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My system is bright? I need help. thanks

Hi. it is my first time here in this forum. i would appreciate input and help from all of you. No sacrasm or bad langauge please. I had bad experience with other forums in that aspect. music loving people and audiophiles should be an elite, high caliber and classy community. This is rare to find today. Ok Down to the point.

My system
Musical fidelity kw 500 sacd player. I use the tube output.
Musical fidelity kw 500 integrated amp.
speakers:eggleston andra (not andra 2)
speaker cable: satori acoustic zen
interconnects: Nordost baldur and nordost quatrofil RCA
USe a dedicated 20 amp line with regular power cords(came with the gear) and a panamax 20 amp surge protector and filter.

This is in my family room so there is little room for treatment and moving things around.

problem: bright. the highs are killing my ears, after 1-2 hours of listening my ears start to hurt,sometimes 3 minutes. I have to turn the volume down. I tried postioning, it got a little better. I will try acoustic zen silver ref II may be it will help. The sound is otherwise phenomenal, i could be happy with more bass, but overall it is very good. Depth, tranparency, acuity and soundstaging are great. As for mids, i can see the person infront of me,I can hear the articulation of the tongue in the mouth before the words and tunes comes out. no kidding, but not for long because of fatigue.

I would really appreciate your input.
Scientist73
scientist73

Showing 2 responses by stehno

stehno
1,453 posts
 
I suggest trying the following:

1. Ensure the cd player is not on the same circuit/lines as the amps and preamp. cd players and dacs generate much digital noise which is bi-directional meaning it goes back into the lines and infiltrates the other components. Only a handful of line conditioners provide bi-directional filtering.

2. I've owned the speaker cables you mention. Some to many cables and ics in this category induce much time smear which will contribute to the fatigue you mention. Try outfitting your system with the Speltz Anti-cables and Anti-ics. These are excellent cables and will cost you perhaps $300 total to outfit your entire system and you can return them within 30 days for a refund.

3. Try listening after removing your Panamax. Not all line conditioners are created equally nor are all worth owning. Some will even induce their own sonic harm. But you should still investigate in proper line conditioning.

4. You might also consider removing (at least temporarily) or heavily convering all reflective surfaces in the listening room. Including mirrors, glass, tables, etc..

These 4 areas are most likely the most probable contributors to ear fatigue you claim to experience.

-IMO
stehno
1,453 posts
 
Scientist73, it should not be surprising that removing your previous line conditioner actually improved your sonics.

Now that you can hear that not all line conditioners are necessarily good or created equal, you might consider looking for 'proper' line conditioning.

I would like to strongly suggest staying away from surge suppressors or line conditioners that offer surge suppression.

Among other things, you'd be amazed at how proper line conditioning on all components will, among other things, remove all negative sibilance (except that which is imbedded in the recording itself).

As for your hissing problem, I would have suggested it would be your preamp, but since you have an integrated, I have to assume it's coming from there or...

If your digital cd player is not on a different circuit/line I would suggest trying that because you want to keep the AC of the digital source as far away as possible (electrically, not geographically) so as to minimize the bi-directional digital noise injected back into the AC in the wall and potentially making its way back to the service panel and into other circuits. Another good reason for proper line conditioning because a proper line conditioner should be able to provide bi-directional filtering and most do not.

This too could be contributing to the unusually loud pink noise you're hearing.

-IMO
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