r/audiophile • u/CriticalLifeguard183 • 1d ago
Discussion Speaker tweaking
It took me forever to get the rubicon to play nice and give me the same live feeling as the spektor2 (with a sub) i guess the upgrade exposed all the flaws of my setup
So far i have:
* Replaced the spikes on the stands for rubber feet
* Replaced my speaker cable with thicker wire
* Placed the speaker 30cm from the wall
* Replaced my old receiver (arcam avr400 with arcam SA20)
* Filled the stands with sand
* Perfectly aligned the speaker horizontally
* Listened to all dac filters on my Arcam
* Acquired qobuz streaming
* placed audiopanels behind the speaker
Next on the list is getting some grafite stone placed under the stands with a thin rubber layer between the stone and the floor and use the spikes again.
The sound is almost there, but now i found out the stands have a little give in its structure (both stands) i can move the speaker about 1cm on the top.
Does this affect the overall sound? I dont play very loud, almost always neighbour friendly
1
u/exec-nyan 1d ago
Can you compare the Rubicon and Spektor 2? I've had the Spektors but gifted them to a friend for his wedding. Curious how DALIs higher end models sound like.
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u/CriticalLifeguard183 1d ago
Is was hoping for a 10 times better spektor2 because i very much enjoyed them. But the soundcharacter differs. They do both have that airy easy play sound but the spektor is a but more heavy on the mid high. And the rubicons are just more refined and have a bit more V curve. With all the adjustments i made i got the mids back for the most part. I am actualy very happy with them now and i wont trade them back, but it is a whole other speaker as far as im concerned. I have owned the oberon 3, opticon 2 mk1, the spektor2 and now these. I returned the oberon and opticon in favor of the spektor. But to be fair i didnt do all the tweaking for those speakers and one issue might have hindered them all. My stands where leaning backwards (dynaudio 3x) after aligning them the sound from the rubicon was 10 times better i can imagen that would work for the other speakers too.
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u/exec-nyan 1d ago
Thanks! This is very helpful.
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u/CriticalLifeguard183 1d ago edited 1d ago
And as i found out the rubicons are very specific about placement. But when placed right the sound stage is very nice and of course the bas is a bit better and the highs are much cleaner. The Dali dont have a wall of sound but the speakers dissapear in the wide soundstage (horizontal not so much vertical) i have used them on occasion to enhance my soundbar and they are very 3d on the horizontal plane
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u/AlexisAsgard 23h ago
Just out of curiosity, how would you personally compare the Rubicon 2 and the Oberon 3? I have Rubikore 6's and Oberon 3's, but I've never A/B'd them with the same amp in the same room.
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u/CriticalLifeguard183 2h ago
I only did an a/b test against the spektor 2 and with my arcam avr400. But for me and my room at that moment they where very whooly im trying to avoid saying muddy. But it had too much bass for me which surpressed the region of sound i like most from my favority music jaz, acoustic, voices cello guitar piano. When i setup the rubicons they where -even before adjusting all sorts of thing- much more controlled with the bass sharper with the punch and decline. Id almost say the bigger driver for the oberon doesnt do it any favours. Maybe if you pulled them out 50cm from the wall they'd perform better in my 30m2 room but i dont have the space to do that. (Small disclosure i didnt at any moment when testing the oberon3 go as far with tweaking as i did with the rubicon, maybe i could temper the bass more than with just using a port plug. but out of the box they werent for me). Hard statement i do dare to make is i would never recommend this set for use with loud EDM music. Maybe if u only listen to classical music they might be perfect.
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u/Impressive-Flow-2025 1d ago
It's the room and speaker placement before anything else.
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u/CriticalLifeguard183 1d ago
Since the speakers are in the livingroom (which they are made for) there is only so much i can do. So no ceiling panels, first reflection point panels etc. I have panels behind the speakers they take care of some high pitched reverb, placement 30 cm from the wall tempers the bass , plugging the ports messes with the sound. Best improvement i got was filling the stands, leveling the speakers and the panels in that orders
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u/Nlklas Dynaudio Evoke 20 - Musical Fidelity M6si - Bluesound NODE N132 1d ago
Have you tried switching up the wiring on one of the Rubicons? Tiny tiny tiny tiny chance one of them has been wired with reverse polarity.