Help Finding my system bright...

Speaker placement, listener placement, furnishings, and room acoustics have about as much to do with it as the speakers you bought and more than anything else except the source material.

First reflections off hard surfaces like the side walls, wood floors, televisions behind the speakers, a wall or windows behind the listener, and hard coffee table will all contribute to a birhgter sound.

The overall reflectivity of the room at high frequencies will make for a brighter sound. A carpeted room with book shelves and drapes will be more pleasant than a brick-walled loft with huge windows and wood floors.

Aiming the speakers so they cross in front of you will reduce both the direct on-axis sound you're getting at high frequencies (but not at lower frequencies, with the speakers actually becoming omnidirectional in the bass) and intensity of the side-wall reflections.

Well then I echo the question above, what changed to now make you feel its bright? Realistically I have had audioquest designs back in the 90's… they were always a bit Grainy and harsh with some components, mostly due to the multiple solid conductor litz type arrays the speaker cables seemed to use. At the time Kimber and Audioquest along with monster and MIT, straightwire, wireworld were mostly available at most of the higher end home theater stores when they started all changing over from 2 channel to multi channel focus…

However again not sure cables will completely solve the problem, it seems more like a room and or synergy of the components issue, and if in fact the Plinius you list above is a standalone amp than what is the preamp used? This will have a bigger effect in many systems tonal balance than the amp. Or are you just running the bel canto straight into the amp with its onboard volume control or something? If so that is your issue, you will need a full frequency preamp to add body back to your digital sound helping eliminate the "Digititus" that many experience running direct eliminating a good preamp. Has more to do with impedance and just harmonic problems that make music lose that full organic feel.

Very interesting, yeah before I found my system bright I was using a classe integrade. So my problem may be the lack of a preamp. I see how the harshness of digital could be what I am trying to descibe. Thanks everyone for your input.

Hi Macd, i see that there is a Decware ZSLA-1 tube buffer pre for sale on audiogon right now for 275.00 it is intended to be used between CD and amp to match impedences and warm up digital sound. i don't know the seller, just saw it today. You could try it out and if it does not satisfy you could resell and not lose too much$. Go to Decware website and check it out, might be just the ticket!

you might try putting 'plain ol' 14 guage wire between the amp, and your speakers and see what happens iand you'll only be out a few bucks if it doesn't tame the treble.