HK3490 and speaker question

[Anarchist420]

I have Infinity Primus P162s that I use with my HK 3490 and they don't sound very good at all. There are a lot of details you can't hear, and those details are not really supposed to be subtle at all either.

Why is that? Are they not supposed to good speakers? I know they're far from audiophile quality, but they should at least be able to produce all the details a pair of Creative inspire T2900s speakers with an Asus D2X can.

I'm using Monster speaker cable navajo white. Is the wire supposed to go all the way through the binding posts on the receiver like it does with the speakers? I've tried to get it to go all the way through. Should I do so again or is it even possible for it to go all the way through? The other thing is that the copper wire is darkened so that and the aforementioned are the only things I can think of that are making the sound quality terrible. Isn't the copper wire supposed to become darkened anyway after being binded by the binding posts?

 

[MrGlobe]

That's a nice receiver, easily capable of driving some very nice speakers. I have no experience with the speakers, however it sounds like something is wrong. If you don't think you are hearing all of what you should, there may be a problem with either the tweeter or woofer in one of both of your speakers.

I don't know what you mean by the cables being "darkened" but I have never experienced this. If it looks like it is burned, that is not a good thing. If it just has solder on the end, that is not a problem. The speaker cables going into the receiver won't usually come out the other side. Usually as you tighten the binding post the speaker wire will curl around the middle of the post on the inside. I would make sure you don't have any shorts in and of the wires or any loose strands of wire shorting a set of binding posts. While I agree that your gear is not "audiophile" quality, you've got some very nice components that should be more than capable of proving quality sound.

 

[kornphlake]

Speaker cables won't make that much difference, check to make sure the tone controls are set correctly on the receiver. Listen to each driver individually to make sure all drivers are working, you should be able to hear only highs out of the tweeters and only lows out of the woofers, if not you may have a problem with the crossovers.

 

[Scotteq]

Are you sure your cables are properly attached? If the polarity on one is reversed...

 

[kornphlake]

^ good call, could be some cancellation if one of the speakers is wired backwards.

 

[viivo]

Definitely check the crossovers. Had the same problem with a pair of bookshelves. They sounded muffled and not at all as dynamic as they once were. Turned out one of the crossovers had blown a cap (the low pass filter I believe) which ruined the sound.

 

[Rifter]

I have the same recieiver with some Polk Monitor 70's and have had it hooked up to at least 4 other pairs of speakers and they all sounded great so im going to assume its a wiring or speaker related issue.

As mentioned above make sure the polarity is correct, this sounds like a text book example of having the polarity backwards. And also as mentioned check the crossovers, you may need to remove one or more of the drivers to get access to the crossovers but its worth checking out if a cap is blown or a cold joint on one of the components on the crossover board is the issue.

 

[CallMeJoe]

...or a cold joint on one of the components on the crossover board is the issue.

My KV-3 center started intermittently getting a 'muffled' sound, which I traced to a cold solder joint on one of the crossover caps.

 

[Rifter]

My KV-3 center started intermittently getting a 'muffled' sound, which I traced to a cold solder joint on one of the crossover caps.

Which is exactly why i mentioned it I had the same issue on the crossover for the 2 bass drivers on one of my monitor 70's, one side had really really weak bass because of a cold joint on a coil on the crossover board.

 

[Anarchist420]

I figured what the problem probably is. It seems to be that no matter how much I twist the speaker wire, some strands start to stick out. Apparently, I'm not good at cutting/trimming/twisting speaker wire.

If anyone reading this can sell me (4) ~5ft 16 gauge copper (not aluminum) speaker wires (with jacket of course) that are already cut out/trimmed/terminated/ready to use for me then PM me (they can be used if they're not worn or anything).

Both speakers have always sounded the same so it's not the speakers. I decided to turn the HK3490's power switch off because I don't want to short out the binding posts.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[Rifter]

buy these, the 3490 will take them and they will clean up your cabling issues.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10401&cs_id=1040115&p_id=2801&seq=1&format=2

 

[MrGlobe]

^ Banana plugs are a good recommendation, look around online for a tutorial on making your own speaker cables, It's easy and cheap. White lightning moonshine cables are one of my favorites, you just buy extension cord from walmart and cuts the ends off. Then you strip the insulation at the ends and add banana plugs.

Another easy solution is to strip your speaker wire, tightly twist each of the strands individually, and then apply a small drop of solder to ensure that the wires do not fray or bunch up.