Experiencing unpleasant, overpowering bass on certain tracks with Polk R700 speakers

vassil

Hello, I bough new speakers Polk Reserve 700 this week and connected them to Marantz Model 30 amplifier and DAC Topping D70 Pro Sabre. I listen on "Source direct" - no bass or treble changes. In general I like the sound of the speakers but there are several songs where the bass is awful on middle or low volume. For example "Cocoon, Lola Marsh - I Got You" is an one of the tracks. I have listened the speakers for at least 40-50 hours. I connected them with my old amp Teac AX-3000 amp and the ifi DAC and the same problem with bass persists. I am wondering if I should return this speakers or the bass will became more accurate. Generally I like the sound of the speakers but I don't know what is the problem with bass for these songs. With my old Cerwin Vega MX250 speakers I didn't experience bass issues on the same songs. Can you help me?

mantis

Hello and welcome to the forum,
so first off placement of the speakers will greatly enhance or decrease the amount of bass they produce. Do the R700's come with port plugs? If so use them.

This is a common issue with Polk speakers is to much bass. You have to get them out into the room to calm them down. Your room also might be too small to handle the amount of pressure these speakers create.

You can return them if you think they are overbearing and you tried a few things to calm them down. The R600 or R500's might be a better fit for your situation.

SO I don't recall the Amp 30 having bass management. If you had a AVR, you could apply Bass management and run 2 external subs or 1 if your room doesn't allow for 2. Then you can crossover the R700's and get rid of the bottom end clouding up your room.

Something like the Yamaha R-N2000A which has bass management might also be a solution.

Another thing you can do is room treatments. Bass traps could help your situation out when properly placed. Vicoustics is a good place to start looking.

Emlyn

The bass on that track sounds overboosted in the mix even on Youtube...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_GnJTl2HqI

You may just be hearing the clean and prodigious bass the R700s are capable of and need to make some adjustments for speaker placement. They are bottom ported so not terribly sensitive to being placed close to the front wall but will be overboosted if too close to side walls as well.

What are the room measurements?

vassil

Hello and thank you for the quick responses! The room is around 35 m2 and both speakers are around 1 m away from the side walls. Yes, I placed them only 25 cm from the back wall but I tried moving them 1,5 m away from the back wall and there is no much difference. I don't see port plugs but I think that the bass comes from both 8 inch low drivers, not from the bottom bass reflex. About the Marantz Model 30 amplifier - it has option to turn on bass, treble and balance modifications. I tried turning the bass to lowest and again I hear this strong bass on this song.

But as you said that "The bass on that track sounds overboosted in the mix even on Youtube" do I understand correctly that the source of the track Youtube is not a good quality and this could cause the problem? I experience bass problems with this track either: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dX9MKAuLrI and in some AI generated rock songs.

I will try the FLAC version of the Roy Orbison - Go! Go! Go! song and will share the experience here.

Emlyn

The Roy Orbison track is very well recorded and balanced.

I don't think the performance of the speakers will change much more given the hours you have on them now. Although your room is a good size the speakers may still be overpowering the room for the way you'd like to hear music.

vassil

I tried with FLAC version of the Roy Orbison - Go! Go! Go and it sounds better but still the bass is too strong. It's very interesting performance with DVD of Crossroads guitar festival 2010 where the track with Buddy Guy and Ronnie Wood sounds perfect and then the track with Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck sounds very overpowered.

gmcman

My first dive into making noticeable gains in my equipment setup after I bought my Polk RT800's and CS400 way back in the day, was after listening to the "Rush Hour" soundtrack and hearing muddy bass and some small amounts of cone bottoming out during louder playback.

I was using the infamous Monster XP speaker cable, almost like lamp cord but obviously a bit better. I had a closeout deal on AQ Crystal which I later bi-wired and immediately all that sloppy bass was gone, I could crank it up with no distortion.

My point is, while your room/speaker placement could be the issue, make sure you have clean power and delivery to the speakers. That being said, what cables are you using?

vassil

I use this cable with the fabric jumpers of Polk R700

https://avelectronics.bg/Аксесоари-HiFi/Кабели/Argon-Audio-Prime-1-Speaker-Cable-terminated

Emlyn

What other speakers do you have experience with in the room in similar positions? Are the Cerwin Vega MX250s the only ones?

vassil

Before that I had older speakers Sony APM-33W.