Again, thanks for all the responses. In answer to a few of the comments, let me offer the following:
.... Youthful, high acuity hearing does not appear to be the issue - I'm a proud member of the boomer generation. My hearing still tests well, but not like it was back in my 20s.
.... Impedence issues between the CJ preamp and Pass amp were (and maybe still are) a concern. I raised this issue a while back on another forum and received feedback from several folks (including Kal Rubinson) confirming that the pairing meets the guideline that "the input impedance should exceed the output impedance of its source by 10x or more".
.... The photo of my system in my profile is obsolete, since we've moved to a new home. The new arrangement is similar, in that a group of windows (with some drapery panels) lies behind the speakers. The room is dedicated to the audio system however, so I do have as much flexibility as needed to try acoustic treatments. Rough dimensions are 14 ft wide by 32 ft long, with the speakers firing down the long dimension. Speakers are roughly 7.5 ft apart (center to center) and about 5.5 ft from front wall (to speaker front side). The listening position is about 13.5 ft from the speaker front. Slight toe-in (to cross behind the listening position). For what it was worth, I used a sound pressure meter in an attempt to position the listening position away from any obvious low frequency nodes.
.... Previous cables were Purist Audio Elementa. To my ears, the Nordost was an improvement in speed and clarity.
.... In a previous system, I used a hybrid tube/solid state ARC preamp (LS2), with a solid state ARC amp (D200) and dynamic speakers (Theil 2 2s). It seemed to be a good system at the time, but I'd say that crummy recordings still sounded crummy. The current system beats the previous one in air and clarity on good recordings but, sadly, still sounds crummy on the others.
I appreciate the added info on the DSPeaker Dual Core. I'll do more research on it. Christmas is coming!
Lastly, I'm appreciative of all suggestions. I was merely trying to focus the conversation. Perhaps the added info in this post provides more background.
.... Youthful, high acuity hearing does not appear to be the issue - I'm a proud member of the boomer generation. My hearing still tests well, but not like it was back in my 20s.
.... Impedence issues between the CJ preamp and Pass amp were (and maybe still are) a concern. I raised this issue a while back on another forum and received feedback from several folks (including Kal Rubinson) confirming that the pairing meets the guideline that "the input impedance should exceed the output impedance of its source by 10x or more".
.... The photo of my system in my profile is obsolete, since we've moved to a new home. The new arrangement is similar, in that a group of windows (with some drapery panels) lies behind the speakers. The room is dedicated to the audio system however, so I do have as much flexibility as needed to try acoustic treatments. Rough dimensions are 14 ft wide by 32 ft long, with the speakers firing down the long dimension. Speakers are roughly 7.5 ft apart (center to center) and about 5.5 ft from front wall (to speaker front side). The listening position is about 13.5 ft from the speaker front. Slight toe-in (to cross behind the listening position). For what it was worth, I used a sound pressure meter in an attempt to position the listening position away from any obvious low frequency nodes.
.... Previous cables were Purist Audio Elementa. To my ears, the Nordost was an improvement in speed and clarity.
.... In a previous system, I used a hybrid tube/solid state ARC preamp (LS2), with a solid state ARC amp (D200) and dynamic speakers (Theil 2 2s). It seemed to be a good system at the time, but I'd say that crummy recordings still sounded crummy. The current system beats the previous one in air and clarity on good recordings but, sadly, still sounds crummy on the others.
I appreciate the added info on the DSPeaker Dual Core. I'll do more research on it. Christmas is coming!
Lastly, I'm appreciative of all suggestions. I was merely trying to focus the conversation. Perhaps the added info in this post provides more background.