How to remove harshness from my digital gear

Think tubes either amp/pre-amp or integrated. That way you can tune your components to a sound which will be neither harsh nor bright (but not necessaruily out of the box with OEM tubes).

I'd don't know about your speakers but I have two different systems with all Dynaudio drivers (Silverline Bolere's and Paragon's). I have no problem driving them with all tubed systems, including tubed CDP's and DAC'c.

Raysonic is out of business. But they were faily well built and reliable. I've had a laser failure in mine, after 5 years) and had no problem with a local tech sourcing a transport (Sony) as well as a spare, and replacing it for about $150. Problem is if anything else goes wrong and the part has to be sourced from Raysonic you are out of luck. With the right tubes this will not be harsh or bright.

I don't know about Cary, but I've never heard anything about them suggesting they were warm at all, but the 303T tubed unit was well regarded tonally speaking.

FWIW, I am presently using a Marantz 11sa3, a Raysonic 128, and a Wadia 302 CDP ahead of a Primaluna Dialogue Two integrated driving my Silverline Boleros. Not perfect I think, but for me it is about as close as I am likely to get. The Primaluna is eminently tunable with some patience and a sonic goal.

BTW, the Marantz is a fine unit even if it is solid state! It is dynamic as all get out, resolving/transparent, and it is not bright at all:-)

You could give the EAR Acute a listen. They also make a DAC which I have not heard.

Since someone mentioned cheap tube gizmos, I will mention that it could be a cheap fix for you. I picked up one of those Yaquin SD-CD3 tube buffers with a decent set of tubes and it rounded things out pretty nicely for me. I have a bright room and it did the trick.

Before giving up on the Classe transport and the Moon DAC3 (is that the right model number, btw? I couldn't find any info on it), if you already haven't I would suggest that you try all three of the Classe's outputs (AES/EBU, coaxial S/PDIF, and optical S/PDIF) if the DAC3 can accept them. Also, I would suggest that for the AES/EBU and coaxial S/PDIF connections you try cable lengths that are either about 1.5 meters long, or that are very short if that is practicable (i.e., about 8 inches or less). See this paper.

IMO there is no such thing as a neutral digital cable, because the sonic effects of a digital cable will be highly dependent on interactions between its technical characteristics and the technical characteristics of the particular components it is connecting. And many of the key characteristics that are involved are usually unspecified and unpredictable.

Regards,
-- Al

You can certianly add bandaids like tibe buffers and cables that compress the sound. However, you will be sacrificing detail, imaging and ultimately liveness.

I have completely eliminated harshness by reducing first the biggest problem tht causes this and that is jitter. Next I have eliminated the active preamp, which reduces ,distortion, ,noise and compression. Finally, eliminating as many ground-loops in the system as possible.

A better strategy is to find the cause of the problem and eliminate it, which in general causes the system to be simple with shorter signal paths.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio