Broke and still not happy

I definitely second and third the suggestion to try different cables. I nearly took a pair of speakers back yesterday until I started changing interconnects. With the right combination, they went from sounding distant and uninvolving to being absolute keepers.

The tube amps will also warm up many systems. Most fellow lifetime musicians I know prefer them for their ability to reveal the humanity in the playing, for lack of a better term. There are no absolutes in audio, but I think the suggestion of getting a tube amp could be your ticket. It's just a matter of getting the type that is appropriate to the music you prefer--as in SET, push-pull, triode...

Have you listened without the vibrapods? With my CD player, they actually made the bottom end sound thuddy.
Don't give up. It can be very frustrating, but following up with the suggestions that people have made here will undoubtedly lead you to what you want.

I agree with Larryb. Most high end is not great for rock music. Resolving and revealing, airy and transparent, these are generally not the ultimate sonic goals of a rock-oriented system IMO. I went through this process, and ultimately decided that simpler is better.

When I had a Jolida 502B paired with Soliloquy 5.3 speakers and an Adire Rava sub, I found I was totally engaged when listening to rock/pop/country. With the switch to an Audio Aero Prima Hybrid, the bass got tighter and punchier, and the sound was equally as engaging. By the time we upgraded to a $2200 CD player, and a pair of $6500 speakers, the musicality of the system far surpassed that of the recordings, and we were beset on a quest similar to yours: to tweak the thing to death until we realized that the simplest (and less expensive) system worked best for us when it came to this genre of music.

On another note (so to speak), how do you like the Cremona's? I found them to be exactly as you described your system as a whole--sterile, and harsh in the highs. Are they more to your liking with the addition of the Pathos? I would think that you would find the music more to your liking with some tubes in the system--either in the form of a hybrid or tube amp.

For our rock-oriented system, we are reverting to something simple:
Audio Aero Prima Hybrid Amp
Simple CD player: Rega Planet or Naim CD5i
Soliloquy speakers (probably 6.3)

I did not care for the AU24 IC's, nor did my wife. Smoothed over highs, and frankly boring in our system. We much prefer the clarity and immediacy of the Z-Squared. Or the Verastarr.

Sorry if this sounds scattered. I'm just trying to say that when it comes to creating an engaging system for the type of music you like, I would suggest that less is more.

Happy New Year,
Howard

Music is not music, Ben. If that were the case, then we'd all be running the same components. I would piece together a system that would play Diana Krall just as well as it would Metallica, and then insist that all others match my standards for toe-tapping engagement.

You just asked the other day about SET amps, and I think you will find as you mate them with your K-horns, that they will shine with some musical genres (jazz & classical, for example), and less so on others, like hard rock. The more revealing the system, the more you get. But that air to which you refer is indeed part of the music, as in the space around the players, and the acoustics of the recording studio. Some people actually like to hear that, as it offers a dimensionality to the experience that otherwise is kept under wraps by the associated equipment. In other words, listen to a SET amp, and you might hear that it is dramatically different than your push/pull, in the same way that a 5-iron is not a 3-wood, and one club (or amp) does not necessarily cover the entire game with aplomb.

It's wonderful that you have found, as you call it, the 'point' of music. But your point is not likely to mimic that of all other people. That, in my perhaps not so humble opinion, is exactly the goal of this forum. To learn what else is out there, beyond the standards that appear as absolute truths in no place else but our own mind.

I think I'm taking this thread in an unrelated direction, so I'll write to Superhonestben directly.

Good luck, Gellis1, and please post what you decide on.