Please help--my ears are hurting

Now for the other side of that fork in the road....

Acoustical distortion... Long decay, or reverb times = PAIN ... your ceiling/wall interface is the worst offender. Sound travels along the ceiling, and walls (lamella effect),builds up where they meet, and takes longer to disapate = long Decay times = brightness = PAIN

Echo slap is no bargin either. Face a side wall, and clap your hands, the wall will clap back at you, also first reflections will smear the sound of any good piece of equipment.

If you don't think you have these basic acoustic problems, then you are in "Denial", and I don't mean the river in Egypt.

Get thee to Rives' web site also add ASC and RPG to your reading list. All are listed in the Mfg. section here on A/gon.

Strike two... you can thank the long distance between the power company, and your house, along with your neighbors' for polluting the electricty coming into your home (line borne). Also the normal operation of your digital equipment will put noise back on the line (back/filter). This is why the analog guys won't put their Turn Tables on the same dedicated line as their CD players. The switching power supplies and crystal ossillators output a lot of RFI (air borne), any device that switches on and off will put out RFI. You need to defend against Line borne, Air borne, and Back Filter the noise that is output by your equipment's normal operation.

Strike three.... how about some vibration control... here you need to defend against (1) equipment generated (must drain)(2)air borne (must mass load) and (3) floor borne (must decouple) for each and every piece in your system.

In order for distortion to propagate you need (1) a Transmitting source (2)a Conduit to travel, along and (3) a Receiver to accept.... Eliminate any one factor in the chain, and the distortion goes away.

Ask any Turn Table guy what Foot Fall means (floor borne), have you ever sat in the front row of a friend's home theater, and had your pant's leg flap when the sub goes off (air borne) and lastly if you don't think power transformers, spinning CD drive's, and switching power supplies add deliberating vibration (must drain)that need to be drained from your equipment, please reread my above comment concerning that river in Egypt (;-)

If you continue to head in the direction you are heading, you will end up where you are going....try the other side of that fork in the road..

Please don't take my comments as an attack, I just want to try and open your eyes to some other avenues, and keep you off the equipment merry go round.

Like agent Smith said to Satish in the movie The Matrix...

"Oh I'm not such a bad guy once, you get to know me"

HTH, Dave

Paper- How many hours do you have on the CD-25? I just got a modded Denon Universal player and I had similar thoughts, but was warned to break it in for 200 hours, which I have now done, and find a substantial improvement.

Papertrail

Before I switched out any equipment I'd first try different speaker locations and/or some room acoustic treatments. Moving speakers away from side walls or rear walls often alleviates brightness in a system. Also, play with the toe in of the main speakers. I personally know moving my speakers just 2 inches in from the side walls can change the tonal balance considerably. I too was hearing some brightness in my system, then as I said I played with speaker placement and was able to eliminate it. As a matter of fact, I think until you find the optimal speaker placement and try damping at least the first reflection point I wouldn't consider switching equipment to try and cure brightness, you could be throwing your money away. Play with speaker placement and room acoustics first, much better bang for the buck. My $.02

Hi, The modded CD-25 can be bright with the extra detail. I had one(Usher CD-100)and sold it. I'll take a warm, involving sound anytime. I've tryed 5 cdp and always went back to my MSB Link Dac. If your JVC has a digital output, try an MSB dac used for $150. Or just stick with your JVC. Good Luck, Jerry

Papertrail: I think the problem is that you're "listening too hard" to your new CD player. I suspect that the actual differences between your CD and DVD players are less dramatic than you think. Sometimes our frame of mind can be more important than the components we are listening to. That said, if you're now happier listening to the DVD player, stick with it.

There's also nothing particularly wrong with the rest of your system. If you want a real improvement, it makes the most sense to concentrate on upgrading those speakers. To Rich's suggestions, I would add Paradigm.