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

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. 

There are so many ways to remedy this but I will attempt to give you the easiest vs the most comprehensive solution.

As others have recommended, getting panels on your first reflection points may help with this issue.  I would recommend gik acoustics or doing a DIY panel build.  Not hard.  Just need some stiff insulation and fabric and frame.

Another thing you can do is get a Umik-1 and use room eq wizard and see what your frequency response looks like both on var smoothing and at 1/6 smoothing.  You may be able to determine where that resonant frequency is and use a notch EQ filter to reduce that band.

And if you really want to go spend some money, yes maybe it's the focals.  I recommend tektons for detail without glare or harshness.  Double impacts are my go to recommendation under 5k