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What am I to do about

I have been trying to fix the harsh sound of my system. I have tried the following components: Record Player - Old Sony w/ Grado cartridge, CD player - Arcam CD72 & old Philips unit, PreAmp - Halfer DH110 & Adcom GTP 500II & Classe CP50, PowerAmp - Halfer DH220 & Odyessy Stratus, Speaker - Paradigm Studio 100v2 & JM Lab Electra 915, Speaker cable - Monster & Audioquest, Interconnects - various, Room - 3 different ones.
All of the various combination seem to be vary harsh sounding to me since I got rid of my old Polk Audio speakers (don't remember the model) 5 years ago. The only idea I have is that my ears are incompatible with aluminum dome tweeters and I need to find different speakers but I am tired of experimenting by buying and selling and I have already tried the 2 dealers within 3 hours of here. What can I do? Sell everything and buy a boombox? Help
cford
cford OP
66 posts
 
Here is a little more info:
I did not say that the Polk were very good, just that they were not harsh. The problem is not in the low freq but in the highs, vocals with words starting in "t" or "s", cymbals and the like but bells are very good and clear. The 3 rooms are very different, one 14 x 24 with carpet, one very small with carpet and the last 18 x 24 with 10 feet ceiling and hard wood floors so I don't believe they all could be causing harsh highs. I hear the harshness with all sources so I doubt its the CDs. The JM Labs speakers, with their acclaimed inverted dome tweeter, are harsher than the Paradigm were. I tried them with both the Arcam and Classe preamp and it made no difference. I live in a small time area where there aren't any high end stores and I don't know of anyone else that has equipment I could try.
gmood1
1,251 posts
 
You speak of sibilance.This is common on older and some newer mass market recordings.The Stratos nor the Paradigm 100's have this built in.You may want to buy that boombox.
I can't imagine how all your gear can have this.Have you tried some form of power conditioning on your sources ?
unclejeff
1,313 posts
 
Also, get yourself one of those test CDs---the one that runs the full gambit of tests and includes some examples of excellant recordings. You might notice something as it will usually send the same signal first to your left speaker, than to your right.

Some stores such as Wharehouse has them. Also, you can do a search for 'Test and CD and Stereo' in your search engine.

Beware: read the fine print as some of these test CDs should never be played at full volumn, especially at the high-end signals.
piezo
304 posts
 
maybe your new speakers are just picking up high end noise your old ones didn't get. I have a pair of HT pro silway II cables that used to really open up the highs and tighten up the bass when linked between my cdp and pre-amp. The problem was a nasty harsh glare. The cure, found by accident of cours, switching my combo cone and rubber footers from the preamp (were they were supposedly protecting the tubes in the pre from harmfull vibrations) to the CDP where they actually did a world of good. No glare, all the benifits of the silways and some additional tighting up of the imaging from the cones them selves. trying some isolation may be a cheap and simple fix.
cford OP
66 posts
 
I have a test CD that came with the Odyssey power amp. It has tone bursts at different freq. and seemed like I might have a peak around 3khz but when I went to the track that did a freq sweep, I did not notice the peak. Other than that, I did not hear anything wrong with any of the test tracks.
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