[W9TR]

Rob - that's quite a move! Wow.

When we moved from Minneapolis to Salida, CO a few years ago it took a lot of time and a lot of pick and shovel work to get everything sounding the way I liked it.

You've been tweaking your Colorado system to prefection probably over years and years. It will take time and effort to get your new home sounding good - so don't despair!


"When I first fired up the system it sounded AWFUL! Strident, echoey, jumbled, incoherent with 0 soundstage."

The statement above sounds like its all room related. You've made a massive room change - from stick and drywall construcution to masonry/cement block. You've gone from nearfield to reverberant field.

Reasonably sized (not overly small) stick and drywall rooms in the US that are carpeted and furnished normally are already pretty well balanced acoustically - so you can often treat first reflection points and get a great sounding result.

But you are in a completely differnet situation now with much less absorption, probably tile floors, limitied window coverings, masonry ceilings.

So I would not run out and get new electronics until you've sorted your room.

Also you are sitting 20' back in an 37' long room - right in a big bass suckout. So your meaty Spendors will sound weak where you are sitting.

One thing to try right away is to set up your system on the long walls if WAF will allow. See how that sounds. Experiment from there. If that doesn't work, try moving your speakers 1/3 of the way into the room and your listening area 2/3 of the way into the room. Get a little closer to the nearfield experience you had before.

Walk around your room and clap your hands loudly. What do you hear? If your speakers are near a boundary, move them out into the room. Have somone start in a corner and talk to you. Then have them move out into the room side to side and front to back. Find the areas where they sound natural. Move your speaker there.

These are just a few tricks to try so you can better understand your room. If you find the C 2200 meters near 0 dB or above a lot of the time, then you can consider higher powered or solid state amps.

I own an MC 275V and have owned MC 601's, and had them in the same system at the same time. The MC 601's are probably close to the MC 501's - maybe a little brighter from what I remember. Anyway there is not a night and day difference between them, The 501's will get a lot louder than the MC 275, deeper bass, less midrange magic. I kept the MC 275 and sold the MC 601's.

One other question - what is the rating of the stepdown transformer you are using? 1 kW would be a good place to start to ensure you have good peak current flow into the amp.

Tom