It's not the sound I want!

Just to re-iterate what's been said from another Krell 300i owner. I would look at the cdplayer as your problem. I have an average cd player (Sony ES85 with an Audio Alchemy DITB) and sometimes experience what you describe. When I listen to the same CD recording on vinyl the brightness goes away. It happens mostly on your average rock recordings for me. That said, I have had the Levinson 39 and the Theta Miles hooked up to my Krell and the sound was glorious on every recording I tried. The Krell does take careful matching from the digital I think auditioning some good CD players will show that to you. Good luck.

*all* cd players are the problem. pick up a cheap tubed buffer-stage for the cd. like the z-man ase, or the musical fidelity (X-10?), then spend ~$1k on pretty much *any* analog set-up you can find, new *or* used. it will blow into the weeds *any* cd set-up at *any* price. if ya have more to spend on the analog set-up, so much the better. perhaps one of those new (i.e. cheaper than dcs) digital up-samplers would help out your cd's also...

Your metallic acoustic sounds like the problem I had with violins: they sounded sweet but shiny, like they were made of silver. The solution for me was AtmaSphere M60's and a Metronome CD/DAC combo with a tube output stage. Now the fiddles sound like wood. Bought all used on Audiogon. I tend to focus on the amps before anything else, but I know that opinions differ on that point.