Best cables short of MIT for LsiM 707

afterburnt

I am not getting what I like for music. Running Wireworld Solstice right now. I have repositioned my speakers the best that I can and I am not getting closer to what I want. Are cables the cure?

Thanks
Bruce

mikeyb128

DSkip wrote: »

I never could get the 705's there and I tried with a multitude of gear. I hate to say it, but perhaps you should start looking hard at the Polks.

Me too... Me too...

tonyb

afterburnt wrote: »

I am not getting what I like for music. Running Wireworld Solstice right now. I have repositioned my speakers the best that I can and I am not getting closer to what I want. Are cables the cure?

Thanks
Bruce

Cables are not a cure all for everything missing in ones system.

Like Skip said, if the Usher sound is more to your tastes, the Polks shouldn't be on your radar, 2 different sounds. Seems to me you haven't quite found that synergy yet.

In order to not keep swapping stuff in and out, buying and selling, go get your ears on some more variety of speakers and gear and see what floats your boat. We can suggest things all day, but we can't hear with your ears.

Once you get a grasp on the types of sound you like from various pieces of gear, we can better suggest what would synergize well with that.

mantis

To answer your wire question I would use Audioquest Rockett 44's on those speakers terminated in Banana banana.
But as said above the wire isn't going to magically make you love your speakers if you don't right now. Wire will just allow you to hear what they can do and support the equipment you use. They are NOT for tuning purposes as many would think they are.
Using Colored wire only makes things harder to deal with instead of easier. Those kinds of wire can really add issues instead of solving them. I don't believe in using wire to "tune" your system.
Now where you have had your last pair of speakers may not work correctly with your current speakers. Placement is where most of the magic lays. Get that right and then you will hear what they can do. I'd do this way before replacing the speaker cables.

msg

Bruce, are you able to put to words what you feel is missing or not working to your liking? empty? tinny? bass heavy? or is it more refined qualities you're missing in the experience?

afterburnt

@msg Bass is a little heavy and mids and highs are a bit muted.

afterburnt

xcapri79 wrote: »

How much have you experimented with room calibration with your AVR and room treatments?

I could be wrong but calibration is not a factor in "pure direct" mode.

Does anyone think that isolating them better from the raised hardwood floor would help, they are on rubber covered spikes now. Or how about spikes on those little pucks? This floor is like a drum head.

afterburnt

Parasound A31, no have not tried the 1L's with them

Emlyn

My guess regarding the bass is the speakers are overloading the room or are too close to walls. On the mids and highs, compared to brighter metal dome tweeter speakers, I think the LSiMs can sound a bit subdued. It's easier to tame a bright speaker than it is to make a more mellow speaker sound brighter with speaker cables alone. It is possible to have a relatively bright source component "tune" the sound so the speakers accentuate the highs more, but it sounds to me like you've found you prefer speakers with a different sound signature than the LSiMs for music. If I was in your situation, I'd use the LSiMs mainly for home theater and focus on setting up a dedicated two channel system with different speakers.

[Deleted User]

I dunno about "best," but I like these: LAT International SS-900 SIGNATURE BI-WIRE
with locking bananas. Set you back $388.00 however. (you could go SS-800 as well)
I think @Motorhead is trying them...

pretzelfisch

How close are they to the side wall and the wall behind them? From your description it sounds like they are too close to sides and maybe to close or far from the wall behind them.

afterburnt

Open doorways behind them and three feet from the sides

afterburnt

afterburnt wrote: »

xcapri79 wrote: »

How much have you experimented with room calibration with your AVR and room treatments?

I could be wrong but calibration is not a factor in "pure direct" mode.

Does anyone think that isolating them better from the raised hardwood floor would help, they are on rubber covered spikes now. Or how about spikes on those little pucks? This floor is like a drum head.[/quot]

What will the spikes do?

pretzelfisch

afterburnt wrote: »

xcapri79 wrote: »

How much have you experimented with room calibration with your AVR and room treatments?

I could be wrong but calibration is not a factor in "pure direct" mode.

Does anyone think that isolating them better from the raised hardwood floor would help, they are on rubber covered spikes now. Or how about spikes on those little pucks? This floor is like a drum head.

The way I read the manual pure direct is still using calibration settings and sub cross over if you have it. You would need to set the Parametric EQ to Through.
When you used calibration how many mic positions did you use?

tonyb

It's my understating the OP is limited on his placement options. I would double check the connections and play around with the settings in the receiver first. Try maybe one or 2 other brands of cables and IC's and if nothing still floats your boat than time to look elsewhere for speakers.

heiney9

Ironically what he describes as his issue is exactly what I have found MIT's to help cure. Bloated bass and fleshing out the mids and highs.

Granted he probably does have other issues such as using an AVR for a pre and limited placement issues.



**shrug**

H9

motorhead43026

AVR as a pre, never worked for me for 2 channel music.

heiney9

DSkip wrote: »

The MIT's will not change how he feels about the speakers. No cable will and probably no gear will. The LSiM house sound and Usher house sound are very, very different. It's kind of like being a B&W fan and buying Sonus Faber speakers (friendly jab at Joey ).

I get that, but based on his post about what's missing from the LSiM's was what I was making the recommendation on.

He didn't qualify it by saying the Ushers give me this and that and the LSiM's don't. He named a few specific things, plus my comment was more tongue in cheek since he doesn't have/want to spend MIT kind of money.

I will say, next to my Pass amp, the single biggest improvement I made in my system was adding MIT cables. Sorry, but that's saying a lot, because until I experienced it, I would have never, ever believed it myself.

YMMV

H9

heiney9

In the end the LSiM's may not do it for him for a variety of reasons. Placement limitations, gear limitations, not the type of complete sound he is expecting, etc.

H9

mikeyb128

I will say my 705's were great when I bought them. Added some shotguns to them and they really opened up by a large margin. Wasn't a small change that's for sure.

F1nut

Having run the LSiM 707, 705 and 703 with various MIT cables in various rooms I can say without question none sounded like Bruce describes his 707's at present.

tonyb

Unfortunately Bruce can't afford MIT cables or other comparable brands....not even at used prices.

One cheap brand on the used markets I can recommend is Straley Reality cables. You can probably pick up a set of 8 footers for around 100-150 bucks.

Btw Bruce, do you have the speakers set to small or large ? If small, set them to large and see how they sound.

afterburnt

Tony they are set to small, I will try the large setting.

Other than being broke it also sucks that I need pretty long cable runs thus costing even more.

For the sake of conversation what do you think a pre/pro will do for me? I have always wanted a Halo P5 for the DAC and phono stage etc. but that is a long way off.

afterburnt

any thoughts on the spikes? don't cost me nothing as a I have some however I think it will make it more difficult to move the speakers around

mikeyb128

On carpet? I always spike my speakers through carpet. My 705's were spiked theough carpet and pad to subfloor with the supplied spikes.

F1nut

Always spike your speakers.

ken brydson

xcapri79 wrote: »

afterburnt wrote: »

any thoughts on the spikes? don't cost me nothing as a I have some however I think it will make it more difficult to move the speakers around

Your spouse may strong disagree about holes in the carpets and it may be costly to repair your carpets if you move. Occasionally you will want too clean and shampoo your carpets and spiking creates some issues.
It isn't a good idea with a tile or nice hardwood floor either unless you use a suitable spike protector.
If you are in an apartment, forget it.

Nevermind...

F1nut

As I said, ALWAYS spike your speakers.

mikeyb128

The spike holes go away with the simple use of a vacuum. I've never had problems even when carpet cleaning over them.

[Deleted User]

Holes in the carpet and costly to repair. Hahaha. WTF kind of carpet is this garage sale engineer talking about?

Sorry X, but WTF do you mean?

afterburnt

Hardwood floors ,