Likely culprit for harshness at higher volumes?

Saru - One other thought that is quick and easy.
If your room has a door, try playing loud to where the distortion occurs and then open the door. If you are overdriving the room then opening the door may relieve some pressure. If the distortion is decreased then this may give an idea if this is your problem.
My room is 12' x 13' and opening the door has this effect.

Hi folks,

I tried hooking up on iPod Touch -- it sounded terrible pretty quickly. Both my pre-amp and CD player have headphone outputs. I'm going to order the headphones recommended by almarg -- I wanted some headphones for watching videos on my iPod Touch anyway. I also need to buy some known good source material as well.

It does seem that overdriving the room is having a first order effect. I can add/remove much of the harshness I've been hearing just with fabric, although there is still some at louder volumes (loud but not uncomfortable) that I haven't been able to remove yet. I had changed out my KEF C75 (floor standing) with KEF Q10 (bookshelf) - this seems to have helped a bit but still experimenting. I think the Q10s are less efficient than the C75's -- it seems I need to increase the volume setting on the pre-amp to get similar volumes levels as the C75. I'm also playing around with fabric (sheets, towels) placement.

I'm also trying different speaker placements to get the imaging right. I'm beginning to think that even if I had the best stereo equipment in the world, it would still sound lacking unless I know the art of speaker placement and room acoustics.

Here's a few CDs that I have that I consider to be some of my best recordings. I think they may be something that you'd enjoy listening to. Amazon.com sells all of them.

Bach: The Brandenburgs - Jacques Loussier Trio

Violin Solo - Ning Feng

Holst: The Planets - Gustav Holst (Decca, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Zubin Mehta)

The Canadian Tenors

Tanking a Chance on Love - Jane Monheit (the 1st song on this CD was a favorite demo for the salesman that sold me the majority of my audio system. He would jokingly say, "If you don't like this, get the hell out.")

From my experience: metal dome tweeters, too much speaker toe-in, poorly engineered ICs and/or connectors, and too thin SCs.

My experience is similar to Rockadanny's post.

I had metal dome tweeters that were toed in with cheap poorly made ICs but my SCs were budget 12 AWG wire. I had made incremental changes with ICs and SCs but the biggest change was going to soft dome tweeters.

Also I think another cause was lack of room treatment. I had lots of bare walls and minimal furntiure in my room at the time.