How to tame brightness

Gmc56...as is typical of Agon :-), you ask a question and you will get 16 responses with 16 different suggestions. While an issue like "excessive brightness" can be caused by many different things, I suspect there are a few things from this list you want to try first. Eventhough, I suggested speaker toe-in and room treatments as a first attempt, having read through all of the suggestions, if I were you, I would try Duke's (or Audiokinesis') recommendations first, given his knowledge of speakers and their interactions with rooms. Many speaker designers use felt inserts around the tweeter in their designs to tame brightness, so his suggestion of buying an after-market felt product that you can fit around your tweeter seems eminently reasonable to me. You should check out the link he provided. His other suggestion of finding a point in the vertical plane (where your ears are relative to the tweeter that is) where the sound is not as bright is also an easy and cheap way of finding a fix. The fix will incorporate finding seating that either has adjustable height or is fixed at the height where the sound presentation is no longer bright. The seating height fix by the way can also be found in Jim Smith's book, "Getting Better Sound," which is probably one of the most cost effective investments to enhance system performance (no affiliation with him just a satisfied customer). If the felt and seating height adjustments don't cure your problem, then treating your room, changing cabling, and ultimately changing speakers (suggestions for soft domed tweeter are not off the mark in this respect)are the way to go. Good luck and let us know how it works out for you.

I have made some makeshift room acoustic adjustments which helped some. I also changed my speakers cables which also helped some. But there does seem to be a synergy issue between my amp and speakers as "sideways" mentioned.

I do use isolation on all my front end components. And thanks to everyone here for you input!

Greg

A lot of solid advice here. One thing I will add is I would suggest changing your Integrated Amp. I owned one for a very brief period and had system-brightness issues with a pair of JM Labs. I actually borrowed a friends less expensive Cambridge Audio Integrated and the issues disappeared. Not to mention, it sounded significantly better than the Audio Refinement.

At that point, I ended purchasing an Electrocompaniet ECI-3 Integrated which I enjoyed for years with the same speakers and source. Anyway, that AR amp has a sonic hardness quality to it which may be your culprit. I would almost put money on it.

Good Luck!

-Chris

Chayro

The cd's in mention were by the bands Nathan and Dala...fantastic music but definitely done in the bright sort of folkie tang LOL!!!

And with my setup, the Epos are about 12ft apart and I listen about 11ft back!! Both speakers are toed in slightly as well.

Cheers!!!

Spike your CD player (and your whole system if necessary) into a maple platform(s).