Without some data about the room, first, I don't have much to say about gear.
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.
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- 53 posts total
Sounds to me like you have noise entering into your system. A Snake River Audio Cottonmouth PC on one component would tame this. Alternatively, a Vera-Fi Snubway or MC A/C line conditioner combo would definitely clean up some of the noise. You would be surprised at just how much noise can enter a system, using a streamer. Getting rid of that noise (and the different types) can be a daunting challenge. Tom |
Whatever our ears/brain try to cover the truth, they can’t hide every thing. The truth is all audio systems sound un-listenable harsh. Human ears and brain trick men to not hear it. Many people (who don’t like hi-fi) hear the truth. Therefore, they call us audiofools. Watch below video. All audio speakers sound/behave like the left speaker. Test your system saying "hello" with your speaker playing. Alex/Wavetouch audio Your speakers sound like the left speaker
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The sources of those sibilance can come from all sorts of places, and can be tough to track down. I chased similar issues for a while. It wasn’t just one notable thing in my case....it was little bits in a few areas. Some trial and error to remove traces of "glare" included changing interconnects (added Furutech Fa-AS22), changing out cheap speaker jacks for pure copper, upgrading inductive cast resistors to non-inductive resistors in the crossovers, added 1/2" felt wedges around the tweeter, had the op amps in my DAC upgraded to MuseS02 and added a linear regulated power supply to replace a wall wart, upgraded some caps in my preamp, and did enough tube rolling until I got the right combination. Maybe I got lucky, but that issue has been resolved.
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- 53 posts total