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Help. Wife says Teres 340 Is too bright.

My Teres 340 is equipped with a Origin Live Illustrious 3 arm and Benz Ebony L cart. The rest of my system is listed.
I think the TT combo sounds great. She does too, but says the highs are just a little bright. I have played with VTA but that has not fixed the problem though she says we were headed in the right direction with tail lowered.

She says that we had the Scoutmaster just right prior to buying the Teres. Funny thing is that I thought the SM was a tad bright on certain albums. But she didn't. Now I think the 340 is just right but she thinks it bright on some recordings.

The only component that I can think that would be causing this is the tonearm. I cannot imagine the Benz Ebony L as bright. Nor do I think it is the Teres. I really think we (wife & I) need to have our ears calibrated so as to agree on brightness. But since that isn't going to happen, I suppose I should figure out how to please us both. So, do you think I'm on the right track with the tonearm being the culprit? What tonearm would give a warmer presentation? Thanks for your help
artemus_5

Showing 2 responses by larryi

larryi
4,218 posts
 
Doug and Tom raised interesting points about how the change could be bringing to the fore other system limitations. I agree that that is a distinct possibility.

I think it is worth looking at other possibilities as well. It appears that the "brightness" is a somewhat narrow band issue and each of the listeners is more sensitive to resonance in a different frequency band (husband thinks the VPI is brighter, wife thinks the Teres is brighter). It may be the case that each product has a distinctly different primary resonant frequency. All mechanical systems resonate to some degree at certain frequencies. Perhaps, some experimentation with the support the table is on, or with other resonant tuning devices might favorably alter the sound. I don't know what can be done about resonance in the arm itself (I don't know about the Origin arm), but perhaps others could comment.
larryi
4,218 posts
 
Artemus,

Your statement that one of the differences is that you now play your system louder "because you can" raises a number of possibilities. Any comparisons made at different volume levels is almost impossible to assess. At lower levels, high frequency problems will be much less evident -- because the ear is less sensitive to high frequencies at lower levels, because the electronics are less likely to be stressed and distorting, because the room will be less likely to be suffering from excessive reverberation, and because the turntable itself will be less likely to be suffering from feedback problems.

Also, your statement suggests that you had problems with higher volume playback before making the switch that are ameliorated somewhat by the switch so that you "can" now play at a higher volume. Do you have an idea why you could not play at a higher volume before? Did you have feedback problems? Do you have similar issues (or other problems) when playing CDs or other sources? Answers to such questions will make it easier to determine where in your system you are having problems.
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