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Please help--my ears are hurting

I had heard of the synergy phenomonem, but being a relative newbie I had always thought it an audio myth. I now know it is no myth. I had started building a system and like many, I bought some equip. before I knew what I was doing. Not that I bought anything necessarily bad, I had not bought anything necessarily good. I have 2 Polk floorstanders & center speaker, an HK 325 receiver, and a cheap JVC dvd player. I went the receiver route because of the WAF and FAF(family aproval factor). I am interested in mostly music, but the family is interested in mostly movies. Well, the sound was just OK. My first step was to add a new CD player--the highly reviewed Music Hall CD25 w/ Level 1+ Mod. At first I was amazed at all the sound I had been missing. What detail, what clarity, and finally what brightness-- especially in the upper mids/lower highs. I now cannot listen for more that an few minutes without getting a headache. At times my ears literally "prickle", especially at certain frequencies. The cd25 apparently is synergistically out of sync with the rest of the system. I have actually gone back to listening mostly to the DVD player. I contacted the seller and he thinks the problem is most likely in the HK and suggested that I buy a Jolida integrated amp w/ a tube preamp ($600) to warm things up a bit.
1. What do you guys think about this?
2. I would like something that I could incorporate into the HT system. I don't think this is possible with the Jolida.
3. Is there an ss amp that might warm this player/system up?
4. I am using Blue Jeans Cables which get high ratings as a budget ic. Opinions?????
5. Could the speakers be the culprit? I have been looking into some Spendors.
6. Could the new player somehow be defective? It has been broken in according to the recommendation.
7. Should I scrap/sell the HK and start over in the amp section of the system?
Guys, I am at an impasse here. I don't have dealers nearby to audition, so I have to go mostly on what I read. Being a high school teacher I don't have a lot of discretionary income, but I do love good music, and now that I am nearing retirement want a decent system. I was thinking of spending $8-1000 for each new upgrade---source, speakers, amp section. Where should I go from here? Thanks in advance. Ouch.
papertrail

Showing 3 responses by tobias

tobias
1,534 posts
 
I think I am in apparent contradiction with Rich--I would look at the electronics first.

I ran my CD-25 (Shanling CD-S100) with a 70s-vintage HK 930 2-channel receiver (and DH Labs Silver Sonic cables). The 930 is widely regarded as the best-sounding receiver HK ever made and the later HK products I have heard cannot match it. The sound was not too bright and edgy, and this was in a large room with no sound absorption--curtains, upholstered furniture--at all.

I know what you mean about detail, though. The Shanling player can sound very detailed. It was when I swapped in an upmarket power cord that I realized that detail was a tad artificial. The new power cord let me hear closer to the back of the hall. (This is not to say the CD-25 is a bad buy. In its price range I think it is the best.)

If you can swap in an amp you know to sound smooth and warm in another system, that would tell you something about the source of the edgy brightness you hear in yours. My own preference for a movie system would be for solid-state amplification. I have not heard tubes give the slam I feel is needed for special effects unless they cost a lot. SimAudio, Bryston and Audio Refinement are names that come to mind, and I have heard them all sound warm and smooth. Creek is another.

That doesn't mean your speakers are not contributing largely to your edginess, but to me it makes sense to start troubleshooting upstream. Another important factor is room acoustics. It is IMHO better to have a bright-ish rather than an overdamped room, but carpets and some absorption in the corner areas have removed excess brightness for me.
tobias
1,534 posts
 
Papertrail--yes, the power cord upgrade helped my player. It produced more extension, energy and definition in the bass and more detail overall. (If I'm not mistaken, this is the kind of improvement everyone notices when they upgrade power cords from stock, no matter what the unit is--source or preamp.)

About detail: my small experience leads me to distinguish real from apparent detail. The latter is a kind of artificial brightness, the sort of thing that can be exaggerated by less-than-first-class electronics into midrange opacity and high frequency aggressiveness. Real detail is additional information; perhaps micro-information is a good word. It lets me hear more of things like instrumental timbres--the rosin on the bowstring, the woodiness of a clarinet--and the dimensions of the recording space.

As for the amp suggestion, what I mean is you could swap your current HK receiver for any other unit you could get, 2 or 5-channel, just as a tryout. Not a sidegrade, though. Try something which would definitely be a step up. As an alternative, you could take your player and interconnect--or your receiver--to an audio pal's place, or a dealer's, to try it in another system. The objective would be to isolate what's causing the edge you hear.

On Dave's point, I think he is right about room and power line treatment, but most of us seem to want to get the major system components that satisfy us first, and then go into those domains. Not that you couldn't start exploring now, perhaps with an isolation transformer for the player and corner and wall junction absorbers. However this would multiply the number of variables you have to deal with, and I'm for solving a problem one step at a time. I suggest you try to eliminate the amplification as a problem source before you consider changing speakers, for example.

If you do come to speakers, though, after you eliminate both the receiver and speaker placement as the issue, then I second Paradigm (Pabelson's point). Their tonal balance seems less forward to me than PSB or NHT.
tobias
1,534 posts
 
Rich, that's a very interesting post if I may say so.

Papertrail may well be faced with either going to a dual-purpose system which can really play music, or having two systems dedicated to different purposes. Both routes involve extra expense, unfortunately. The two-system route would be as you say. The single-system, dual-purpose approach would really require better downstream equipment to satisfy Papertrail's audiophile-grade ears.

I am embarrassed that I didn't research Papertrail's earlier posts myself. Hats off to you, Rich.
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