My system is bright? I need help. thanks


Hi. it is my first time here in this forum. i would appreciate input and help from all of you. No sacrasm or bad langauge please. I had bad experience with other forums in that aspect. music loving people and audiophiles should be an elite, high caliber and classy community. This is rare to find today. Ok Down to the point.

My system
Musical fidelity kw 500 sacd player. I use the tube output.
Musical fidelity kw 500 integrated amp.
speakers:eggleston andra (not andra 2)
speaker cable: satori acoustic zen
interconnects: Nordost baldur and nordost quatrofil RCA
USe a dedicated 20 amp line with regular power cords(came with the gear) and a panamax 20 amp surge protector and filter.

This is in my family room so there is little room for treatment and moving things around.

problem: bright. the highs are killing my ears, after 1-2 hours of listening my ears start to hurt,sometimes 3 minutes. I have to turn the volume down. I tried postioning, it got a little better. I will try acoustic zen silver ref II may be it will help. The sound is otherwise phenomenal, i could be happy with more bass, but overall it is very good. Depth, tranparency, acuity and soundstaging are great. As for mids, i can see the person infront of me,I can hear the articulation of the tongue in the mouth before the words and tunes comes out. no kidding, but not for long because of fatigue.

I would really appreciate your input.
Scientist73
scientist73
Mr. tennis has it right,

Your equipment although good individually does not make a good system, the problem you're having is perfectly described as a positive attribute in your original post;

"As for mids, I can see the person infront of me,I can hear the articulation of the tongue in the mouth before the words and tunes comes out. no kidding, but not for long because of fatigue."

Well this is "wrong" and not a positive, that "articulation" is more artifact than fact.

Personally I don't like the Eggleston's but you may prefer to soften them with a serious amplifier topolgy change. I would change the speakers to maybe a Dynaudio, considering the equipment you have now. The above phenomena is not a room acoustic issue, although room acoustics can still lead to fatigue in your case.

You system runs on a knife edge and it can be spectacular for fleeting moments but your system is supposed to play the music not be spectacular. It has to be backed down and improved.

Cables will not be enough and likely room treatments might only make it bearable for alittle longer.

Just my expert opinion based on personal experiences with systems like yours.
Tara Labs Reference Generation II interconnects can be had for around a hundred bucks used. If that doesn't cure the nasties and you have played around with speaker placement...it's not gonna happen. If it helps, but still doesn't quite get you there, Tara Labs Ref Gen II, Master or Decade speaker cables might take you the rest of the way.

As far as room placement goes, I'd address sidewall reflections as top priority and try to take advantage of the room boundaries to give them a little more bass kick.

If you want to try the Tara IC, I have a one meter pair that you are welcome to see if they help. I would only ask for a 100 dollar deposit that I would naturally return upon return of the ICs. I'm not trying to sell them, just offering to let you see if they can help your problem.

There is nothing more annoying than listener fatigue.
My $.02 on the matter. The MF gear isn't the problem. Try some MIT S1 cables all around and ditch the Panamax. Also, look into room treatments.
Scientist73, Glad playing with toe in helped a bit.

There was a recent thread "Acoustic Treatments - What, how much and where" - which you might find very interesting. Its lengthy with a lot of opinions (as always) however it does have some good information which you may use. It just came up on the site today with an additional post.

There have been a lot of opinions in this post about your equipment not being synergetic or suitible for your environment. Before you start to chase improved sound by changing cables, PC, etc, bear in mind that most such changes result in minor tonal changes compared to different components. Such changes are, with only a few exceptions, good as tweeks for a reasonably tuned system, they don't solve underlying problems if the components are not synergetic, which you might ultimately find to be the case (from what I've read about your components I think they might be less than an optimum combination FOR MY TASTES, for just the reason you complain. But only you can decide what you want to hear and decide what sounds best to you in your room!

Don't spend any of your hard earned money until you have optomized your speakers set up and room. Take your time! The closer you come to perfect the longer it will take you to focus on the differences - and I'm talking days, weeks, and untimately months. Also, read as much as you can about proper speaker set up and look up some of the various theories and sites that deal with set up. There is a LOT to learn about this subject.

If you think I can be of any more assistance, ask on-line or off (e-mail) I'll be glad to try.
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