Question for classical lovers

Rotarius, thanks for the summary of your equipment and room. I am a serious tube-aholic, but I'm not going to suggest you need to switch to a tube amp. While I'm not familiar with your particular Rotel amp, the Rotel gear I've heard has always sounded competent to me, not plagued by serious issues in the top end, and with adequately designed power supplies to meet most reasonable demands.

Instead, what I would encourage you to check first are your connections given your experience with the center pin locking RCAs. If you haven't done so, give all your connections a thorough cleaning (isoprophyl alcohol with cotton swabs is very effective, and a cleaner like "Kontak" is even more effective) and then apply a good contact enhancer (such as Caig's Pro Gold, or even better would be Walker Audio's SST or Extreme SST) as you re-connect everything. I'm consistently amazed at how much of a difference clean, tight contacts make in system performance, particularly with the high frequencies.

And then, it just may be that you need to join many of us by switching to a tube amp (and adding a turntable!) to reclaim what you once so enjoyed about classical music and the beauty and delicacy of great string tone. Good luck!
.

Rotarius, I keep thinking about this post and some of the insightful responses. I've got a few additional thoughts. First of all, let me say that I've gone to quite a few live performances over the last 20 years. I've heard some live performances that sound like bad recordings, so not all string playing is inherently sweet and smooth. Having said that, a year ago, I would have agreed that most CD's are poorly recorded, especially with regard to the strident strings you are hearing. Now, like Newbee, I don't agree at all. In fact, I find that really bad classical recordings are the exception. I also have found that having a few good sounding CD's doesn't mean your system is OK. In fact, during the slow upgrade process I've done over the last 9 months, I've had some treasured recordings go from lovely, to not so good, and then back to wonderful. What I have noticed is that each change I made has produced a noticeable improvement and reduced listening fatigue. I suspect that a few of the changes revealed other flaws in the system, which then required remediation. It’s a slow process, since with new cables,IC's, and electronics you need to wait out the burn in before you know what you have. No single change would have been sufficient to produce the desired result, and I'm not done yet. A year ago, it was pretty typical to limit listening to 20-30 minutes, which is clearly not acceptable. Now I can spend 3-4 hours listening and regret having to stop. It's taken some patience and time, but the result has been well worth the effort. In chronological order, I replaced my power amp (Adcom to McCormack), treated the room (Auralex), bought a decent power cord (PS Audio Statement) for the amp, bought new cables and IC's (Signal Silver) and added the AM DAC. All in all, this added up to a paltry $1500 net investment. By far, the biggest bang for the buck was $90 for room treatments. Next was the DAC, but everything I did was necessary. The Signal Silvers cables and IC's really reduced the grain and helped smooth out the strings, while adding weight to the low end. The McCormack is 4 times the amp the adcom was ($250 net!), but I didn't fully appreciate what the McCormack could do until the other changes were in place. Synergy is important, and it all has to work together.
Try the Telarc recording of the Brahms 4 by Macerras and the SCO. If the prominent viola playing in the 2nd movement is not the sweetest thing you ever heard, I promise you its not the recording. (The whole 4 symphony set is worth having, not perfect recordings, but still very good and worthwhile) Also, try the Barshai Shostakovich cycle on Brilliant. This is a recent purchase for me and I'm still working my way through it, but I'm impressed with what I've heard so far.
The bottom line is this. My guess is you need to do some experimenting with the room and equipment. You probably have multiple problems that are reinforcing each other. I'd suggest you work until you identify what's offending, and then see if you still want to go the TT route.
Cheers!

Brownsfan, my big mistake in the past has been the lack of patience. I am starting from scratch with room acoustics first. Can you tell me what you did for $90? Since it is also my living room, I am not sure how I can stick a bunch of foam on the walls and it still be aesthetically appealing when I have a lady over:)
Anyway, the plan is to tweak the room, better vibration isolation and cables and re-evaluate everything before making any audio gear purchases.

Rotarius,
First of all, I'm using Magnepan 1.6QR's in my living room which is 16' x 20' x 8', carpeted, and has a fairly plush sofa and love seat. The speakers are located 4' out from the short wall and 34" from the side walls. I'm not at all sure the placement is optimized yet. I listen from the loveseat which is flush against the short wall opposite the Maggies. Anyone with suggestions?
I got two 2' x 4' Auralex studiofoam pyramid panels ($48 for the two), and glued those to a 2' x 8' Styrofoam insulation panel I bought at Lowe's. The Auralex glue cost $20 and the insulation panel was $10. I cut the panel in half to give me two 1 x 8 panels, and wedged them diagonally into the corners behind the Maggies floor to ceiling. I also bought some 1' x 1'auralex studiofoam wedges, sliced them into individual wedges, and attached those to the exposed ends to cover the blue insulation panel edges that are exposed. That was about $12 for those pieces. The nice thing about this arrangement is that they are just wedged into the corners, so they can be pulled out of place at a moments notice and stored in the basement or garage until the event is over. My wife hasn't complained so far. By the way, patience works well with finding a 2nd wife also! I've left the back walls untreated so far. Before installing those panels I was having some sort of horrendous reinforcement of certain notes from female alto, soprano, and French horns. I'm not sure if it was the fundamental or upper harmonics that was causing the problem, but it would run you out of the room with your ears bleeding. The panels really pretty well solved that problem. I’m thinking about making similar panels for the 1st reflection points on the side walls. These foam panels glued to the Styrofoam are rigid enough to stand unsupported, so you can put a 2x8' panel together and move it around the room until you find the best locations. The nice thing about this is that you don't have to wait out a burn in period. You might want to check out the Auralex.com website. One of their dealers gave me a nice Auralex catalog. If you can find one of those, I'm sure you will get some other good ideas. You can also send them a schematic of your room and they will do an analysis for you. I'll try to e-mail you some pictures that may make the description a little clearer. I hope this works as well for you as it did for me.

Rotarius,

There have been lots of replies that have been informative and insightful. Please consider all the input available to you in your 'quest'.

Now, this is what I have to offer.

Yes, you should always make sure you configuration is correct. I recently learned the importance of this step. Having moved to my first apartment (yay---freedom, freedom, freedom), I found my stereo to have too much soundstage and the vinyl reproduction to have too lean bass (coming from a VPI hw19 mk iv with a RB-250/Denon 301 combo...something was definately wrong). After checking polarity on my speakers and placing them closer to corners, the sound (to me) was correct and better than ever before. Lesson: you should never skip the slightest step in setting-up your system.

In addition, you should also do some 'burn-in' of any new cables. Try also a setup disc (like the Ayre) to make sure your configuration is correct.

Now, I'm not saying that CD is that great with string music. I'm a vinyl lover with a large CD collection as well. A inexpensive TT with a good Phono-pre and a better amp/speaker combo can blow out a mid-range cd player without difficulty.

My honest opinion is that you should give a good listen to a properly setup vinyl reproduction system. You will have another perspective on how music should sound and what you can do.

Get a MMF series, Thorens, or Rega P2/Goldring 1. Match a Bellari or Nad Phono Preamp and either a Goldring 1006, Grado Blue, or Shure. Download Audiophilia's Cartridge Setup, Enjoy The Music's Free Protractor, and purchase a bubble leveler and you should be good to go.

Thoughts, anyone?

Marty