Older Firmware for Expert Pro CI

[audio_engr]

The current FW is 13 with DOS 2.2.2 but I am not happy with the bass-to-mid response from my Bowers & Wilkins 802 D3 speakers. I tried it with SAM and without SAM but still it didn't help much. 

I wish to downgrade to a FW that still good with the Pro CI amps ... 

Where can I get hold of beta14 much spoken off ?

[David A]

I don't have a copy of beta 14 but I do have a copy of fw12.3.0-dos2.2.2, the last version before fw13. You are going to PM me when you get back to Washington so if you want the version I've got, just ask in that message and provide an email address and I can mail it to you.

[Hifi_swlon]

The current FW is 13 with DOS 2.2.2 but I am not happy with the bass-to-mid response from my Bowers & Wilkins 802 D3 speakers. I tried it with SAM and without SAM but still it didn't help much. 

I wish to downgrade to a FW that still good with the Pro CI amps ... 

Where can I get hold of beta14 much spoken off ?

Didn’t you just reach nirvana via your psaudio power plant?

[audio_engr]

Didn’t you just reach nirvana via your psaudio power plant?

Hey, the standard for "nirvana" varies ... do remember that I've lived with B&Ws now for 28 years, been in & out of top recording studios globally in my 28 yrs journey in this art incl. the Abbey Rd and so ... nirvana is yet to come ...    There's still a lot of hard work left for it ...

[Devialetuser]

@audio_engr Have you thought about acoustic treatment? I would start off with bass tube traps in the corners. Also using diffusers at first and second reflection point. Coving all the basics of room treatment should get you closer to the next level of nirvana aka nirvana-2.

[audio_engr]

@audio_engr Have you thought about acoustic treatment? I would start off with bass tube traps in the corners. Also using diffusers at first and second reflection point. Coving all the basics of room treatment should get you closer to the next level of nirvana aka nirvana-2.

@Devialetuser - Please read my signature carefully

[Devialetuser]

@audio_engr My mistake, missed that one, GIK is a good company. Can you be a bit more specific as to what you are not happy about in the bass/mid with the B&W? I don't think moving to beta firmware should be considered as the solution. Devialet should soon anytime will be releasing the Roon-RAAT firmware. And as you are a Roon user looking at your signature you won't want to miss that one.

[audio_engr]

@audio_engr My mistake, missed that one, GIK is a good company. Can you be a bit more specific as to what you are not happy about in the bass/mid with the B&W? I don't think moving to beta firmware should be considered as the solution. Devialet should soon anytime will be releasing the Roon-RAAT firmware. And as you are a Roon user looking at your signature you won't want to miss that one.

okay .. here it goes ..

I've been a B&W user for more than quarter of a century and in this spell, the newer B&Ws line esp. the D3s have a different sonic signature from the much earlier '80s / '90s Matrix 800-series sonic signature. When you directly compare them, today's 800-series D3s are a lot "correct & accurate sounding" loudspeaker. The Matrix 800-series did have a midbass bloat that extended to bass as you went from 802 to 801 and to 800 models. Such do not exist with the new 800-series D3. Quite possibly, since I've had my 802 D3s for just about 2 years now, may be my expectation of that earlier midbass bloat now non-existent is causing me the urge to complain. 

Also, this is the 1st time I am using B&W speakers in a room with wall boundaries made of drywall. Earlier having lived in South Asia, South-East Asia, East Africa & West Africa, room boundaries were usually brickwalls with plaster. Those rooms gave a very solid texture of bass and midbass against a softer texture now from the drywall surface. This could be another factor. 

Although I have 24-inch diameter cylindrical basstraps in the 4 corners of my room, adequate broadband absorption and mostly broadband diffusion and scatterplates in all the right locations incl. the ceiling, drywall vs. plastered brickwall does tend to matter I feel. 

I toyed around with different acoustical company's products before settling for mostly GIK Acoustics and some RPG Acoustical Systems (earlier called RPG Diffusors Inc) products. RPG Acoustical Systems IMHO are the industry stalwarts when it comes to acoustics for the room BUT they are really-really expensive ... However, they are the Gurus and some 1000++ best studios, performing venues, listening rooms etc. have been done by them. I used their schematics but had to turn to GIK for most products to curb my expenditure as RPG gave me a quote for US$ 58,000 for my 18-1/4 Ft wide x 18-1/2 Ft long room [5.5 m Wide x 5.6 m Long]. When I saw the quote I realised this ain't gonna happen ever !! 

Now that I have completed the acoustics of the room, addressed power too, addressed vibration also, someone suggested I toy around with the DSP of the Roon but (I feel I'm a purist who wouldn't like to mess with tone controls + the Audio Engineering aspect in me as a profession irks me of it) so I am still to delve in and try. May be I will .. I don't know !! Its just that I wish I can get a bit more 40~100 Hz into my room which should give me the "right tonal balance" being a hobbyist musician too (I play the classical violin from age 5 & own a Stradivarius copy gifted to me by my late dad). 

Hmmm!  Its a tough call ...

[Devialetuser]

@audio_engr Have you thought about trying the Audioquest K2 Bi-Wire Speaker cable?

[David A]

Arup,

Without hearing how your system sounds in your room or knowing what you're chasing as a result, I have a few suggestions from my experience with my setup before and after the CI board upgrade and the games I ended up playing with my RealTraps panels after replacing my previous Dynaudio standpoints with my current Focal Sopra 2's. I have no idea if any of these things will work for you, the only thing I can say is that they won't cost anything apart from time and maybe a bit of effort:

1- If you're using SAM, try turning it off. I used SAM before the CI board upgrade to my 130, I've stopped since a month or two after the upgrade. I don't know what changed but the bass/mids balance seemed to change for me with the upgrade and perhaps one of the beta FW updates. There's a lot I like about SAM still but in the end I think I'm getting more natural/life like bass and lower mids with SAM off and I don't seem to miss the extra extension. This one is quick and easy to try so just do it without any expectations and see what you think. It's easy to turn SAM back on too if you prefer things with SAM :-) Conversely, I'd suggest that if you're not using SAM, try it. As I said, it makes a change in the area you're talking about. Whether you're using SAM or not, it is vaguely possible that turning it off or on may make an improvement for you.

2- Do you have your speaker spikes fully extended, in other words is there a bit of space between the bottom of the speaker and the floor surface? If so, try lowering the speaker height so that the bottom of the speaker is much closer to the floor surface. That made a difference with bass with my Sopras.

3- With your acoustic treatments, do you have some absorption at the mid point along the length/width of each wall? If not, and you have absorption at the side wall first reflection points, try moving the absorption from the first reflection point to the mid point along the length of those walls if the absorption is moveable. I know everyone recommends treating first reflection points on the side walls but a comment from Floyd Toole in his book that people prefer them untreated because of the wider soundstage it creates got me interested and I moved my RealtTraps panels from those points and discovered I liked the sound with the first reflection points untreated. I found I had to rework my acoustic treatment placement with the Sopras because they ended up in different positions to my previous speakers and I started experimenting with panel placement. I found I got the best results for bass control with a panel mid way along a wall. If you can move some of the treatments you have then it's worth trying. A tip when it comes to moving treatments: I found the best way to mark the location I was moving a panel from in a carpeted room so I could easily move it back to exactly the same spot was to stick a velcro cable tie to the carpet right next to the stand for the panel I was moving. Velcro hooks attach to carpet quite well, and come off just as easily as they do from their velcro opposite surface.

I don't know if you can try the last suggestion (not easy if treatments are permanently wall mounted) but they're 3 things I found helped me get the bass/mids balance right in my room when I changed from 2 way monitors to 3 way floor standers with more extended bass and a differerent way of loading the room. I think they're worth a try but ultimately you may just be used to the character of the sound in rooms with different construction. If that's the case then the only suggestion I have is to live with the way things currently are until you get used to it and the current sound is what you expect to hear. I've found that my perceptions of the character of sound often change after I become accustomed to the new sound. I think that until we become accustomed to the change in sound, we tend to be constantly aware of it and part of our attention is always on the change, leading us to feel dissatisfied with it. When we're familiar with the sound and it's meeting our expectations we can concentrate fully on the music and things sound better when our attention is undivided.

If that doesn't work then we get to the difficult options like building alterations and I think you'd prefer to avoid those. I know I would.