Theil/Classe 6, and listener fatigue

I believe there is nothing worse than trying to "tone-down" the Thiels with some "colorful" tube gear. That will simply spoil the Thiel's crispness and other strong points unless you spend thousands and thousands of dollars in a super tube amp. There are a number of appropriate ss amps that work fine with Thiels, including Classe, Levinson, and also Marsh Sound Designs. Alas, it could be that you are simply in the camp which believes the Thiels are bright and if that's the case nothing will really change your mind, in my experience. If so, my best advice would be to sell the Thiels and get something else. Although perhaps before doing so you may want to go to a couple of live music events to make sure what you are hearing is not the way real life sounds.

The Rotel, I have one as a backup and recently replaced a Meridian transport with it while the Meridian was being fixed and my warm system - CJ pre, Classe amp, and Mit cables got considerably brighter. MIT or Cardas and a new CD source will difinetly help.

i used to use thiel 3.5's in my main system, & they weren't too bright, even when my adcom gfa-555 was the main amp, & not relegated to subwoofer duty! now, the thiels are doin' yust fine, in the kitchen, powered by a 35wpc audio-innovations integrated, fed from the main system thru its tape outs. hook up a turntable, & then see if the fatigue goes away. or, if ewe have a quality tuner, & uncompressed radio station, is there fatigue here, too? i'd suspect the fatigue is coming from your cd-player. when i had a solid-state preamp, the only way i could get rid of cd-fatigue was by using an ase z-man tubed buffer-stage, even w/speakers other than thiels. now, w/a tubed preamp, i don't need the buffer-stage.

Hi, I have the same speakers and preamp but also use a Classe DR15 amp. I would definitely look into replacing the Rotel CD player. Pick up a Proceed or CAL unit used on Ebay or if you can afford it, the Resolution Audio.

Thanks to all who responded. Much of the problem does indeed appear to be the Rotel. I am currently trying out new cd players and can already hear a big improvement. GK