Reynaud Bliss Jubile vs Cantabile Jubile

I can try altering that a bit. I can tell you that the hardness when the music in the upper frequencies is dense can be heard from the other room. There's a difference between what's happening from the midrange on down, which is quite sweet.

Funny that I was talking about these speakers in the Steve Hoffman Hardware Forum. I never used the term 'shouty' there, but someone volunteered that they had a pair of Silver Bliss in their house. He tried them in their bedroom and he used the term "shouty". It was unpleasant. They tried them in their large living room and they didn't exhibit that shoutiness. But they couldn't deliver the low end he was looking for, so he ended up selling them. Different tweeter, of course. But that did prompt me to look further at placement.

So in an update, I'm finding that the brightness, the exaggeration of certain upper frequencies can be lessened by other toeing the speakers significantly outward, or listening above the tweeter horizontal axis. As I listen in sort of a fixed position on a couch, my ear line is sort of on the line of the tweeters, therefore what I'll need to do is try to tilt the speaker cabinets forward so I'll be listening above their vertical dispersion. I was leaning back in on the sofa and noticed that the top end of a saxophone was bright, and pushed forward so that the instrument was coming pretty much directly out of the tweeter. When I sat up and above the tweeter, the sax pushed back and became more coherent with the rest of the soundstage, (And when I leaned back, lowering the level of my ears, the sax once again came more directly out of the speaker.).

Another thing about the speaker's performance is that I'm noticing that with simpler material, this speaker is quite lovely to listen to. The speakers sound natural and both relaxed yet quick, as is live music. But when the music gets dense, such as massed brass, massed voices, or massed strings, the upper end soundstage gets cluttered and confused. The speaker loses some of its ability to resolve with clarity and ease in the upper end. I'm still trying to figure out why that is happening and what to do about it.

The thing is, there are many things that this speaker does truly well, and with simpler music, it really plays musically. But then a denser passage will come along and it reminds me that I'm listening through speakers, these speakers.

You could swap out the Grover which I think are silver foil to something copper and maybe swap out the tubes in your Pathos.  What 6922 tubes are in there now?

I have a pair of Monster copper pair of bi-wired cables. They sound darker and a tad slower, but I’ll throw them in. I’m using a pair of 1960s Sylvania, which are an improvement over the Russian-made Electro-Harmonix that came with the unit.

But here is something I did which has improved things quite a bit. I angled the speakers slightly upward. The result was a great lessening of the overt brightness and much better integration between the top end and the rest of it.

I’d still like to see a greater relaxation of the top end compared to what I get from the midrange on down. There isn’t the bloom that there is in the midrange on down. It’s still sounding a bit constrained up there compared to the rest of the speaker’s output, but at least the top end seems to have been tamed from where I’m sitting. If I do raise myself up to me more in the horizontal center plane of the tweeters or if I stand right in front of the tweeters, the brightness returns.

I did replace the Grover Huffman silver speaker wire with the Monster Cable. It's definitely toned down the heightened top end. It's not as precise in the midrange as the Grover Huffman nor as fast, but it's not bad either. I might try to see if I can borrow some other cables to try in my system.