Whats wrong with my system

[Saunter]

Hi everyone... looking for help.

I have a ROON ROCK NUC as Nucleus alternative feeding my DEV Expert 400 all networked via Ethernet.
The NUC is fanless.
Speakers are Dali Epicon 8 and the speaker cable is Artisan Silver (extremely revealing) I use SAM, currently at 100%

The room is 4.8 meters by 8 meters. Listening position is around 3 meters from the speakers and they are .75 meters from the rear wall.

The amps are plugged into an Isotek Sigmas.

Cables are all CAT6. Unshielded.

NBN (Australias high speed broadband) box to combined Modem/Route (powered by iFi)  then to NetGear GS105 switch (powered by iFi X) and from there to the NUC and Devialet. I have a Acoustic Revive Ethernet Filter thingy plugged into the back of the Devialet master.

The thing is it sounds hard or brittle and flat. I am not enjoying music at all.
Soundstage depth is non existant. Very occasionally i can hear some kind of minor distortion in high frequencies.
This seems to be on specific recording.

One of my go do albums to check performance is a WAV rip of Evita.
On my system the opening scene in the theatre just sound lifeless with no atmosphere.
I remember hearing it played through a pretty basic CD player and a modest set up sounding so much fuller and atmospheric.

Is there an obvious problem in the way it ius set up ? 
Is there an obvious deficiency in the very simple equipment chain ?
Or is this just the state of streaming audio.....

Help me enjoy the music again please.

[David A]

A lot depends on speaker and listening position setup and your description is unclear. I get it that the speakers are 75 cm from the rear wall and that you're 3 metres in front of the speakers which means that you're' 3.75 metres from the rear wall but is the rear wall the 4.8 metre wall or the 8 metre wall? You also haven't said how far apart the speakers are. Those things make a difference because if the rear wall is the 4.8 metre wall you've got over half the length of the room behind you (there may be a reason for that and the reason is probably that you've got other things in that space and that could be important) or if the rear wall is the 8 metre wall then you've got a bit over a metre behind you. You also haven't said how far the speakers are from the side wall which would tell us whether they are placed symmetrically across the room or not. All of those things can make a big difference and the more information you can give describing the setup and the room (are there windows behind the speakers or on the side walls, are they covered with curtains or blinds, etc).

I will make two suggestions, however. You said that you're using SAM at 100%. That means you're pushing your amps very hard to extend bass response and driving the amps hard can make the sound hard. If you want to extend bass response then it's best to start with speaker and listening position placement because that can make a big difference to the bass response you hear and it doesn't involve pushing the amps hard, in fact if you can find the right setup you may even be able to get better bass response at a lower volume level.

So experimenting with your speaker and listening position setup is my first suggestion. My second suggestion is to turn the SAM setting down to 0% while playing with the setup because that lets you hear what you can get when you work with the room and it will also make life a bit easier for your amps which may reduce the hardness. Once you find a good setup then start increasing SAM slowly, say by increments of 5 to 10%, and listen at each level for quite a while, at least several hours or so but I'd suggest a day or two so you can get used to how things sound at a particular level before you try increasing the level again and set SAM no higher than you need to in order to get the bass response you want.

Listen carefully while evaluating SAM. SAM affects bass response and bass response is very room and setup dependent. If you have room modes (standing waves at particular frequencies) increasing the SAM level can make those modes worse and that can seriously detract from the quality of your bass response.

One other thing that might help, depending on the construction of your rear wall, is actually moving the speakers even further away from the rear wall and moving your listening position back by the same amount or even a bit further because that may weaken the strength of the first reflections from the rear wall and that can sometimes make the highs sound sweeter.

[markush]

I very much know systems sounding as you described. I would very much recommend the Network Acoustics Muon Pro streaming system between Nucleus and Devialet. They have a 30 day money back guarantee. I assure you you will hear a considerable improvement.

[daniel.avasilichioaei]

What is the Signal Path in your Roon? Are you using any DSP?

[disarmamant]

Sounds very much like you have the speakers wired out of phase.

[Confused]

@Saunter - It might be worth performing a couple of simple experiments to see if you can identify where the issue is.

You seem to suspect that the issue might be related to streaming audio. So why not try another source to feed your Devialet? This could be an old CD player via S/PDIF, a DVD / Blu-ray player, or anything else you have to hand. (or can borrow) Of course, I have no idea what you might have available, I am just suggesting you try an alternative, see what you observe, and maybe this might provide some insight.

[Saunter]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

In regards to room placement.

The speakers are on the 4.8 meter wall.
The 75cm is to the rear of the speakers and the speakers are 2.10 meters apart.
They are 1.3 from the side walls... no toe in at all as recommended by Dali.

The walls are rendered and painted brick.
The floor is wooden boards on concrete with a large rug filling the space between speakers and listening position.

The listening position is mainly because in reading several documents on speakers vs listening position it seems a consensus that one third from the speaker wall brings the best balance.

On Monday and Tuesday i may have a little time to mess about with this which i haven't done for some time.

Sam at 100% is because with it turned down things get worse. It isn't about trying to maximize bass response.
The Dalis don't need help in that regard.


I have tried other sources but i don't really have anything that capable.
Only an Oppo 103 BD player. I have tried playing CDs from it feeding the Devialets via Optical and it is underwhelming.
It is the only thing i have tried though.

I don't think the speakers are out of phase but i will certainly try them the other way around since that is a very easy thing to do.

I have tried ROON both with and without DSP. When i say that i am not actually applying anything but just having DSP turned on even if set at flat. I read somewhere that would help but it doesn't seem to do anything very much.

Trying something like a Muon Pro is something i will do after playing with all the other things suggested.
I can't readily get a hold of that in Perth, Western Australia but there is probably something else i can.

I have been thinking about perhaps ditching ROON altogether and purchasing a digital transport that can feed the Devialets streams from both CD and files (if such a thing exists and is good quality) I don't need Tidal or Quobuz or anything else like them honestly. I think Moon do something of that nature.

Thank all for the input.

PS. I had a short listening session this evening but couldn't listen for more than about 25 minutes.
It became hard work and not at all enjoyable.

[Delija]

(Too) "bright" speakers as Dali are not a good match with Devialet, but your description sounds more serious than that. Check the cable connections, try with reset. Try if you have the same problem with just one Devialet configured as Expert 200.

[disarmamant]

I don't think the speakers are out of phase but i will certainly try them the other way around since that is a very easy thing to do.

When the speakers are out of phase it means one speaker is not in the same phase as the other, the speaker cables are connected the wrong way round in one channel only.
With the dual mono amplifiers it’s easy to get the phase wrong in one channel because both the plus and minus speaker cables are plugged into the red speaker terminals only on each amplifier.

[David A]

…
In regards to room placement.

The speakers are on the 4.8 meter wall.
The 75cm is to the rear of the speakers and the speakers are 2.10 meters apart.
They are 1.3 from the side walls... no toe in at all as recommended by Dali.

The walls are rendered and painted brick.
The floor is wooden boards on concrete with a large rug filling the space between speakers and listening position.

The listening position is mainly because in reading several documents on speakers vs listening position it seems a consensus that one third from the speaker wall brings the best balance.

On Monday and Tuesday i may have a little time to mess about with this which i haven't done for some time.

Sam at 100% is because with it turned down things get worse. It isn't about trying to maximize bass response.
The Dalis don't need help in that regard.

Comments:

1- rendered brick walls are highly reflective of both high and low frequencies which could easily lead to the hardness in sound to which you refer. I suspect your room is going to need acoustic treatment in order to achieve better sound and that you're going to need a combination of bass traps in the corners and broad range absorption at the first reflection points for each speaker on at least the wall behind the speakers and the side walls, and possibly also on the wall behind you.. In a room with the hard, reflective surfaces of your room I would recommend absorption rather than diffusion.

2- I think you may be misreading some of the things you've read about where to put the listening position. You've said that the rear of the speakers are 75 cm from the rear wall and that the listening position is 3 metres in front of the speakers. That puts the listening position 3.75 metres away from the rear wall, not 2.67 metres as it would be if it was a third of the room length from the rear wall, and that would move your listening position almost a metre closer to the speakers. I've seen some people call the wall behind the speakers the "rear wall" as you have and others call that wall the "front wall" because it's the wall in front of the listener. I suspect the things you've seen suggesting that the listening position should be one third of the room distance from the "rear wall" were referring to the wall behind the listener because if those sources were referring to the wall in front of the listener the listening position would almost always be far too close to the speakers.

3- At 100% SAM is doing 2 things, it is correcting phase response below 150 Hz and it is increasing bass extension which means it is boosting low bass. You get the phase correction just by turning SAM on at 0%, turning the SAM level up increases bass extensio0n which you say the Dalis don't need.

What that suggests to me is that your room has some pretty severe bass issues because of the brick walls and that you're sitting in a part of the room where there is a severe null, a drop in bass response, at a low frequency and boosting the SAM level to 100% is compensating for that null. I would suggest that you need bass traps in your room to help tame the room's bass response and that you need to experiment with your listening position in order to find a position where you don't have the problem with bass that you have in the current position. In order to do that you're going to have to turn SAM down to 0% and find the best listening position, the position that needs the least correction from SAM, and then start turning the SAM level up again in order to find a SAM setting that you like.