bright up "warm sound" speakers

Jean Luc,
Bring your speakers out further into the room. Two feet is too close. There are a lot of past threads and web sites that discuss this. Rives Audio is a good site to start with. When I looked at this, the most recommended place for tight bass seemed to be one-fifth of the way into the room. That would be about three and a half feet for an 18' room. Try different distances apart and play with the toe-in also.

Cables can change your sound but usually won't clear up muddled sound. You may hear the muddled sound more clearly! If you try cables, there are several dealers who allow free trade-ins until you find the ones you like. I forget the names right now.

I'd try a tube change on the CD player. Use the Audiogon search feature to find older discussions of this CD player. There have been lots.

I have the same amp and it is definately very clear sounding.

you might consider trying to borrow a different source altogether-a friends cd player, for instance. The warmth you are experiencing may be comming from some other influence in your system, so perhaps experimenting here would yield some insights-and its free!

What is your room made of? if it is alot of carpet and drywall with few windows it will hurt the accoustics and suck some of the life out of the sound.

i had this problem with my system in my finished basement, what i did was go to home depot, bought 3 big-ass mirrors. I put one on each side wall and one behind the system. Brightened it up nicely.

plus i can tend to my narcisissic side and give myself a long and loving inspection.

Thanks for all your responses. My listening room (8ft ceiling)is almost empty, with just a small Italian chair (and some toys for the little baby). It has no drapes so sound is bouncing all over the place. The speakers are placed 2 ft from the rear wall and 2 ft from the side wall.

The first thing I will do is try new speaker placements. 3 ft from the walls???

Second, may be try some room treaments. What do you suggest? and where can I find them?

Third, probably try new tubes for the JD100. Which tubes are will give me the most highs and detail sound?

Last, I will try new IC for the source and new speaker cables . Any suggestions.

Boy, this hobby is expensive but fun.

Why dont yo try to install brighter tubes in your Jolida ????
Not too expensive and sure to be different.
As what brand of tube you should try, on this one I dont know.
But I have red somewhere that the golden dragon brand are almost always
been concidered on the bright side..

I'd try some nordost IC. Not speaker cables. If that is not enough, I suspect the warmth is from your CD player. Trade for any good non-tube CDP

2cent

My suspicion is that Sdcampbell and Jdombrow have got it right. Muddy midbass and highs lacking detail sounds to me like the description of a room that is less than optimally arranged. Before spending alot of time, effort and money on equipment/cable swaps, be certain your speakers and listening chair are positioned appropriately for your room. Proper placement will do wonders to clean up muddy midbass, and a slight amount of toe-in can add a surprising amount of sparkle to the highs. Also, don't forget to 'help' the room with a few acoustic treatments, as needed.

It might be something as simple as speaker placement.

If you want to try some inexpensive experiments, find someone who has other cables and tubes that you can roll in. Faster and cheaper than buying things and returning them if you don't like the results.

JD

Above responses good!

You also might want to keep eyes open for used parametric equalizer. I know it's not audiophile correct, but am pretty sure it won't break bank & it just might make sound a little brighter. Just exercise "sound" judgement.

The BL1 interconnects are DH Labs, right? They are a silver/copper hybrid, use them where you can, especially from the source(JD100).

I have a JD100, I really liked the highs when using Electro Harmonix 12ax7 tubes. These are available online from www.thetubestore.com or www.partsexpress.com for less than $30.00 a pair. Many find that Sylvania 5751s, especially the Black plates, are a most excellent sounding tube. They are expensive though.

I have not heard the AQ Midnight speaker cables, but, I have read a few times, that they are "laid back." I really love my Analysis Plus Oval Nines, but many of the others mentioned here are excellent as well.

Interconnects and Speakercable will make a small difference. Tubes on the other hand can make a sizable change for very little money.

I'll second trying Goertz or Kimber interconnects or speaker cables. You might also want to try Zu.

Scott

Interconnects and speaker cables can yield minor changes (usually very minor) in the perceived frequency balance of a system, but the single factor that most often contributes to lack of highs is the listening room and its acoustic characteristics.
t
You did not describe how your room is furnished, but if you want to add more high frequency emphasis to the overall sound balance, you might try adding some harder or more reflective surfaces to the walls or floor of your room. Alternatively, if your room has a lot of heavy furniture or drapes, you might try removing some of it.

There have been a number of threads on this topic over the past several years, so you might find it helpful to peruse the A-gon archives.

IME, it is hard to correct sound with cables. They just don't quite do it. If you still want to try it though (cheaper than a different amp or CDP...), I like the Nordosts in general and find that they lend a more "detailed" sound (not brighter). They cover all price ranges. I head an all Proceed setup a few years back on Paradigm Reference 100.2 and thought it was too cold and detailed so I suspect your CDP or amp is not to your liking. Good luck - Arthur

Not familiar with the BL1 interconnects, but I know that
silver interconnects will add brightness as well as silver
speaker cables. Interconnects are cheaper. Kimber SS or
Alpha Core Geortz are two examples.