Listening fatigue

One of the most closely guarded secrets in all of audio is why the distortion rises so much as the volume is turned up. Now, I'm not saying that some of the distortion we hear at higher volumes is produced by distortion in the speakers, distortion in the electronics and/or distortion produced by room acoustics anomalies such as comb filter effect. The problem is that even when those fairly obvious potential causes of distortion at higher volumes have been addressed there is still a significant amount of distortion at higher volumes. It's a little bit analogous to the background microwave radiation - we can eliminate all the other potential sources of noise in the universe, so the residual noise must be from the Big Bang! So, where does this distortion come from, this distortion that's not related to the audio system electronics, or the room acoustics, or anything in the audio system cabling, or house wiring? Hint: it has to do with why the sound gets better when all telephone books are removed from the house. And why the sound gets better when all CDs are stored Vertically instead of Horizontally. And why taking cell phones out of the house improves the sound.

Definitely experiment with ics first,then speaker cable.It can make a huge improvement.You absolutely do not have to spend mega $ to hear large improvements.Check out Bluejeans cables for a start.They have a thirty day trial period, so no risk.

I hate to throw cold water on a fellow file but...I am 54 and have been through vinyl to cd to download to vinyl. I have had (used, so I usually could sell with not much loss) Wadia's best/a dcs stack/audioaero etc. No matter what I did fatigue always set in at higher volumes and I found myself in higher volumes to get the experience I craved. I finally bit the bullet and went back to vinyl. I have never felt fatigue since. Some crackles on 1.00 records but never fatigue. Neil Young once said "digital feels like hail." Look at the ads for digital equipment. They spend a page just explaining the clocking....Hi fidelity requires simplicity I believe. Best of luck.

My first instinct is to agree with Elizabeth's guess that the sub is the first culprit.

Is there a low pass filter on the sub? Where is it set? Is it self powered? What volume are you playing it at? Setting a self powered sub's low pass filter too high and especially too loud will definitely cause fatigue with any component set-up. You'll probably cure the problem by setting the system up "flat".