Help. Wife says Teres 340 Is too bright.

Late to the party. Is there any wine left?

I don’t believe your wife is hearing excessive upper mids/highs. I believe she’s hearing distorted and smeared upper mids/highs. This important distinction points to different solutions. If I’m correct, rolling off the highs won’t help – you need to clean them up, not reduce them.

When you upgrade a major source component (or two) to a more resolving one, the reduced noise and sound floors pass additional information. This additional complexity can test other components in ways they hadn’t been tested before. I disagree with suggestions that “you only changed the TT/arm, so the problem must be with them”. That sounds appealingly straightforward, but it’s far from true IME. Rather, I think the increase in signal complexity has exposed shortcomings in other components.

You've listed a c-j MF-2500A as your amp. Are you still using that? If so, the new rig may have exposed its limits. I know this amp well because we used one for several years. It’s a good mainstream product from a mainstream company, but it can’t really cope with the full complexity from a top quality vinyl rig.

Fortunately, your Silverline speakers are easy to drive. You have no need for a high wattage SS amp. What you need is an amp that can maintain clarity when fed a complex mixture of closely related waveforms (e.g., vocal and instrumental harmonics).

When we compared our MF-2500A to our present amp (Doshi-modded Lectron JH-50) the difference was breathtaking. I could go on about the areas in which the Doshi is better (name anything, it’s better), but for this thread it’s just worth noting that it reproduces HF’s and harmonics with jaw-dropping clarity and cleanliness. It approaches the purity of the best SET amps, but with enough push-pull power to drive all but very difficult speakers.

Consider trying out a top quality tube amp. Take advantage of your speakers’ being easy to drive. I think your wife’s ears would enjoy that experiment.

Doug makes a very good point which I know but somehow did not come to the top of my brain when I posted. High quality, high resolution transducers (basically what your vinyl rig is, although technically its only the cartridge) will spotlight deficiencies elsewhere in the chain. In this case, downstream.

Yes, Doug. the 2500A is still in service. i guess i'm surprised that the 2500 would b the weak link since it has sounded so good in the past. I've been wanting to get into tubes for a few yrs now. AAMOF, I was looking for a tube preamp when I stumbled across the Teres and just couldn't turn it down. I've thought about SET but wonder if my room is too big? I don't know, though i do know that Silverline shows off their speakers with a 7-8 watt SET.

FWIW, my wife said she didn't want to hear me say that I needed another piece of equipment now because of the TT. So i'm just going to show her your post Doug, and let YOU get into trouble with her. But i do thank you for taking me off the hook on this one.
Again, thanks to all

Even later to the party ... heed Doug's observations and revisit your entire signal chain.

I strongly suspect that you are shooting the messenger (Teres / O-L / Benz). With your new vinyl rig, you have a lower noise floor which yields increased dynamics (bot micro and macro). You're going to hear a lot more - both good and bad, and this demands that you sort things out.

Amongst other things to try, I would not hesitate to swap out phono stages (you're running a Wright WPP 100C?). The Wright is a wonderful unit at its asking price, and I'd never argue against someone getting one, but your front end is now getting to the point where it deserves better (and is likely telling you this).

If Raul joins this thread, he'll correctly expound on the possibility that the energy being put out by your front end is resulting in input overload on your phono stage. This can sound like tracing distortion, but can also mask itself as other distortions. The phono stage is something you'll want to eliminate as a possibility.

I have no experience with your C-J amplifiers, but I'd heed Doug's advice on this as well.

Did I mention to get an arc protractor?

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

Thanks Tom. i am a firm believer in the necessity of a good phono preamp. You may be right about the Wright though it too has been a very good preamp. Even so, i understand that the chain is no better than its weakest link.