Magnepan 3.7i vocals sound harsh

John,

you our got some great hints here to help you.  I got your email and want to hear your system once you get this taken care of.  Once you get to the highest resolution that your system has, it’s the little things that can make or break it. 

Went naked no resistors which I think sounds best(probably some high frequency loss at my age).
Let the equipment warm for an hour much improvement in sound.
Tried 3 lp's Charlie Byrd direct to disc truly incredible, Basie Jam# excellent, Elton Madman some improvement. I also tried EJ on a friends system yesterday and could hear some of the same distortion but not as pronounced.
Maybe it the price you pay moving up the food chain the good sound better and not so good recordings worse.

OP, just finished reading all the above posts and you've gotten lots of good responses. One thing I remember reading about was a similar situation as yours, harsh vocals/good instruments on a particular recording. Turns out, the singers mic had been wired in reverse polarity, everything else in normal polarity. And because you have some of the most resolving speakers around (I own Vandies, but I do know how good Maggies sound), I believe that the resolution of your system is bringing up the good, the bad, and the ugly from your music collection. My experience is similar. In fact, I mentally grade each of my albums into classes A, B, C, D, and F based purely on sound quality.

Tom

It's been awhile but I didn't want to leave my saga without an ending. Since moving to the Pass equipment and putting many more hours on the speakers they have settled in beautifully, I guess they just needed many hours of play to fully break in. Again thank you to all who offered help.