
I'm using the Mac mini on ethernet onto my network and connected via USB to the D250. Audirvana plays on the mini via the Devialet as the USB output. Otherwise the mini is optimised for music playback and the only connection is via the audirvana app on the iPad (which simply controls the music choice on the Mac application) Qobuz is integrated into audirvana. I think when the Devialet is in standby the USB connection with the Mac gets lots (even though it's selected on the Mac) until I restart the Devialet. Not sure if it's a Mac OS-Devialet thing as it used not to happen.
As for the room. Yes, I've compensated by adjusting the speakers and placing the sofa much closer to them. It makes sitting and listening OK, but of course it's very sub optimal if you are elsewhere in the room.... a speaker change will be a long term project.
Wondered if going with a 250Pro or 250 ProCI upgrade next year would make any difference?

[Redwingnine]

I would seriously consider upgrading the 250 to a 250 Pro. I noted a significant difference in sonics between the 250 and the 250 Pro. Core Infinity is a nice option as well.

[DelaneyB]

Thanks both.
I'll look at the Pro upgrade next year.

This weekend I had a serious tweak of the subwoofer situation.
I'm running REL T-Zero Mk III as a pair on the low input. Listening it seemed that a bit of the rhythm was 'out'. I think the much larger room has made this more obvious.
So looked on the forum and reset them up on the 1/LFE input with the Devialet controlling the high pass/low pass at 70Hz (as opposed to both the Devialet and REL having the filter set).
They are sitting next to but outside my stands with phase at zero.
MUCH BETTER.