Listening Room or Components or my ears?


My system is sounding a bit harsh, hard, shrill. (Cronus Magnum lll Amp, Focal Aria 948 Speakers, Denon DCD 1700NE CD Player, Shunyata Gamma Cables). It is just CD play back at 1/3 volume. It's a basement, L shaped room. Carpeted cement floors. The Speakers are 3 foot from rear wall. Left speaker 2 foot from side wall. Right speaker is 15 foot from side wall. Speakers are silghtly toed in and a 6 foot apart. Equipment rack and two subs between them. The wall behind the speakers is covered in framed posters. Is this an obvious fault? The walls themselves are wood paneling. Is there a problem with only one apeaker next to a side wall? Ant thoughts or suggestions? Thanks

bzawa

Your description makes the room sound like a problem.  I can surmise you have one wall that is +/- 21 feet long, but not much else.   A lot of reflections off walls with paneling.  Have a look at this site and see if you can select an area of the total room that could give you better H x L x W.  Then consider some low cost acoustic  wall treatment.  They say the room is 50% of the sound.  I would start there.  Cheers.   https://www.acoustic.ua/forms/rr.en.html  

Agree with the advice on treating your room including adjusting the speakers toe-in and your listening position.  Focals can sound a bit harsh or sibilant especially if you’re sensitive to sibilance.  You may want to demo speakers with a different sound profile if the room treatments don’t work.  You may prefer speakers with a rolled off top end instead of an elevated in room response. 

Six feet is very close together.  Can you move them apart and toe them out more - get out of the tweeter's death ray?

See an audiologist first, if you want to avoid or postpone a wild goose chase.

My suspicion is that the Focal speakers are the biggest culprits for your treble character.