Before spending more money on a system you have been satisfied with, get your hearing checked.
If it were me, I would make this a priority.
I noticed brightness/harshness more than usual from my system a couple months back.
My system is not high end by any stretch see my virtual system. A couple months back I noticed brightness/harshness when playing my lp Steely Dan Aja the song Deacon Blues. I had never noticed this before. This is one of my best sounding LPs. I hear it on others too. Sometimes it's subtle, other times it stands out, sometimes I think all is OK. Weird! I never noticed this before. I always liked the sound of my system. Something changed, but what? I am approaching 70 years old and I am wondering if my ears are more sensitive to high frequencies. But anyway I started by checking my cartridge. Visual inspection. Adding and reducing tracking force. Anti skate too. Moved speakers away from and closer to the walls. Cleaned all connections with deoxit. Even sent the cartridge to The Sound Organization to be checked. They did not find anything. I am not able to rearrange my listening area or add room correction. Just nowhere to go.
I would assume if the speakers or integrated were defective I would know it. Something like that would stand out. Yes? I am thinking it is probably a combination of bright speakers, bright amp, bright cartridge and old ears.
So if nothing is broke.... I am considering replacing the speakers would work. Maybe Wharfedale Lintons. I can afford them or something in this price range. Maybe the cartridge? Hana SL or ML. Maybe the integrated? But with what I have no idea. Naim SuperNait 3 caught my eye though I would need to save a long time to afford it. I am retired and on a fixed income. Really fixed! There is nowhere close I can audition any of these.
I realize I am asking alot but any suggestions would be great!
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- 26 posts total
The options for the change are infinite. @stereo5 is absolutely correct. You have got to play detective first. I have had a single tube weaken, a mid-range with a hiss, caps blown and simple fuses. Time to play detective. You can't address what you don't know. |
Thanks all... stereo5 - sending the cartridge away caused me to listen to the CD player. Usually I listen to vinyl only. It is there on cd, certain passages, certain songs. von - power to the equipment has not changed. Unless it changed at the wall socket. CD, integrated, phono mc all plugged in to the Brick Wall. Always has been. I'll take everything off that see what happens. No changes to the room. pmm - that's crossed my mind. I should do that! At least it will confirm or dismiss a hearing issue. Google searches tells me as we get older hearing gets more sensitive. Maybe that's just the way it is. I do occasionally find myself listening at lower volumes. Maybe that's a clue. But some music I like louder. Especially my good recordings.
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I guess that you can find anything with a Google search. Hair cells die preferentially in the high frequency range which reduces our sensitivity to high frequencies. What many of us consider high frequency when listening to music, especially at our age, are frequencies around 12Khz. I believe that aging frequency loss is above this frequency. For some of us we loose much lower frequencies and have issues understanding speech. |
- 26 posts total