I know I’m late on this reply, but here are a couple of other things you can try. First, you don’t mention what kind of cables you are using, other than speaker. I’ll stay away from that. For interconnects I would strongly recommend balanced connections between the LS2 and the M700. If you are not using balanced now you can get Mogami balanced from Amazon for under $100. They give you good performance for the money. There are other better options, for more money, but unless you are interested I won’t go there either.
Second, I would recommend, if possible, to put the amps near the speakers with shorter (I’m guessing 3’ to 5’) speaker cable runs. In this case you would need longer interconnects. If you go with the Mogami’s I mentioned above the extra cost is minimal. For speaker cable, if you did buy the 100’ roll you mentioned in a previous post, you should have plenty to make another set reusing the spades.
Finally, is the tube in the LS2. Assuming it is, in fact, an LS2 Mk II it only has one 6922 tube in it. This is a line stage only and there is no phono preamp built-in. Not having any idea of the history of this pre-amp, if you have not changed the tube I would absolutely do that. A single 6922 should be very reasonable ($35 to $100) for a current production tube on Amazon.
Glad to hear you are happy with the M700 amps and good luck with the rest of your journey!
Thanks for the reminder / prompt to replace the tube in the preamp. I’ve been using the one that came with it when I bought it used last month - “Electro Harmonix 6922EH tube.”
I have really liked the more lush sound of Sylvania NOS tubes in my other tubed gear, so I just ordered a couple of 6922 NOS tubes (a JAN Sylvania 6922 from the 1970s, and a JAN PHILIPS 6922 from the 1980s) to see how they compared to the Electro Harmonix (which I’d never heard before in any of my gear until this ARC preamp).
I hesitate to go the route of shortening the speaker cables, lengthening the XLR cables, and placing the M700s closer to the speakers. I’m skeptical that it would make enough of a difference to justify the additional cost and effort.
I have just added two 4-cube shelves behind-and-to-the-side of each speaker; I suppose I could put an M700 on top of each of those shelves…
But then when the curtains are open (as they are during daylight hours; I only just closed them to improve the lighting for this photo), the amps would receive several hours of direct sunlight / warmth during the hot summer days upcoming here in Georgia, and I don’t think I want to expose the amps to heat unnecessarily, even if they are “cool running.”
I’m disinclined to try all that new cabling + finding suitable new locations for the amps, just to save an extra 5 feet on each side of speaker cables length. If I were unhappy with my system’s sound quality right now, I might be willing to try more experiments … but right now, I’m VERY happy overall… and am looking forward to swapping out the 6922 tube to see how much difference a (presumably) warmer tube will make in this system overall.
Very good! Since you already have balanced interconnect and are happy with the arrangement no dire need to change the setup. I wasn’t quite sure where you put the new rack, but now I see it is relatively close to the speakers. Some folks run 20’ or more of speaker cable which is not the best thing to do IMHO … I would agree with not putting the amps in the sun, not sure about heat given they are silver, but still a good idea to keep them protected. As for the tubes, good choice! I haven’t experimented too much with NOS tubes, so can’t offer much advice there.
