Which speakers did you find bright, fatiguing or just disappointing in some way?

I would have to say B&W. I went and auditioned the CDM1NT back in the day and thought they were tremendous! I bought them on the spot. However after extended periods of listening my ears would ring (yes I must confess I do like to listen at louder levels). When a fellow enthusiast directed me to Dynaudio and I listened (and sold the B&W's for the Danes) it was only then I realized the B&W's were on the bright side in comparison to Dynaudio. This was 20 years ago mind you...

I had to sell off all my gear during my divorce and have been out of the game for 20 years. But at least now getting back in I knew which speakers to buy. So I went with Dynaudio Excite. Weirdly I was questioning everything I remembered as I found the Excites to be a bit on the bright side. Still had that tremendous soundstage and detail that I remember with the Audience line, but now with a bit of harshness...Ended up selling the Excites for Evoke and I'm back in Nirvana :)

@kenjit 

If self-parody were an art form, your work would be in high demand.

First off, I tend to gravitate towards speakers with an emphasized top end, but end up regretting it after sustained listening after higher volumes. - above 70 dB. The older Boston Acoustics - A100, A150 - could fatigue my ears in a second if cranked up. Lots of sizzle. The KEF LS50’s will also attack you if you point them directly at you; I hear the Meta’s aren’t so spikey. I thought any of the Elac bookshelves I listened to were smooth in their top end and never caused fatigue, but I never ended up keeping them around for long. Had some older Polk Audio ones which with also smooth but too prominent in the midrange for my tastes. Had a vintage McIntosh SS amp (and a Parasound A23+) which reined back the spikier ones.

I just experienced turning wonderfully balanced truly involving speakers into god awful shriekers.

Against my instincts, but to try what many strongly advised, I removed my two L-Pads (Brilliance and Presence) from each side.

The horn tweeters dominated to a horrible degree. These original Electro-voice drivers/systems were designed with the AT37 12 db L-Pads as an important part of the system.

’Building-Block’ Kits

https://products.electrovoice.com/binary/BB1,2,3,4,5%20EDS.pdf

Mine were designed as 3 way originally, within a Fisher President II console. Middle of the AT37 was ’standard’, range up to +6db for soft/dead rooms; range down to -6db for live/hard rooms.

ADC. The first pair of component speaks sold to me with my first system. We're talking 1971 or 1972. Sansui 350, Pioneer PL-A25 and these. Horrible sounding. Not the way they sounded in the showroom. An honest upstanding dealer took them back and honestly cannot remember what replaced them. Why all the JBL haters? Been a fan for 50 years. L36's, L26's, L110's, 4311b's, L166 Horizons and of course 3 sets of L100's. Always paired with McIntosh, they were made for each other. The JBL shortcomings were neutralized by the smooth laid back Macs and vice versa. "one person's meat is another person's poison. AB