Im lacking bass

Rasputin

Rasputin

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Hello fellows lumin owners;)

i need your opinions on bass from lumin A1. My lumin is connected through nordostd tyr xlr directly to a power amp hegel h20. Lots of detail, quite bright sound. My issue is sort of lacking bass... In the middle range the sound is too high, even male voices sound a bit too high...the clasic guitar for example lacks meat...(i used to play one back in the music school) In the midle.. Could it be a cable issue? Or i need a good pre amp?
any ideas?
 
Wow, this is surprising to me.

I had an A1 before my S1 and also have the Hegel H30 amp. Neither of them are bright to me and both have sort of rich meaty bass. Since you're apparently using the Lumin's volume control and analog out make sure the digital output is off for one thing. Nordost cables are more on the lean/bright side, so I would certainly try another cable.

I've always preferred a preamp as opposed to DAC direct with any of DACs I've ever had in terms of tone and drive.
 
Rasputin said:
i need your opinions on bass from lumin A1. My lumin is connected through nordostd tyr xlr directly to a power amp hegel h20.
Click to expand...

If your Lumin has already been burned in for a few hundred hours, please experiment with the digital audio output setting (which affects the digital volume for analog outputs), and try out different upsampling setting (I understand you're currently upsampling PCM to DSD). Also set the Bit depth to 24 bit. See if these settings affect the bass in your setup.

The next step is to try the Lumin RCA outputs (against my usual recommendation) - because the RCA voltage level is half of the XLR output, so you can use a higher digital volume setting with less sound degradation. (Lumin S1 offers a 32-bit digital volume if the digital audio output is turned off, but A1 / T1 / D1 do not have 32-bit precision for digital volume.)

I guess you may need a pre-amp (and set the Lumin back to volume 100), but since this requires additional investment, try the above first.
 
Peter i did try RCA and indeed, more bass and more juicy meaty middle, but the details are considerably less. Im not sure that I like it. I tried other xlr cables, not in the range of nordost though, and again the details get guite less, and no more bass... Now i need an advice on a pre amp;))))

are there advices from lumin hegel set ups?;)

Any of you have experience with lumin and t+a pa3000hv? I can get the later for a good price, but it is in another country, so cannot listen to it before buying...
 
Before investing in another piece of gear like a preamp, though probably beneficial, I would suggest you find an XLR cable that does what you require regardless of what price "range" it falls in. Big money in cables does not always translate to good sound but may rather reflect advertising expenditures. There are plenty of great sounding cables out there that don't spend a fortune advertising. They are found by talking to other users and not relying on media reviews.

On the preamp front, a great performer that just gets out of the way and should work fine with the Hegel.

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews2/wyred5/1.html

Peter and I both own one.
 
I'm not a Lumin user, but do have experience with some of the other components.

One opportunity could of course be to try more meaty ICs and/or LS cables, but in general the Tyrs are very nice cables, so it would be more a question about synergy between different components.

Some people do not believe in the impact of USB cables, but a quick and cheap fix could be to try a Cardas USB for feeding the Lumin. I have used it sometimes to give the sound more body.

My guess for the root cause however would be the Hegel Power amp. At some point I had the H200 and the H300 integrated amps (latter derived from the H30), which had great specs and were really powerful, but I sold both of them really fast due to a similarly thin sound as you describe. The H30 itself, however, is another animal. It has a pronounced and powerful bass, there it's just the midrange which is more focussed on transparency than musicality. I had it for several months in my system.


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Kuoppis said:
My guess for the root cause however would be the Hegel Power amp. At some point I had the H200 and the H300 integrated amps (latter derived from the H30), which had great specs and were really powerful, but I sold both of them really fast due to a similarly thin sound as you describe. The H30 itself, however, is another animal. It has a pronounced and powerful bass, there it's just the midrange which is more focussed on transparency than musicality. I had it for several months in my system.


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Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for the comment, I kind of also suspect that Hegel controls the bass so much that it does not allow much of lower frequencies to the middle. I will try to experiment with a pre amp and let you guys know.
One the other note, you are from Germany, and I have a possibility to get a T+A PA3000HV... that integrated amp in reviews is compared to the swiss sound for large 5 figures numbers... and basically stated that it is almost as good. Any experience? Everyone in Germany knows T+A :))
Besides my speakers are also T+A TCD 110.

On the lumin, well the fact is, when I was feeding the files through USB the SQ was quite questionable to me, and when I purchased qnap with the advised server, the SQ improved quite dramatically. (so I don't need to experiment with the usb cables any longer)))
 
The T+A PA3000 HV is another amp I have auditioned even more extensively at home (two months) and can recommend very highly. The mids and highs are to die for.

At that time I had Magico S1 mk1 speakers, which are rather inefficient and demand a very punchy amp. So system match was not ideal, similar to the Dart CTH8550.

But if you have a little less straining LS, the amp is really superb. I could imagine a T+A amp and LS synergy would work really well. As a matter of fact, the PA3000HV is a candidate for my summerhouse, where I do have a little easier to drive speakers.


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Kuoppis said:
The T+A PA3000 HV is another amp I have auditioned even more extensively at home (two months) and can recommend very highly. The mids and highs are to die for.

At that time I had Magico S1 mk1 speakers, which are rather inefficient and demand a very punchy amp. So system match was not ideal, similar to the Dart CTH8550.

But if you have a little less straining LS, the amp is really superb. I could imagine a T+A amp and LS synergy would work really well. As a matter of fact, the PA3000HV is a candidate for my summerhouse, where I do have a little easier to drive speakers.


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Click to expand...

And how is the bass for the PA300HV ? now that is so sensitive question for me)))))
 
Rasputin said:
Hello fellows lumin owners;)

i need your opinions on bass from lumin A1. My lumin is connected through nordostd tyr xlr directly to a power amp hegel h20. Lots of detail, quite bright sound. My issue is sort of lacking bass... In the middle range the sound is too high, even male voices sound a bit too high...the clasic guitar for example lacks meat...(i used to play one back in the music school) In the midle.. Could it be a cable issue? Or i need a good pre amp?
any ideas?
Click to expand...

Hello Rasputin,

I actually believe your lack of low frequencies is caused by the Lumin being a bad match output impedance wise with your Hegel power amp. Even though you may have high enough signal from the Lumin volume control output, it simply don't match. It is easy to check if this is the case - just lend a preamplifier from a friend or your retailer and try. If you get a better soundstage, greater dynamics and a more solid bottom end, you know you're on the right path.

Good luck!

Björn


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I think the PA 3000 HV bass is nice, but with my LS at that time it was not punchy enough for my liking. So I went with Ayre instead. That said, the Magico S1 mk1 are very power hungry. So it really depends on your LS. Maybe another example to elaborate.

When auditioning the Magico S1 mk1 I compared them to Wilson Audio Sophia 3s, driven by Dart CTH8550. It is a highly acclaimed amp. And the Dart was really close to heaven with the Sophias, but the very current hungry Magicos sounded flat.

So, I think the PA 3000 HV is similar to the Dart, with good LS matching it is superb, but I would not pair it with the most current hungry LS. And this is more a question of current, than power output as such. Both the Dart and the T+A deliver about 300 wpc and were not a good match with the Magicos, but a French Rosita boutique amp with 90 wpc, however with four Coke can size elkos for current, drove them just fine.



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And out of curiosity, what are the other candidates for the summerhouse? and your thoughts, if you have time for this of course :)
 
Thanks, I will try this. Actually this is more of a question for Peter, is some of this is known to you? Maybe there are some power amps that do not match Lumin well?
i'm in love with my LUMIN )) and would not like changing it, then I would rather change the amp)))
 
Rasputin said:
And out of curiosity, what are the other candidates for the summerhouse? and your thoughts, if you have time for this of course :)
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I have heard very good things about the Pass INT-60/ INT-250, have however not yet auditioned either of them. If I am however not mistaken there are some people on AS who actually own it and can tell more, there should also be a thread related to those.

If you are looking for just a power amp I can recommend the Ayre VX-5/20 which I currently have in my system.


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Hello Rasputin,

I am soory for being a bit unclear.

This is not a matter of a power amplifier not being a good match to Lumin - this is a matter of a source connected to a power amp without a preamplifier in between. Except from the obvious volume control function a preamplifier offer, it also match the output impedance from the source to the input impedance of the power amplifier. The preamplifiers output stage also offer higher current capacity which make it less sensitive to variation of length and electrical components in interconnect cables.

Best regards

Björn


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Bottom line: it's not advisable to use the Lumin directly into an amp. I've yet to find a situation with any streamer/DAC that sounds better than going through a preamp.
 
Rasputin said:
Peter i did try RCA and indeed, more bass and more juicy meaty middle, but the details are considerably less.
Click to expand...

I think the fact that RCA gives you more bass in your setup may be an evidence of an impedance mismatch as Björn mentioned. H20 has the specs of "Input Impedance: Balanced 10kohm, unbalanced 50kohm". Observe that the XLR input impedance is much lower than the RCA input impedance. 10kohm is too low for easy matching. If you use the XLR input of H20, it's rather likely that any source - not just Lumin - will not give you the best results if directly connected to the H20.

To compare with other amps, ARC Ref 150SE has an input impedance of 300kohm, and Pass .8 series have balanced input impedance of 100kohm. VX-5 Twenty that Kuoppis suggested has an even higher balanced input impedance of 2Mohm. These high values of input impedance mean easier matching with pre-amps (or source direct, if necessary).

If you intend to keep using the XLR input of H20, you need a pre-amp, but finding a matching pre-amp is not as easy due to its low input impedance. With the wrong pre-amp for H20 you'll still get impedance mismatch, i.e. not good.
 
wklie said:
I think the fact that RCA gives you more bass in your setup may be an evidence of an impedance mismatch as Björn mentioned. H20 has the specs of "Input Impedance: Balanced 10kohm, unbalanced 50kohm". Observe that the XLR input impedance is much lower than the RCA input impedance. 10kohm is too low for easy matching. If you use the XLR input of H20, it's rather likely that any source - not just Lumin - will not give you the best results if directly connected to the H20.

To compare with other amps, ARC Ref 150SE has an input impedance of 300kohm, and Pass .8 series have balanced input impedance of 100kohm. VX-5 Twenty that Kuoppis suggested has an even higher balanced input impedance of 2Mohm. These high values of input impedance mean easier matching with pre-amps (or source direct, if necessary).

If you intend to keep using the XLR input of H20, you need a pre-amp, but finding a matching pre-amp is not as easy due to its low input impedance. With the wrong pre-amp for H20 you'll still get impedance mismatch, i.e. not good.
Click to expand...


Thank you a lot Peter and all the other music lovers that tried to help. Now there is a technical explanation for this, and i will probably go for the amp change and get a good integrated.
 
Dear all, so as promissed i have experimented with the lumin;) and yes h20 with a preamp souneded much better in tonality... However it was not even a close match to t+a pa3000hv. So im getting one. On the other trial with my friend's cello encore 150 the lumin prodused a pop sound when upsampling to dsd was turned on, and both monoblocs have shut down burning the security fuses... So we did not even listen. When auditioning a1 lumin with the integral T+A no pop sound was pesent and the volume of lumin was at 100. Any adeas on the pop sound? Yes when upsampling is turned off, i get some sound but it is very low in volume when manually changing the songs, and it is quite ok. With the upsampling on, the pop is some times extremelly high... Do i need to go to a workshop to check the hardware?

ps: we connected the lumin directly to monoblocs, and of course lovering the volume to zero on the lumin
 
The t+a with t+a speackers sounded much more interesting then h20 and the plinius preamp. However, interesting the way both presented low middle and highs was quite similar. TA was a way better with sound stage and details and better balance but the overall presentation of music is similar, like they come from the same school. When compared to Electrocompaniget monoblocs, i could clearly hear the other character of the letter. So i got a very good deal now with a german dealer for his pa3000 demo and lookinf forward to flying to dusseldorf to pick it up. Thanks for the sharing your input Kuoppis on the PA3000
 
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