B&W 703 - How to tame the highs?


I traded up my Paradigms studio 100s this past summer for these B&W 703. I find the highs on the 703 to be a bit harsh / bright. How do I tame them? I currently have them toed in slightly towards the listener.
abb9ae7
When it comes to using these speakers for HT purposes, I honestly can't find any fault - even if I try. It makes me wonder if designing speakers to reproduce movies and music requires a compromise in one to benefit the other.

What you are discovering is Audio Compression...certain forms of music are highly compressed. Eva cassidy is not. Movies are not. This is why they sound good on your system.

Hyper compressed rock, pop and alternative is common these days and it will sound fatiguing. Switching to a less accurate speaker with laid back midrange and smooth warm sound may help...but it is a "band aid" not a cure...besides do you want to put a band-aid over the beautiful sounding Live at Blues Alley - just so you can play Metallica without having to cover your ears - the choice is yours...

See this Turn Me Up for more information.
Same prob here, I've just recently posted to find some suggestions for what to do to help with my 703's.

I've auditioned mine with a Classe CA2200 and very much liked them, but couldn't find a used one at the time.

Went with a Musical Fidelity A308CR Preamp and pair of Electrocompaniet AW220's and I'm thinking about replacing the amps.

It's not only the highs that bother me but the missing bass, at least in my system.

Interesting to hear that I'm not the only one who finds that Eva Cassidy sounds pretty good on the system, yet other albums I just can't bring myself to listen to.

Well, good luck with improving your sound and if you find something you really think helped please post it here.

Thanks
Speakers do not have to be overly warm or inaccurate to play compressed music without ensuing listening fatigue.
There are many better examples to prove the point.
I can mention just one, that I have in my system-
Silverline Bolero. It has Dynaudio Esotar 330 soft dome tweeter, that can hardly be described as "inaccurate".
No listening fatique there. It is very accurate and revealing as well.
If the speaker, B&W in this instance, is giving you listening fatigue- it is not good, don't blame the recording. You are in this hobby to enjoy the music and not to suffer poorly designed components.
The cure- SELL ASAP
Speakers do not have to be overly warm or inaccurate to play compressed music without ensuing listening fatigue.

I am not sure if I was clear - I don't mean compressed as in iTunes or MP3 - I meant compression of the sound by the mastering engineer to give you a "hot" loud sound...that is they deliberately kill the dynamics using limiters, which also adds all kinds of distortion.

If you are having success with Silverline Bolero then IMHO it is probably related to the enormous hole in the midrange from 1 KHz to 5 KHz. This is a fantatsic audiophile speaker but nobody could be criticized for remarking that this is inaccurate reproduction, of a kind which would definitely help reduce harshness and fatigue (many other audiophile speakers are designed this way too and they sound great - google "BBC Dip"). Thanks for helping to clarify what I really meant to say.
I'm well aware of the loudness wars but since we can't change the recordings, there really aren't a whole lot of options to chose from.

A few options that come to mind are:

1) Re-purchase the bulk of my CD collection in vinyl since vinyl recordings tend to be mastered better. This option would probably be the costliest and would re-add a degree of manual labor back into the listening experience.

2) Change the type of music I listen to. Not likely to happen as I grew up listening to the popular music of the 70's, 80's and 90's which was mainly Rock.

3) Treat the listening environment. This option depending on the degree of treatment necessary and the quality of the job you want to do can vary from something trivial to something that requires great effort, time, research and cost.

4) Change the equipment connected to your speakers and/or change your speakers. This is probably the most commonly explored option when things start sounding bad