Newbie with "bright" system

Speaking as a fellow newbie, actually took a twenty year break to raise kids. I have assembled a second hand system in the past 8 weeks and experienced the same problems you are having. My system is Aragon 24K, 4004; NAD 540C CD, Magnepan MGIII speakers, Audioquest Crystal Speaker Cable, MAD Pearl IC Pre Amp to Amp and Green XLC from CD to Preamp. My listening room is in the basement with concrete floors (covered with carpet) and drywall. I covered the rear wall with relatively heavy indoor-outdoor carpet ( I just used seam tape and finishing strips-$100.00). This helped some but the edginess was still there. Next I replaced my speaker cable, Audioquest Crystals with Kimber Monocle ($275.00 used). The detail improved but the edgy brightness was still there. Currently I haveTMC Yellow interconnects pre amp-amp and TMC White CD-Pre amp. The brightness is gone but I also have lost some of the "excitement". The MAD IC's are silver coated ribbons while the TMC are all copper. I am looking for some copper/silver hybrid IC's to see if there is a way to achieve a compromise, maybe something like Kimber Silver Streaks. Hope this helps. I think audio is always going to be a work in progress. If it weren't for the money, this would be the fun of the hobbie. We can still think about Balanced, bi wire and tri wire, tubes and soon, SACD.

I recommend you to take a good look at your system set up ( give the Bryston enough break in time as well) as Onhwy61 suggest. You don't mention your previous amplifier, couldn´t it be that you are noticing the difference between the two (you are used to the previous sound)?
Whithin certain limits you might be able to modify the presentation out of your source playing with shelf materials and footers. What is your metal rack shelves material ? What is the floor/ rack interface cones, soft? Try some soft ones like vibrapods under your CD player they do make a difference. Do you have power conditioning?
If you provide more info, maybe a fix can be found....

Jeff and Bruce, while I wholeheartedly agree with you on the tube advice, do you think it's a good area for a "newbie" to venture? We have tubes in our CD player, our preamp, and our monoblocks are tubes, so we are FANS. The “bloom oh the bloom” ! But,
Tubes take a lot of finesse and can be very finicky. I see this as one of those last tweaks that you do, not one of the first. It could be very frustrating.
I think that a person needs some time and experience under their belt before dipping into the tube realm.
Talk about snake oil salesmen, look at all the tubes that are available; and are the really NOS, etc? I think that folks can be taken more on tubes than any other tweak. This is just my own opinion and welcome others.
regards -

Wemmessie. Since you are now experiencing a slight "dullness" to your sound after room treatment, may I suggest a detailed, brighter, & airy but very smooth ITC? Thanks, I knew you wouldn't mind. Anyway, try Silver Audio Hyacinths. I have had great success with them running from my DAC to Pre Amp.

Sorry Mraybeck, I must defer to the infinite wisdom of other members, I am and for the immediate future committed to solid state. I think though, as a practical matter, you should wait on cabling until after the pre.
Chris