Sonus Faber Olympica III speakers first views

[bigblue]

I spent last evening and night playing with my new toy: XTZ Room Analzyer Pro II. I bought it to help me find the ideal position for my Olympica III's. The listening position is pretty fixed (150 cm from the back wall) so the adjustments will have to be with regards to speaker positions. I started with the speakers (baffel) 90 cm from the wall, measuring and moving +10 cm. All the way until they where 140 cm form the front wall. This was waaay to far out from a WAF point of view but it gave me a better understanding on how the room and the speakers interact. In fact at 140 cm i found a position where I basically had no bass resonance. My first impression was "wow this is great". But when listening it some music - it was just plain boring. So measuring is one thing - listening is another.
Also interesting to see how much a couple of centimeters back or forth can do.
This is what it looked like at 135 cm from the front wall. Some pretty serious bass exaggeration.


And by moving the speaker forward to 140 cm, it looked like this:

I happened to switch view here but if you look at the colorful spectrogram you can clearly see the difference.

I ended up placing the speakers 100 cm from the front wall. And the result was this:


Measuring with pink noice:


And finally resonance decay time RT60:


Now I have found a good starting point, and this evening I will try to fine tune the position (+/- 3-4 centimeters).

As my knowledge on this subject is limited feel free to give your comments.

[Vico26]

Bigblue, what do you think about Olympicas? Would buy them again? Arent you experimenting since you are not COMPLETELY satisfied eith them? Sure I understand the "tweeking obsession", just want to hear you adore them or not...

[antipop]

The RT60 is very good and you should keep it at that level. You're quite fortunate since I had to spend on room treatment to get to the same level.

Regarding the bass, it should be quite easy to fix with an EQ or minor room treatment.

A small tip when measuring, it is much better to measure each channel separately as it could reveal very interesting information and you can further optimize the speaker placement

[bigblue]

Originally Posted by Vico26

Bigblue, what do you think about Olympicas? Would buy them again? Arent you experimenting since you are not COMPLETELY satisfied eith them? Sure I understand the "tweeking obsession", just want to hear you adore them or not...

The speakers are absolutely wonderful and I would not by any thing else given the chance . But why would you buy a speaker in this price and performance range and NOT be interested to maximize its performance? IMO, the room is the thing that affects the sound coming from your speaker the most.

[bigblue]

Originally Posted by antipop

The RT60 is very good and you should keep it at that level. You're quite fortunate since I had to spend on room treatment to get to the same level.

Regarding the bass, it should be quite easy to fix with an EQ or minor room treatment.

A small tip when measuring, it is much better to measure each channel separately as it could reveal very interesting information and you can further optimize the speaker placement

True that. I begun listening to them individually, trying to find a distance from the front wall they were both fairly happy with. But when you play them together, you also get synergy effects. Maybe one of the speakers had a dip at some point, but this is smoothed out with both left and right speaker in play.

[Chaq]

Originally Posted by bigblue

The speakers are absolutely wonderful and I would not by any thing else given the chance . But why would you buy a speaker in this price and performance range and NOT be interested to maximize its performance? IMO, the room is the thing that affects the sound coming from your speaker the most.

Well, congrats to all of us Olympicans

Speaking of performance, Vico26 you mentioned that you are going to audition the Devialet 170. Any feedback? Do you think it will bring out the best of the speakers? Am not sure if I should go for that or just a power amp for my current setup and later upgrade.

[Vico26]

Nice to hear that, Bigblue! Have you tried the Heidmall 2 cables already? I have an opportunity to buy the Heidmall 1, but they say its not that good (but it was superb a year ago :-S).

Chaq, I am going to try to buy the Olympicas again today. The seller was closed on monday. They say, the delivery date could be somewhen in the second week of february. They have the wallnut verson on stock, but it wouldnt fit to our room. And honestly, I think the graphite looks much more luxurious in reality. Wallnut looks cool on the pictures with the black backround.

I have heard devialet 170 only once. The speakes were Martin Logans, which I am not accustomed to. So didnt want to make any conclusions. But I felt it was too much into my face, and kind of "digital" color. But I dont know if it were the speakers or the devialet.

But I really like the idea of one piece equipment that can be attached to the wall. And it looks great and has a cool remote. However, sound is the most important factor. Other amps I will consider are: Wadia intuition, Audio research ref 75, or the Electrocompaniet ECI6 (I have heard this one with Olympicas and i liked it, but they say Wadia has much better DAC).

V

[antipop]

Originally Posted by bigblue

True that. I begun listening to them individually, trying to find a distance from the front wall they were both fairly happy with. But when you play them together, you also get synergy effects. Maybe one of the speakers had a dip at some point, but this is smoothed out with both left and right speaker in play.

You are perfectly right which is why it's tricky to fully optimize as once you have optimized the placement of each speakers individually, you then need to correct for when they play together. It's quite an iterative process but should yield immense results.

In any case, you are on the right path for audio heaven

[Vico26]

Guys, here is a really awesome user review on Olympicas III!

Maybe it was one of you :-) Really fun to read.

As for me, I have ordered the Olympicas from my seller and will be waiting impatiently ;-)

[bigblue]

Originally Posted by Vico26

Nice to hear that, Bigblue! Have you tried the Heidmall 2 cables already? I have an opportunity to buy the Heidmall 1, but they say its not that good (but it was superb a year ago :-S).

V

How did you know I was interested in the Heimdall 2? It's true, but I don't recall mention that in this thread? Or was it more of an open question?