Parametric / graphic equalizer recommendations

How precious. Right down to the use of "loose." I see I apparently missed where you said room treatment didn't work, but no one responding above intended any offense. Sometimes we're distracted, or sleepy.

Back to your questions. Either, or any, kind of equalizer should help immensely, though I have to add, there is a difference between brightness and harshness. Maybe you should just get a nice receiver or an integrated amp with a treble control that you can turn down.

Whew! Have you been to an ear doctor? (I'm serious.) It seems very unlikely to me that your stereo caused this problem, but if I were you I'd certainly want to find out what did, and what I could do about it.

Your concern is not with "good" sound in the home, but with sound that is personally tolerable to you. If a boombox with the treble turned down can give you pain, an EQ may not help you much with your system. You need to get some auditory testing done. No one wants you to "turn your room into an anechoic chamber", and besides it seems as if you have already gone a long way towards that end. Attenuating the treble may do something, but it won't make your CD's sound like a live orchestra - the differences you heard have as much to do with the effects of mic'ing as they do with your system's balance or the CD medium.

To address your specific questions from above:

1) A parametric EQ will work fine on high frequencies. I think you may be misunderstanding what Rives is getting at with his description of his company's device. It sounds like a brilliant bit of applied engineering to me, but in any case not what you are after here. It is designed to deal with bass frequency room modes specifically.

2) Nothing is "bad" about graphic EQ for your application. In fact, a graphic model might well be the easiest thing to try out in order to satisfy your curiousity.

You are obviously not primarily concerned with "audiophile-approved" solutions, and besides it's not at all clear that there will even be a satisfactory solution to your dilemma. It would be easy to say, with the benefit of hindsight, that a B&W/Musical Fidelity system probably wasn't the best choice for your particular set of ears in your small room, but that's no guarantee you'd feel very much differently had you bought something like a tube electronics/electrostatic speaker system or a SET/small monitor system instead, or even purged your CD's and went all-analog. The devices you are looking at are relatively cheap, so buy one and do some experimenting if you like, but by all means get yourself to a specialist who might be able to help you with your fundamental auditory issue. Best of luck to you!

Cdc: You should see an audiologist or ENT. I am not a physician, but it does sound like you have tenitus (I'm sure I spelled that incorrectely). It is painful and is generally triggered by high frequencies. Speech is midband and does not cause the problem. If you listened to a live jazz band--or just a few cymbol crashes you would probably have the pain. It's frequently caused by some damage to the ear. It can be from being exposed to high SPL for long periods of time (doesn't sound like this is the case for you). But can happen from other things. Divers get it from the changing pressure on their ear drums when diving. I had a friend get it from an air bag going off in a car crash.

I strongly agree with the above comments about seeking medical help.

If all anyone wants to do is in/decrease high frequencies then a low pass filter is more effective than a parametric EQ circuit. Go to the following website and look at the parametric and shelving curves at the bottom of the file and you'll see the difference. The site is a paper presented by George Massenburg outlining the engineering behind parametric EQs. A graphic EQ can be considered as a special case (fixed frequency and sans Q control)of a parametric curve. Traditional treble controls are an example of a low pass filter. As a practical matter nearly all commercially available parametric EQ devices also offer separate low and high pass filters.

http://www.massenburg.com/cgi-bin/ml/parametric.html?id=FhaBkZYi

CDC, as a quick fix have you ever tried disconnecting your tweeter?

Thanks for the link Onhwy61. I was saying in general about turning my room into an anechoic chamber, not directed at anyone's helpful advise here. Because I have already looked into acoustic foam which absorbs specific frequencies and decided against this type of room treatment.
Fortunately, I had an audiometry done a year ago and I can compared with the one done a couple of weeks ago. Both show hearing loss in the same ear at 8kHz. So the Dr. said it looks like the ear was already damaged due to some "structural problem". I'll see what the otologist says.
I agree Zaiksman that maybe a different speaker would help. For example, I heard Vienna Mozarts this week and highs may be okay but the loose bass was annoying and I would not be happy with it. But like you said, who really knows if any speaker could really solve this problem.
Paulwp, interesting point about brightness and harshness. I compared Swan ?? vs. B&W 602 s2 with Teac receiver. The B&W sounded brighter. But While the Swans were more laid back there was more distortion. At least IMHO. So which was really better? But a distorted CD coming through a bright B&W is not good.
I'll post what I learn.