I want to replace my Yamaha HTR-5760..

[Lord Nikon]

It is a nice receiver, and has pretty much all the features I do enjoy, but I am finding it to be brighter then I wanted. Can anyone recommend another receiver $500 or less that has a 'warm' sound instead of a bright one? Thanks guys! I had in mind perhaps a Marantz?

[bargainseeker]

It is a nice receiver, and has pretty much all the features I do enjoy, but I am finding it to be brighter then I wanted. Can anyone recommend another receiver $500 or less that has a 'warm' sound instead of a bright one? Thanks guys! I had in mind perhaps a Marantz?
I checked your previous posts to see what speakers you are using with your Yamaha HTR-5760. Have you switched from Ascend Acoustics CBM-170 to CMT-340 speakers for mains like you said you were going to? If so, that is likely the source of your problem. The CMT-340 uses a different and less accurate tweeter than the one in the CBM-170. As seen from these CMT-340 frequency response measurements (http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/speakers/cmt340m/cmt340mmeas.html), the CMT-340 speaker has a dip in the midrange that gets worse off-axis. After the dip, the CMT-340 has a rising frequency response curve that over-emphasizes the high frequencies. In contrast, as shown in these measurements of the CBM-170 (http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/speakers/cbm170/cbm170meas.html), the tweeter in the CBM-170 remains accurate throughout its frequency range.

If this is your problem, you would be better served with an equalizer instead of a new receiver.

[woodman]

It is a nice receiver, and has pretty much all the features I do enjoy, but I am finding it to be brighter then I wanted. Can anyone recommend another receiver $500 or less that has a 'warm' sound instead of a bright one? Thanks guys! I had in mind perhaps a Marantz?


Save yourself some money ... don't take what could easily prove to be a backward step in overall quality in order to achieve the sonic quality that is more pleasing to your ears. As my partner in common sense (bargainseeker) pointed out in his reply to you, you evidently made a poor choice in a speaker to go with your receiver - given the type of sound you were after. At this point therefore, you have 3 courses of action you can take to remedy the situation:

1. replace the "too bright" speaker(s)
2. get an equalizer to "tame" the overly bright speaker(s)
3. simply turn down the treble control

IMO, it's your speaker(s) that are the cause of your "problem" ... not your receiver.

Hope this helps you

[Lord Nikon]

Actually I did not upgrade my CBM-170 mains to CMT-340 mains. :) I still have the 170 mains and 340 center channel. Considering most of the sound goes come through the center channel this could fall in to your theory. I'm not sure if this is still the cause or not. Out of curiosity, how much does a decent EQ run anyhow? Maybe I should replace my center channel with a 3rd CBM-170 speaker which will run maybe $164 and use the CMT-340c as the center rear channel when I get to that point in 6.1?

[bargainseeker]

I suggest you perform a simple experiment to help determine which way to go. Set your center channel speaker to "none" on your receiver. This will force all previous center channel sound to go through the CBM-170s as a "phantom center". Then, listen to various CDs and DVDs to see if you think the sound is still too bright. For your listening tests, set your bass and treble controls to neutral and your loudness switch to "off". Also turn off any enhanced sound modes such as "70mm movie" or "concert hall" on your receiver.

Another question: Are there a lot of hard (sound reflective) surfaces and few soft (sound absorbent) surfaces in your listening room? Having reflective walls, floor, ceiling and furniture can make for a brighter and more reverbant sound.

[Lord Nikon]

Alright, in the next few days when I have a spare moment I will attempt these few tests to see what happens. Thanks for the advice.

[Lord Nikon]

Well I put the center channel to 'none' and noticed that volume from the L/R Mains sounded louder. When I put the center back in, it seems like the sound wasn't as loud. I also did notice it also sounded better with just L/R Mains on then having all 3. :\ Do you think my receiver is being funky because I am only running these 3 speakers?

[Eric Z]

For about 3 months, I was running my L/R fronts and subwoofer with a 5760 (with no center). When I found a matching center, I picked it up and hooked it up so I was now running 3.1. I got pretty darn used to the 2.1 and thought the addition of the center channel made everything sound brighter. However, I found it difficult to hear some of the dialogue with just using the L/Rs- obviously that's because the L/R aren't made for all dialogue- the CC is made for some brighter/clearer sound because of the dialogue. For a couple days, I sat on my couch and watched a bunch of DVDs and played around with setting the CC to none to see if I liked how it added to my HT set up. I noticed something similar to you- with the CC set to none, it seemed the L/R speakers were louder (for me just the L/Rs didn't sound better though- I just wasn't used to the sound coming from a different style of speaker above the TV). I ran the YPAO feature again and it adjusted some of the volumes and distances and I really liked the sound after that. I now added surrounds and am very pleased with the sound.

For me, it was just that I wasn't used to a CC when watch movies- I didn't have any HT experience prior to this set-up.

What did you have before the 5760? A different HT receiver? If so, how did the speakers sound then?

If you really want to test it out, get your hands on a different receiver (maybe a friends, or buy one at CC and then return it after you give it a test drive). Could be a pain disconnecting your HT and hooking it up to this other receiver- just a thought.

Good luck!
Eric

[bargainseeker]

Well I put the center channel to 'none' and noticed that volume from the L/R Mains sounded louder. When I put the center back in, it seems like the sound wasn't as loud. I also did notice it also sounded better with just L/R Mains on then having all 3. :\ Do you think my receiver is being funky because I am only running these 3 speakers?The sound level from the L/R mains will increase when you set the center channel to 'none' because the mains are then being fed the center channel sounds in addition to the L/R main sounds. I honestly don't think there is anything wrong with your receiver. I think you are hearing the over-brightness of the CMT-340 tweeter. In my opinion, your problem is that you have a speaker (the CMT-340c) that is too bright for you to live with. I don't recommend that you keep it. Instead, I recommend that you call Ascend Acoustics, talk to someone in management, tell them of your dissatisfaction and see if they are willing to swap out your CMT-340c for a CBM-170c even though it has been past the 30 day trial period. Failing that, I recommend that you sell your CMT-340c on eBay and use the proceeds to buy a CBM-170c.

[Lord Nikon]

I wonder if the 170 tweeter would work in the 340c speaker. :) :) I'll see what I can do with Ascend Acoustics... about this matter. I really do love the CBM and when I just just them on last night it sounded better.

[kexodusc]

I'm with Woodman and Bargainseeker on this.

While I haven't heard your center speaker, I do know a lot of center channels are being made with the aim of being very, very bright sounding. That was always a trade-off I had to accept with my home theater speakers. I always bought the main speakers first, matched a center, and then surrounds if possible (or cheated here for budget purposes). My Paradigm Studio CC (and prior to that CC-370) are both notoriously bright sounding. This presents great clarity in the midrange and allows the speaker to continue to sound decent for listeners who sit off-axis from the center, but can introduce some excessive sibilance and harshness at the high end of the spectrum. I've noticed eerily similar results with the Energy Connoisseur and Veritas, the PSB Stratus and B&W 600 and 700 lines center channel offerings.

Myself, and a few of my audio savy friends believe that designers build center channels with the goal of a bright sound in mind, because it sounds so forward and crystal clear for dialogue. Later on it can become annoying depending how bright it is. I think I'd rather a bright center than too warm a center though, especially for dialogue you don't want anything sounding hollow or muffled.

The problem I believe you'll have upgrading receivers is that most of the comparable models from Denon, Marantz, and Onkyo also sound very similar.

I'm a huge fan of your receiver, and I believe it is the single best value in HT receivers today (and I own the RX-V1400, a "step up"). I've spent alot of time with the 5760 (my old neighbor had one) and it is not a bright sounding receiver at all. My old RX-V795a was. The newer Yammies are pretty bang on neutral now.

One trick I did try quite successfully was to place rubber bumpers underneath my Studio CC to angle it ever so slightly down, so the tweeter wasn't firing straight at me. The slight off axis helped a bit, and the carpet was probably a better recipient of the sound than the ceiling. A cheap tweak to try, sometimes off-axis response is better.

[Lord Nikon]

I got a reply back from Ascend Acoustics. This place is simply amazing guys. I will try out what they say. The only thing that changed was I got a new receiver. :) Below is the email:

Hi Don,

I am sorry to hear that you are not enjoying the sound of your center. You
have had the speaker for almost ten months now, has the sound changed at
all? I am wondering if something is no longer functioning properly.

The 340's tweeter is a higher end version of the tweeter that is in the
CBM-170. It uses a more powerful magnet that enables the tweeter's
frequency response to extend higher, up to around 22 kHz. It is possible
that your ears could be sensitive to the higher frequencies but it should
not sound much brighter than a CBM-170.

Try this.. Swap the speaker with one of your CBM-170s and listen to the same
source. Any difference? Speaker placement and nearby reflections can cause
peaks and dips in the high frequency response.

If the CBM-170 is indeed more pleasing to your ear as a center, we would be
happy to swap it for you.

[Lord Nikon]

Well a lot of things did change since I received the center channel. I upgraded my old Technics receiver to the Yamaha. I also went to digital optical input for my dvd player, and moved the center channel from underneath the tv (shelf on tv stand) to on top of my 32" Toshiba tv. Tomorrow I will swap out the speakers to see how I like it.

[bargainseeker]

I'm glad that Ascend Acoustics is willing to help you out. I suspected that they might -- they seem to be a company that values the satisfaction of their customers. Their suggestion to swap speakers and listen to the difference is a good one.

One quibble I have with their email is their characterization of the CMT-340 tweeter. I do believe they intended it to be an improved higher power/greater extension version of the CBM-170 tweeter. However, their own published frequency response graphs show that it turned out to be a less accurate and brighter tweeter. I wish they had continued to work on the CMT-340 tweeter design or selection until they had found one with both higher power handling and equal or better accuracy.

[Woochifer]

As others have pointed out, I don't think the receiver's the culprit in this case. The biggest sources of variability in an audio system are the speakers and the room acoustics, and in most cases those also happened to be most responsible for creating a "bright" sound.

Speakers without question, a lot of them are voiced with elevated highs. Toeing the speakers directly in towards the listening position will give you the most direct treble. Positioning them so that they are more off-axis from your ears will likely give you less emphasis in the highs.

With the room acoustics, if you have a live sounding room with reflective surfaces everywhere, then the reflected sound can create time smear, which makes the sound harsh. You want to try and absorb and break up as much of the reflected sound as possible in most typical rooms, because the reflected and direct sound is close enough together in the time domain for your brain to interpret it as one sound. This also has detrimental effects on the imaging coherency.

Tonal differences between receivers are typically not nearly as big as the differences between speakers and rooms.

[Woochifer]

I'm with Woodman and Bargainseeker on this.

While I haven't heard your center speaker, I do know a lot of center channels are being made with the aim of being very, very bright sounding. That was always a trade-off I had to accept with my home theater speakers. I always bought the main speakers first, matched a center, and then surrounds if possible (or cheated here for budget purposes). My Paradigm Studio CC (and prior to that CC-370) are both notoriously bright sounding. This presents great clarity in the midrange and allows the speaker to continue to sound decent for listeners who sit off-axis from the center, but can introduce some excessive sibilance and harshness at the high end of the spectrum. I've noticed eerily similar results with the Energy Connoisseur and Veritas, the PSB Stratus and B&W 600 and 700 lines center channel offerings.

I'm not sure if it has to do with voicing, so much as the placement, the horizontal alignment, and the delay timing. I looked up a few center channel measurements (the B&W 600 series, the Paradigm Studio v.3 series, and the Energy Veritas series), and it doesn't seem like the voicing is consistently boosted in the highs compared to the mains.

Increasing the delay timing on the center channel has a noticeable difference in how the center speaker blends in with the mains. And the positioning and angling has a noticeable effect on the sound as well.

I wouldn't necessarily call the Studio CC a notoriously bright center speaker since I use one in my setup and find that it matches the Studio 40s fairly well. But, I do use the center channel EQ on my receiver to take it down by about 2 db at 1 kHz. With that adjustment, the center speaker does not call attention to itself, even with multichannel audio sources.


One trick I did try quite successfully was to place rubber bumpers underneath my Studio CC to angle it ever so slightly down, so the tweeter wasn't firing straight at me. The slight off axis helped a bit, and the carpet was probably a better recipient of the sound than the ceiling. A cheap tweak to try, sometimes off-axis response is better.

Sheesh, we do think alike! I use a foam seat cushion underneath my center speaker, but that's more to secure the speaker to the top of my TV and keep it from wobbling and sliding around. It has the side benefit of separating the speaker from the TV, which reduces the resonance from the TV cabinet. But, it also aimed the tweeter more straight at my head than before, which is why I tweaked with the center channel EQ.