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Trying to eliminate hard upper midrange

I am seeking advice to eliminate hard upper midrange glare. I spent alot of money and the sound improved, but the glare is still present. Is there something wrong with my set up, or etc? My systems is as follows:

Counterpoint DA 11.5 transport with Shunyata King Cobra.
Sonic Frontiers SFD 2 MK II DAC with Shunyata Black Mamba.
Sonic Frontiers SFL 1 Signature Pre Amp with Shunyata Viper.
All above components connected to the PS Audio P300 with a Shunyata King Cobra attached to it.

Bryston 7B ST Mono block with PS Audio Lab Cables connected to two Ultimate outlets which is connected to XLO Type 10 powercords to the wall outlet.

Speakers PSB Stratus Gold, placed 3 ft away from rear wall 2 1/2 ft from side wall, room is 15'wide 21'deep
8 1/2tall. Listening distance is 9 ft away from speakers.

Cables:
Digital - Illuminati D60 - BNC and Illuminati DX-50 - XLR
Interconnects - AudioQuest Diamond X2 - RCA
Speaker Cables - AudioQuest Dragon to highs and Clear 3 to bass.
All Cables are raised by ceramic tiles.

Brights star foundation platforms, tip toes, for each component sitting on a Stand design rack, set of room tunes corners, side walls and tune stripes.

New additions will be XLO limited edition XLR digital cable and Siemens CCa tubes for SFD 2 MK II. Will be here shortly.

Very fraustrated. Any suggestions will be openly noted, thanks.

bowlerds
5 responses Add your response
whatjd
1,139 posts
 
Do you have cable television in your home? If you have a single family home and can find where the cable is connected to the outside of your house, check how they have grounded it. If the cable has a ground wire, usually green, going to a conduit pipe..there is a chance that the cable feed has placed a DC voltage on your system. The easiest way to check is to disconnect the cable altogether..meaning at the outside of your house disconnect the 75 ohm coax and take off the green ground wire from the conduit...then listen..
if this is not the case or you do this and nothing happen, ..then you have other concerns..but if it does help...then get a qualified electrician to ground that damn cable feed to earth and make sure your home AC is properly grounded.. try to find an electrician that knows hi-fi.
P.S. You have way too good of a system, set up well for it not to sound pretty damn good.
To be clear..I should say that, in most cases, what the cable feed is doing is placing a DC voltage on your homes AC ground.
whknopp0713
179 posts
 
Wow, your system should not have this problem. With an SF front end, gobs of power treatments and PSB's, it would seem to me more susceptible to sounding lush and ripe than hard and brittle. Upper mids is probably the 7B's weakest area, but the only time I heard them they certainly weren't hard or bright. Three ideas, one free, one cheap, the other, well: try a long wall setup (if you haven't already); try Auric Illuminator, a CD treatment that makes subtle improvements for just such digititus; and try acoustic treatments for your room. Hard upper mids are often the product of sidewall reflections. ASC Studio Traps are really good at softening upper mids, removing grain, expanding the soundstage and adding depth. I used to think of traps primarily as bass tuning devices, but, in my room anyway, they had a bigger effect on low treble/upper mid frequencies. I've never tried Argent Room Lenses, but they have a good reputation, too. If none of that is enough, I would try a Pass or Classe, which will give you what's good about the 7B's, but with more refined and subtle mids and top end. Good luck.
bowlerds OP
5 posts
 
Thank you for your suggestions. I have read the feed back and noted them. I made some changes to the room and the settings on the PowerPlant. My system sounds impressive. Something to enjoy and be proud of. I am also going to upgrade my preamp to a Herron VTSP 1A or the Levinson 380S.
hot_triode
3 posts
 
Hi Bowlerds,
one really cheap tweak not to be missed. Try BDR Mk3 or Mk4 cones under the preamp and/or other source components, with the cone points on the more resonant surface eg. isolation board, rack shelf or thin walled casings.
The Mk3 is said to give a warmer sound and Mk4 a more linear sound. I have the Mk4's under my preamp yesterday and was pleasantly surprised by the extended bass i never heard before. The Mk4 had not removed any hf (as predicted)significantly, but for the extend bass now, my system does not sound harsh in its new found balance. The cones didn't work well with my cdp however. If i have a great setup like yours i would definitely get a set of both Mk3 & Mk4 and experiment, you never know it might be just what you want. Btw I dont work for Black Diamond Racing.
Regards.
david99
1,467 posts
 
I had this problem and eventually corrected it with some upper corner room treatment,MIT T-2 speaker cables and speaker placement(toed out more) Frustrating problem!
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