09-Dec-2023, 10:15
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.
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.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.
Brisbane, Qld, Australia
