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Last Critical Tweak… how to quell occasional high harshness…?

Dear Audiogon Community,

 

I am so impressed with the insight and obsession we all share with this musical alchemy of electrons. I write to address a simple problem through as simple (and hopefully relatively inexpensively) as possible… though before such elegant maneuvers, an overly verbose and fussy description:

 

 

Harshness in the highs…. Trumpets and some vocals now make my ears shrill at times. My aging ears! It is so close to musical bliss, but this slight edgyness must be quelled!

 

This song, horns seem to shatter. 

This song, vocals seem to pierce. 

 

I recently leveled an entirely new system. My last tweak was to move my main gain tube to Mullards, and the Brimar NOS tubes to the outer gain location. The mullards afforded a richness and expansiveness, a forward mid and elegance, but introduced the occasional shrillness which I seek to quell. 

 

My musical electron dance is as follows on the streaming side:

 

Nagra Streamer —> Audio Zen MC2 Coax —> Halo Audio Spring 2 Level 3 Kitsune —> Duelund 16 GA Interconnect —> Prima Luna Dialogue Premium HP —> Brimar NOS outer tube and Mullard NOS main gain tube —> Gold Lion KT77 Power tubes —> Duelund 16GA Speaker wire —> Pure Audio Project Duet Horn’s with a gold silver oil Mundorf Cap upgrade —> Duelund wire to the horn and the 15” Woofer. 

 

Fun yes! Devine! But how to quell this one last occasional shrillness?

 

Thoughts:

-Speaker Wire to 12 GA

-DAC - Amp Interconnect changed to something that mellows out the shrill

-Main Gain tube upgraded from a Mullard NOS to something else… (I believe there was a slightly higher grade Mullard?)

-Nagra Stream - DAC Coax cable upgraded to something mellower….?

 

Open to any and all suggestions! Thank you so much for your insights. 

 

R. 

whyrichard

Showing 3 responses by whyrichard

whyrichard OP
37 posts
 

It’s so funny… I swap out my Duelund interconnect between my dac and my amp with my old encore Ii, and the shrill is gone. 

I haven’t yet tried at higher volumes (I am two whiskeys in to a 2am listening sesh) but I think I will try burning in properly the Duelund interconnect in my frybaby (I didn’t get a chance for a full break in previously), and then compare again against the encore II. 

 

am quite presently pleased with my old Encore II, the lack of high end harshness allows me to screw my high pass filter back into the Pure Audio crossover, which I had tried removing when the shrill was so pronounced…. And I do love the cymbal sizzle the high pass affords….

 

now I wonder… so to “complete” (further extend) this pursuit to fully flesh out this mystical music device…. What interconnect may be a Devine choice for this system?

 

-I had really enjoyed the sound profile of my previous Cardas clear usb cable (currently on an mc zen coax)

 

-forward rich mids… acoustic and voice and horns and stings and and and

 

-and of course, NO harshness or shrill…

 

thank you all for your insights and suggestions! Willing to entertain a wide range of budgets for this rca (as I have released some purse strings for this pursuit)

 

 

r

whyrichard OP
37 posts
 

I would be open to a high end cable… or if there were some way to audition a set of cables…? A good dealer in New York City?

 

recs for specific cables up to 1k, ideally used? 
 

and recs for dealers who would loan me a set of cables for me to audition?

 

thanks,

r

whyrichard OP
37 posts
 

Interesting options I will look into all of them. 
 

how about a Cardas clear interconnect?

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