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Help me tame the brightness of my Triangles

I bought a pair of Triangle Zerius speakers a month ago, and in some ways they're the most amazing speakers I've listened to. Incredibly open, detailed, fast, and dynamic (as advertised).

But I also find them to be too bright and too hard for my ears, at least with a good amount of my music. I've taken care of the obvious things, like break-in (approaching 300 hours now) and matching with a warm system (Rega planet 2000 cd player, Unison Research Unico integrated amp with Mullard cv4003 tubes). I put little thought into cables .. i'm currently using straight wire rhapsody 2 interconnects and 20 feet of audioquest gr8 speaker cables.

The hardness comes in the upper midrange/lower trebble, typically at high or moderately high volumes, and typically on vocals and guitars. Especially if the recording is at all aggressive. The brightness is just an overall sense of the tonal balance. It seems lighter weight than what I hear in live music. I expect the music to have more weight and roundness (this is why I have the Planet and the Unico to begin with).

I've played with position and toeing in. My room is large (about 16 x26 feet with 10 to 11 foot ceilings). It's slightly bright and splashy, although i believe most of what I'm hearing is the direct sound of the speakers (the tonal balance is the same when I get real close).

I'm wondering about new interconnects .. perhaps cardas. the Quadlinks seem like they'd make the most sense. Any thoughts on this? How big a difference they might make? Would the Cardas Cross cables be unreasonably pricey in this system?

I'm also wondering about tubes. The Unico with the mullards has a wonderful, liquidy midrange, and great transients and dynamics. Are there any tubes that might darken the sound and soften the lower trebble without killing detail, dynamics, transients, and soundstaging?

I suspect most people would find my system sounds more balanced than I do ... my ears seem to be pretty sensitive to brightness and hardness. But it still seems strange that these speakers that everyone seems to like can sound bright even with these other componens I've chosen.

Thank you for any thoughts you might have.
paulraphael

Showing 2 responses by philjolet

philjolet's avatar
philjolet
2,306 posts
 
I am not familiar with the wire you mention but I would at least try something else. I have been raving about Acoustic Zen wire as being very full and detailed sounding without being bright and maybe it will work for you too.

I have recently learned (relearned?) the dramatic effect wire can have on a stereo, and maybe this is biasing my information, but it is worth a shot.

BTW I used to own the Planet 2000 and it is very smooth and not bright in the slightest from my experience as well.
philjolet's avatar
philjolet
2,306 posts
 
I have listened to a few of the upper end (I forget)Cardas cables and they lack the open sound I crave and yes they are big and sloppy in the bass.

I have just recently gotten some PCs and I recommend them to everyone. The kind of difference they make are hard to discribe but most people say your system takes on a more musical quality with a lower noise floor which lets nuances thru.

I have had good results with Vibrapods which helped my stereo to be more focused and lower resonences.
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