New Yamaha integrated amps

So I spun vinyl late into the night and all day today so far.

What I can say is that if I sit in the sweet spot there's decent (passable) bass. Clean and low (but not super low). Move out of that sweet spot and it rolls off fast. I've never experienced that before.

Try changing the placement of your speakers. I have read people sometimes have an issue related to the peculiar way they set up the loudness function too. Just saying. Strange how bass alone would be focused like that. Is it possible you are hearing sharper imaging. That would be a good thing.

I read the Yamaha amp is sensitive to speaker pairing. It looks like both the Yamaha amp and the Focal speakers are on the lean side. With my friends PSB speakers which are more full bodied, the A S500 sounds fine, Plenty of bass, but probably less noticeable treble. There should be a balance there. Sometimes it's a matter of getting used to the new sound.
 
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Try changing the placement of your speakers. I have read people sometimes have an issue related to the peculiar way they set up the loudness function too. Just saying. Strange how bass alone would be focused like that. Is it possible you are hearing sharper imaging. That would be a good thing.
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The speakers are 20" from the wall with a bit of toe
In to basically make the couch the entire sweet spot. I had it this way before with good result. The mids and highs sound really good and bypassing the PD and playing with the tone helped but I'm lot getting much of any low bass unless there's ludicrous amounts of it.

If I had no qualms about a sub I think this would be a good sound, but I feel odd that my focals aren't doing as much as they can and acting as big midranges. I'd like to note too that if I stand 12" from the front of the speaker and move dead center between them, the bass is nice, too much even.

If you have a suggestion on placement I'm all ears.
 
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The speakers are 20" from the wall with a bit of toe
In to basically make the couch the entire sweet spot. I had it this way before with good result. The mids and highs sound really good and bypassing the PD and playing with the tone helped but I'm lot getting much of any low bass unless there's ludicrous amounts of it.

If I had no qualms about a sub I think this would be a good sound, but I feel odd that my focals aren't doing as much as they can and acting as big midranges. I'd like to note too that if I stand 12" from the front of the speaker and move dead center between them, the bass is nice, too much even.

If you have a suggestion on placement I'm all ears.
Try moving them a little closer to the wall. Boundaries tend to reinforce bass frequencies.
 
When I stood about 5 feet from the front of the speakers and dead center between them, I got the most pleasing bass to my ears. What is that telling me?
 
You could be sitting in a null with your normal position and when you move five feet away your out of it. Placement can have a big impact so play around. It's free.

How big is the room you are trying fill. With my Aria 905's they work best in smaller rooms up to about 110 square feet sitting 6-8 feet away. In my living room they don't sound nearly as good.
 
That's a pretty big room for that speaker especially if you ideally don't want to use a sub. In a smaller room you would pick up more bass due to the boundaries. How far away are you sitting ? It's gonna be really tough in a room that big to get the full bass your looking for.

When you where using the Sansui did you use the loudness button / function ? This could also be your problem. If it was engaged you may have gotten use to whatever frequency it boosted which is typically around 100hz which can give the illusion of deeper bass. The loudness function is typically reserved for low level listening when the human ear loses sensitivity to bass frequencies.
 
That's a pretty big room for that speaker especially if you ideally don't want to use a sub. In a smaller room you would pick up more bass due to the boundaries. How far away are you sitting ? It's gonna be really tough in a room that big to get the full bass your looking for.

When you where using the Sansui did you use the loudness button / function ? This could also be your problem. If it was engaged you may have gotten use to whatever frequency it boosted which is typically around 100hz which can give the illusion of deeper bass. The loudness function is typically reserved for low level listening when the human ear loses sensitivity to bass frequencies.

I'm sitting roughly 11' away. Yes, on the Sansui I had the controls at 11 o'clock but the Loudness was engaged (+8db @ 50hz).
 
I'm sitting roughly 11' away. Yes, on the Sansui I had the controls at 11 o'clock but the Loudness was engaged (+8db @ 50hz).
That explains it. Your ear is used to that 8db boost at 50hz and now it's not there with the Yamaha.

I would seriously look at the NAD amps for there full rich sound or possibly look at larger speakers. If you have the ability maybe you could order a NAD amp and compare the two and send back the one that doesn't make the cut. If you get a similar result then look at replacing the speakers.
 
I have the A-S501 and was initially underwhelmed with it when it was hooked up to my Sonus faber Chameleons. I experimented with the tone controls and now use "pure direct". I have a Dayton 15" subwoofer with its volume set very low (funny how that works: over time I turned it down more and more). I thought the Yamaha sounded a bit thin compared to an older NAD C 315BEE integrated I have, and compared with amps I no longer have, including a 6B4G G-S-G SET. But, after a few months, including swapping the NAD in and out, I realized that it was my ears/brain that had been the problem. The Yamaha is tonally very neutral, which I like. The final step was when I completed my Econowave Large Advent build with the Dayton polymide drivers, which were an improvement over the Radians I had. The sound is so satisfying that I have had this setup unchanged for a record length of time. Now I am in the pleasant rut of listening to this system and practicing on my piano.

The Yamaha is a good amp. It sounds good and gives the impression of physical solidity that promises that it will hold up over the long term. One annoyance is that the volume knob is difficult to track visually. I put a little bit of electrical tape on it and solved that problem.

I listen to classical 90% of the time. But I'm listening to Love's "Forever Changes" right now.
 
I have the A-S501 and was initially underwhelmed with it when it was hooked up to my Sonus faber Chameleons. I experimented with the tone controls and now use "pure direct". I have a Dayton 15" subwoofer with its volume set very low (funny how that works: over time I turned it down more and more). I thought the Yamaha sounded a bit thin compared to an older NAD C 315BEE integrated I have, and compared with amps I no longer have, including a 6B4G G-S-G SET. But, after a few months, including swapping the NAD in and out, I realized that it was my ears/brain that had been the problem. The Yamaha is tonally very neutral, which I like. The final step was when I completed my Econowave Large Advent build with the Dayton polymide drivers, which were an improvement over the Radians I had. The sound is so satisfying that I have had this setup unchanged for a record length of time. Now I am in the pleasant rut of listening to this system and practicing on my piano.

The Yamaha is a good amp. It sounds good and gives the impression of physical solidity that promises that it will hold up over the long term. One annoyance is that the volume knob is difficult to track visually. I put a little bit of electrical tape on it and solved that problem.

I listen to classical 90% of the time. But I'm listening to Love's "Forever Changes" right now.

I also run the 500 and 501 in pure direct; not to mention my vintage amps are used without the tone controls engaged. I feel the sound I hear is as close to the actual recording as is reasonably possible. My listening environment is very dead (Owens Corning basement system) so I find it's a great listening space. It's that Yamaha neutrality that I really like that helps me to judge the quality of the recording. I've learned that some of my favorite music is poorly recorded...IMHO.;)
 
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