CDP suggestions for bright system?

Hi Widner. IMO you have two components in your system that tend to be a bit lean and have a reputation for being a little bright and analytical sounding. This is not to say that your equipment is not of high quality or what have you but I've owned and Acurus A150 along with the Acurus RL-11, ACD-11(which I still own as a transport)and had them connected using DH Labs and I found the sound the of this system to be a little lean and on the cold side. However, I paid a little more attention to my room acoustics and it helped my system dramatically. How does your room sound? Does it have sufficient sound absorbing materials in the room like thick curtains, book shelfs or carpet? This approach may help you identify more quickly the problem components even before you get your new CD player.

i'd recommend one-o-dem cheap tube buffer stages like the ase z-man, or a similar musical-fidelity unit - dunno its model #. i have an ase z-man that served me well until a melos tube preamp made it unnecessary. still kepin' it for a second system. ewe should be able to pick one up for ~$100.

personally, i don't tink it's worth spending any serious money on digital until the next-generation format gets settled, & software is readily awailable... i don't tink i'm gonna get any worthwhile improvement w/digital over my nad cd-changer run thru my melos preamp, even if i spend $2k on something used...

ymmv, doug

This isn't what you asked Widener, but I believe that you should banish from your system any component that is either not neutral or is dynamically constrained. So it worries me that you are going to add to your existing "brightness" problem by adding a warm or dull and compressed CD player. In my long trek in this hobby I have often fallen foul of this very predicament - only to realise that tolerating any colored or dynamically constrained component can cause you enormous expense trying to compensate for it. High end sound and components is not just about balancing up colorations to get a neutral result - matching one bright component with one dull one does not result in audio bliss IMHO. Therefore I would urge you to consider going to the greater effort of finding out what is causing the brightness, whether it be room, component or cable, and fix it first. I suspect my suggestion will not be good news, but I believe it will serve you better in the long run.

hi redkiwi,

i generally agree w/ewe in trying to seek neutrality - not trying to balance a bright component w/a dull one, etc. however, in the case of digital hardware, the only way to awoid this, is to stop using cd's, imho... ;~) this, obviously, is not a workable solution, in many instances. *any* cd-system that is listenable has been *dulled* - either by accessories such as what i mentioned, cabling, or the cd-player/dac/transport itself.

regards, doug

Hi Doug. I think we agree. A friend of mine once commented on another's audiophilia nervosa as a "misguided wild goose chase for a musical result from CDs". I suspect there is a lot of truth in the suggestion that you are wasting your time trying to get a high end result out of a mid-fi medium like CD. But I am not sure that what is wrong with CDs is brightness, or that adding warmth or compression makes it sound any better. I really don't know about the Denon DCD-620 but the Denons I have heard did not strike me as bright, just lacking resolution and any musical magic. So I think Widener still has a problem with perhaps amp, speakers or room that might be best dealt with first.