Amp/Int. Amp to smooth the highs...

Does Innersound mention a break in time? If the speakers are brand new, you might want to give them a chance to break in before buying new electronics.

Try an Audio by Van Alstine FET valve.
fet valve 550ex
Reveiw by tyson, you'll have to look under reviews:
look under reviews

I think may be your amp doesnt have enough power to feed the speaker. If amp has enough power, tweeter wont have "si si sa sa" sound when playing music.

Thats the cause of screechy high.

Smooth is what Plinius is all about.

Iasi -

Your current speakrs are Usher 719's? I couldn't find any information on them...

Okay, you might try this: Wire a 16-ohm, 25-watt resistor across the speaker terminals (if bi-wire capable, then across the high frequency inputs). Just tighten the binding posts down on the leads of the resistor. You can vary the resistor value by ear, between maybe 8 and 100 ohms in large (50%-ish) increments. This may well smooth the highs a bit, depending on what the speaker's impedance curve is like. Without knowing the impedance curve I can't predict what the effect will be, but the InnerSound amp can drive very difficult loads so that won't be a problem.

It is unlikely that the problem is amplifier clipping - that's a very powerful amp.

If you want to address the problem by changing amplifiers then I suggest you consider tubes, perhaps Conrad-Johnson or JoLida. I'm a dealer for the latter. If you decide to stick with solid state, then try a used Pass Aleph amp of appropriate wattage. But trying a few resistors is a lot less expensive.

Duke

Masters of smoothness in my experience are McIntosh amps. I looked a long time for that smoothness and Mc gives it to me in spades. I can listen all day with constant goose-bumps. love it! The highs are as nice as I have ever heard (except for Pass X350 and Lamm M1.1). Anyway, good luck -Arthur

Duke, your suggestion is very interesting to me, maybe something I'd like to try. Will wiring a 16-ohm, 25-watt resistor across the high frequency inputs result in the amp seeing a higher impedance for the tweeter?

Duke,

Thanx for the imput...i have to try that...i know is not amplifier clippin since the InnerSound ESL was used to drive the Isis (a more demanding speaker) with no problem what-so-ever...if you wanna find out more about the 719's go on the www.useraudio.com and look at Compass Series for the top model monitor...
i'll try some different speaker cables as well...as i said, the problem is not that bad...in only certain passages i can detect a little bit of "metallic"sound...

Oops Iasi- I read too quickly and incorrectly assumed you had innersound speakers. If these are brand new Ushers then lack of break in could very well be your problem.

Gunbei -

Paralleling the tweeter with a fairly large resistor will actually lower the impedance that the amp sees, and will also smooth the impedance out out a bit.

I got better sound when power is around 150 W or above (SS amp). Yes, it took me almost 100 hours for breaking-in.

Thanks Duke, I'll do some experimenting.

Adding a resistor may cause additional problems. People at Madisound know a lot about this subject but I think a resistor will change the crossover frequency. It can also cause phase distortions unless you add an inductor in parallel with the resistor.
This is from memory and while maybe not completely technically accurate you get the idea.

How about AIG imagers from www.audio-ideas.com?

Or just stick a felt ring around the tweeter?

EL 34 based tube amp, like Music Reference MK 11 at 125 watts or VTL 225, etc.