2. speakers
  3. 186009-183416

Midrange Increasingly Harsh

Lately I've noticed some harshness in the mid-range, especially with violins, clarinets and female voice.  I recently bought a CD of female plainchant, and she hits the un-sweet spot so frequently I can't listen to it.  I don't listen at high volumes, rarely over nine o'clock on the volume knob.  The sound is not anything unnatural, just a less musical presentation and an unpleasant harshness.

 

I have twenty year old Forest Totems with their original cones, a Prima Luna Dialogue One amp which got new tubes about five years ago and an Arcam CD-73 which got a factory rebuild about three years ago.  I have neither the money nor inclination to just start arbitrarily replacing parts, but would appreciate some insight and guidance on likely culprits. 

Thanks,

John Cotner

New Ulm, MN

jrcotner

Showing 1 response by tvrgeek

tvrgeek
299 posts
 

Handy to have a decent small SS amp around.  :)

If Speakers,

If I remember the Totems used the XT-25 tweeter that is anything but harsh. So I will have to be on the tube guessing camp. Note the range you may be hearing may actually be woofer breakup. Also note, if I got my speakers correct, the Vifa is great above 4K, so that puts quite a strain on the woofer. Anyone who tries to use the Vifa much lower, well it's distortion skyrockets as it just does not have the surface area. 

Now, harshness is an issue. Due to the loudness wars, a lot of newer CDs are quite hot. Doe to how digital filtering works, there is rick of digital clipping in the DAC. This is why I set my JRiver to the default -1 dB and some suggest -3.  It helps on those female vocals, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchel etc.  I have also found differences in DACs to make this more or less sensitive. Some DACs, like the RME have this internally. I do not know if any CD player does. 

More to discover