grainy sounding high end system


Hi, I hope this is the right forum to ask this question. I have a quite decent audio system at home, which consists of Pioneer CLD-98 laserdisc/CD-transport, Bel Canto DAC 1.1, Conrad-Johnson Premier 7b preamplifier, Mark Levinson 333 amplifier and Dunlavy SC-IV speakers. Though this is a "high-end" system on paper, it sounds not very high-end to me: the overall sound has a grainy quality, it has compressed dynamics, the low end is quite lousy and the highs are too prominent. Why is this happening to me? I have invested a lot into this hobby and is this my reward? What could be the reason for the abovementioned grainy sound? Maybe I have to get a better CD-transport, like the TEAC P-30 for example.
dazzdax

Showing 1 response by judit

Getting a musical sounding baseline is much more difficult with digital and SS gear.

The pioneer transport (I once owned it), is vibration prone, even when you are spinning only the little platter in the middle.

Are you confident in the quality of your DAC? I am not personally familiar with it, however, getting musical with digital for me meant moving up to 16 and ultimately to 24 bit DACs.

Beyond lousy digital playback, I generally associate compression with amplifier limitations. I have heard some pretty sterile sounding, fatiguing and expensive amplifiers in my day.

If you bought your speakers from a dealer, have you considered asking him to let you swap your electronics into his system?