Listening fatigue

Defeating first reflections usually improves sound stage and imaging by reduce the amplitude of the reflected wave that arrives at your ear shortly after the primary wave

Fatigue is usually caused by long decay or extended RT60 times causing the note to linger in your listening room much longer than it should

When energy traveling up the walls meets the energy traveling along the ceiling and floor at the Wall/Ceiling/Floor interfaces ... it’s is combined and the high frequency ringing is extended causing the fatigue

To reduce or defeat the ringing you must trap it at the wall ceiling interface with acoustical treatments like a soffit trap (GIK) or Sound Flags (ASC) .. I use Sound Flags around the perimeter of my 16x27 room

If acoustical treatments are a no go in the bed room you can install 6 or 8 inch crown molding all around the room’s perimeter and she’ll never suspect anything

The crown molding breaks the hard 90 degree angle at the wall ceiling interface with it’s gentle curve and works more to diffuse and redirect the energy in a wider band as opposed to trying to absorb it like a fiberglass trap would .. either will work it a matter of what is acceptable in the bedroom

Here’s a simple test ... turn on the system and get it to the point were it is fatiguing you ... then quickly step into the next room or hall way and listen and see if it is still as irritating

When you move into the next room over you remove yourself from the room’s direct extended ringing field and the fatigue should be reduced

If when you step into the other room it is still as irritating as the bed room ... then it is something in your system causing a tilt or frequency imbalance

Easy enough to try .. if the fatigue disappears or is reduced when you go into the next room over ... it’s your bed room ... if nothing improves when listening from the next room ... it’s something in your equipment causing the tilt

If you determine it is your room visit the ASC (Acoustic Science Corp.) site and check out what it takesto perform a inexpensive (less than $100) M.A.T.T test ... this will tell you what frequencies are ringing and how long they are ringing for

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One of the most closely guarded secrets in all of audio is why the distortion rises so much as the volume is turned up. Now, I'm not saying that some of the distortion we hear at higher volumes is produced by distortion in the speakers, distortion in the electronics and/or distortion produced by room acoustics anomalies such as comb filter effect. The problem is that even when those fairly obvious potential causes of distortion at higher volumes have been addressed there is still a significant amount of distortion at higher volumes. It's a little bit analogous to the background microwave radiation - we can eliminate all the other potential sources of noise in the universe, so the residual noise must be from the Big Bang! So, where does this distortion come from, this distortion that's not related to the audio system electronics, or the room acoustics, or anything in the audio system cabling, or house wiring? Hint: it has to do with why the sound gets better when all telephone books are removed from the house. And why the sound gets better when all CDs are stored Vertically instead of Horizontally. And why taking cell phones out of the house improves the sound.

Definitely experiment with ics first,then speaker cable.It can make a huge improvement.You absolutely do not have to spend mega $ to hear large improvements.Check out Bluejeans cables for a start.They have a thirty day trial period, so no risk.

I hate to throw cold water on a fellow file but...I am 54 and have been through vinyl to cd to download to vinyl. I have had (used, so I usually could sell with not much loss) Wadia's best/a dcs stack/audioaero etc. No matter what I did fatigue always set in at higher volumes and I found myself in higher volumes to get the experience I craved. I finally bit the bullet and went back to vinyl. I have never felt fatigue since. Some crackles on 1.00 records but never fatigue. Neil Young once said "digital feels like hail." Look at the ads for digital equipment. They spend a page just explaining the clocking....Hi fidelity requires simplicity I believe. Best of luck.

My first instinct is to agree with Elizabeth's guess that the sub is the first culprit.