everything sounded great until the upgrade


In short: I loved the sound of my modest system, until I upgraded my amp. Now it  sounds pretty horrible. It went from a warm sweet embracing easy-to-listen sound to knives and forks trying to escape from a bathtub.

So...

1. I can just unplug this new amp (used) and sell it

Any other options? I could upgrade my speakers but I have no budget for that.

2. I could sell the speakers and use money to buy used ones that go with the amp. 

3. Lastly I could change the source, but was it the culprit - to begin with?

btw - the sound of the "new" amp is decent with my turntable, and terrible with my CD player.

(If I wrote brands and models it would throw the discussion into "A sucks, B is great")

grislybutter

Showing 2 responses by pcrhkr

Ok I read it. Music Fidelity. Great Amps. Just musically Bright so if your speakers are bright then bright on bright. The dealer I visited steered me away from MF because of my speakers being bright. Like titanium  drivers are bright. That's what I have is Aluminum mids and titanium tweeters  My speakers have infinite adust on both high frequency drivers.  I can compensate a bit.  If yours do not have mid and tweeter controls you may be stuck. I am sorry this happened.

New electronics especially transistor / ICs take at least 20hrs of use before the sound settles near what it will be. Tubes seem more forgiving in my experience.  There also could be an output mismatch between the power amp and speakers. I will never forget in the 1980s when my JBL Lancers sounded awesome on a 25w Pioneer  SX525. We borrowed a friend's SX1200 pioneer to try back at home. It way out classed the 25w / ch in every way with if I remember right at least 100W per channel.  In comparison the 25W pioneer blew away the much more high tech SX1250. We were shocked.  The ESS 12" box with air motion transformers sounded great, so did Klipsch horns with the 1250.  It was definitely a component mismatch between the Lancers which sound great with 90% of what was out there.  Lesson learned. Hear components on your system if possible or with a company that will let you demo at home.