Is it me or new audio gear is too perfect and give ear fatigue?

Topping Dacs do not sound good in the mid range with human voices. They sound shrill. Many Ess dacs sounds like this.

@laoman 

Obviously, since you quoted my prior post, you can imagine I don't agree with this. I use recordings I made as reference; I know what they should sound like- I was there at the recording session. The Topping D90SE is quite neutral and does female voices just fine.

Again, not trying to offend anyone on new gear, I just feel the specs are near perfect in the tonality.

@webking185 

They aren't. Please reread my initial posts on this thread.

None of all amplifier designs made prior to about 1995 had enough gain bandwidth product to avoid being bright if those amps used feedback, and most of them did. This is simply because the semiconductors needed to get the required gain bandwidth product didn't exist.

During that period we made zero feedback tube amps to get around that problem of listener fatigue because doing so allowed us to control the higher ordered harmonics in such a way that they were inaudible and so our amps were not bright and harsh. We tried using feedback of course but ran into that pesky gain bandwidth product problem which cannot be overcome by any tube design.

I can point you to some well written papers on the topic if you are interested, but its helpful to have some technical understanding to really appreciate what they are saying.

For example, my current DAC is a Chinese DAC that measures extremely well.

@arize84 Topping makes some DACs that are quite smooth on top and measure well and are also inexpensive. High end audio is not driven by cost, its driven by intent. However even though a source might work just fine that says nothing about design issues in a power amp. For example if its lacking in gain bandwidth product and also has feedback it will sound bright and harsh at higher power levels. This is because the feedback will fall off at higher frequencies causing an increase in distortion. This particular problem is endemic with 99% of all solid state amps made.

Curious if people feel the same?

Ear fatigue is caused by higher ordered harmonic distortion that isn't masked by the music or lower ordered harmonics. Its also caused by intermodulations and aliasing in digital gear (which is intermodulations of a different sort). The ear assigns 'harsh and bright' to these distortions and since it uses the higher ordered harmonics to sense sound pressure, is keenly sensitive to their presence even in tiny amounts.

There's plenty of gear out there that can be harsh and bright. Usually the problems show up when you are within 6dB of full power; if your system sounds 'loud' at higher volumes then its an issue. If you are not having problems with these kinds of distortion the system will not sound loud even if it is; IOW you might be surprised to find that you have to yell at someone sitting next to you to be heard.