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System Components are Warm but Synergy is Bright?

Hi everyone,

PLEASE HELP!!! I'm in real need of some advice. I'm going nuts trying to figure this one out!!!

My system components are a Cary 303 second generation player, Plinius 8200 Mk 1 integrated and Soliloquy 6.2 Speakers. The speaker cables are Acoustic Zen Satori and the interconnect is a Straighwire Chorus (ie. weakest link.) Power cords are Shunyata Diamondbacks and power conditioner is a Monster HTS 5100. Each component is characterized as being on the warm side. In fact the Cary replaced a Rega Planet 2000 in the above system and everything was indeed warm. I liked this!

In an effort to retrieve a bit more detail and maintain warmth I went with the Cary CD player. But now the sound is bright and fatiguing. What do you experts think? I bought the Cary used, should I have Cary take a look at it? The previous owner used the unit in a tube system and it sounded wonderful, is there anything that needs to be switched internally in the player now that it is working with Solid State componenets? Can the use of a warm interconnect like the Cardas Cross really make a night and day difference in this instance?

This situation has really got me confused. I thank you and appreciate all of your responses and input in advance.

Thanks!
mdp0430

Showing 1 response by jafox

jafox
1,474 posts
 
Hello,

I try not to put too much credit to cables for dramatic changes, but Straightwire has a reputation for being bright. I had the SW Virtuoso XLR cable years ago and I was amazed at the improvements, i.e., HUGE loss of fatigue, when I switched to any number of cables: CardasGoldenCross, HarmonicTech, MIT and then NBS.

The Cardas will make a big difference in tonality, primarily in a much softer presentation and overly warm and rich midrange, but you will lose extension and resolution on the top. For the same price on the used market, the NBS Signature is tonally much the same, but does not at all have the weaknesses of the CGC. The NBS is the clear winner here by quite a huge margin.

And whatever is your best cable, focus on putting this from preamp to amp rather than source to amp. Over the years, with so many system changes, I have found the line stage to amp link to be the most sensitive to cable differences.

John
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