Newbie with "bright" system

Speaking as a fellow newbie, actually took a twenty year break to raise kids. I have assembled a second hand system in the past 8 weeks and experienced the same problems you are having. My system is Aragon 24K, 4004; NAD 540C CD, Magnepan MGIII speakers, Audioquest Crystal Speaker Cable, MAD Pearl IC Pre Amp to Amp and Green XLC from CD to Preamp. My listening room is in the basement with concrete floors (covered with carpet) and drywall. I covered the rear wall with relatively heavy indoor-outdoor carpet ( I just used seam tape and finishing strips-$100.00). This helped some but the edginess was still there. Next I replaced my speaker cable, Audioquest Crystals with Kimber Monocle ($275.00 used). The detail improved but the edgy brightness was still there. Currently I haveTMC Yellow interconnects pre amp-amp and TMC White CD-Pre amp. The brightness is gone but I also have lost some of the "excitement". The MAD IC's are silver coated ribbons while the TMC are all copper. I am looking for some copper/silver hybrid IC's to see if there is a way to achieve a compromise, maybe something like Kimber Silver Streaks. Hope this helps. I think audio is always going to be a work in progress. If it weren't for the money, this would be the fun of the hobbie. We can still think about Balanced, bi wire and tri wire, tubes and soon, SACD.