advice on brightness

Phoenix Gold uses continuous cast, single crystal copper--if I'm not mistaken--and it's very reasonably priced...

Sorry about your brightness problem. Unfortunately, the cure may be complex since any incompatability between your components could be the cause including your speaker cable and interconnects. You might want to try the Cable Company 1-800-FATWYRE in order to see if your speaker wire or interconnects are the problem. You can rent almost any brand from them for very little money which you ultimately get back if you purchase anything from them. I had a similar problem a few years back until I started using MIT 750 Magnum Speaker Cable. Also found Transparent Audio speaker cable made a big difference in the bright department. Welcome to high-end audio. Loads of detail, soundstaging, deep bass, etc. BUT! Creating a system that is a great synergistic match resulting in great sound that you can listen to for long hours - that my friend is the hard part.

thanks for all the advice!

thanks Paulwp for giving me a breakdown on the speaker as well.

i'll give the system a little more time to break in and try out different room arrangements before i buy anything new.

i'll try my friend's Straightwire Rhapsody II interconnects to see if it makes any difference.

i'm also thinking about trying out the Harmonic Technology Truthlinks.

Summarizing this discussion I want to point out that wires being currently used do not bring an extra brightness and considered to be worm and great sounding for the budget.

Audo Refinement components are less likely to bright eather along with the speakers.

HK components do tend to sound bright as any of the poor quality transport.

If you somehow can stretch to $250 over $150 existing you can get Marantz CD67se used

Try experimenting with some different upgrade AC cords; if that's no help, then AC line conditioning to quiet down the line noise may help you out - both of these approaches did it for me when in a similar situation.