What is the best way to tame a slightly bright speaker?

Jim Smith Book on better sound, felt, revisit excessive toe in and or tilt, room treatments and then hardware changes

Room treatments. 

Toeing then out out a bit to get to where the tweeters roll off could help too if it does not mess with other things too much. Just have to try and see. It is free. 

If you want to experiment with tube components investigate tubed preamps.A smooth,warm sounding preamp such as Conrad Johnson units for example might add just enough sweetness to tame that brightness.Then experiment with various tubes until you get your system tuned to your preference.

If you want to see without as much work with rectangle cut out. Go to drum shop and buy dense felt cymbal washers ( they go under and on top of cymbal on cymbal stand, much better quality felt than at fabric store)cut into four pieces and blue tak around each tweeter.

If you don't have time or funds for room treatment pick up some 100% wool at fabric store. Cut inside diameter in rectangle form and make 3 or four layers. It may not be pretty but in my experience it smoothed out highs and improved imaging. I mounted it with blue tak.

What geoffkait said may sound funny because he is that way some of the time. But that is a real possible solution. I have used that method and it helps out a noticeable amount. Geoff probably knows why, but it has worked for me. If you do it, get some that are cotton or wool, preferable wool and get a neat design, It can look good on there with a neat design. Geoff is not only funny 1/10 of the time but he is practical about 1/10th of the time.  

Tubes were the biggest improvement in taming my 801Ns.  Made the mids and highs much more listenable to me.  I still use SS muscle for the lows tho.

Bill

Hang a sock in front of it.

1 - Listen off axis.

2 - More room treatment

Thanks everyone for your replies. They are varied as one would expect.

My room is far from ideal, but I don’t think it’s having a major impact on this problem. The listening area is carpeted and has a fabric sofa and chair and the house has an open floor plan, so I don’t think it’s excessive reflections. This suggests to me that maybe subwoofers would help.

I do agree that room treatments could improve and maybe eliminate the brightness, but that would probably be the most difficult way to attack the problem. It’s something I would like to do over time, but it will require a lot of time and expertise.

There have also been suggestions for cables and the controversy that comes with them. I’m using Analysis Plus Clear Oval speaker cables. Don’t let the name fool you, they’re not bright cables. I don’t know how they came up with the Analysis Plus name, but they’re just good quality copper cables using their proprietary oval construction methods (to reduce skin effect, according to AP). When I get the right gear together I want to experiment with cables with The Cable Company, but I’d rather not try cables at random, unless someone has experience with these particular speakers.

That brings us to upstream gear. The D’Agostino Classic Stereo that I have is a powerhouse amp, 300 watts at 8 ohms 1,000 at 2 ohms according to Stereophile. I don’t need that power with the TADs and changing amps would probably be a good place to start. Would a Class A amp like a Pass or Plinius or Accuphase relax the mids and highs a little or just give me different sounding bright speakers? I don’t think the D'Agostino is a bright amp but I haven’t heard it described as laid back or refined either. Tubes are another option. Any suggestions for a change of amps?

Are the speakers revealing other issues further up the chain? Those big transistors or a poor source? Solid core speaker cables will help. 

Hi, You should look at a ZROCK2 from decware, go to their site and read about it. It just might fit the bill!Good Luck, Tish

I don't have any experience with this specific system but assuming your source is digital, in a (friend's) similarly revealing system moving to an MHDT Pagoda non-oversampling DAC rounded everything out. Poor AC can also manifest itself as excessive brightness so adding a power conditioner is also helpful in cleaning the unwanted noise. The latter was my own experience.

It might be worthwhile to toe in or toe out the speakers depending on its on and off axis high frequency dispersion, in addition to taking reflections.  And, it costs nothing. To achieve tone controls with cables is unicorn hunting. 

My friend has the same TAD speakers in a dedicated audio room that has  built in acoustic treatment and they are revealing but not bright. The suggestions to approach the issue from that angle are probably going to be an essential part of the solution. While it is true that a sub doesn't "solve" the problem of an overly bright speaker, one's perception of system balance is affected by the addition of a sub. My Tidal Piano Ceras without subwoofers can sound too bright with some material. When the subs are turned on, the system balance seems natural on the same material. Lastly, a very low budget endeavor would be to try Grannyring's "Acoustic BBQ" Western Electric 10 gauge speaker cables. I know it might offend one's sensibilities to pair such inexpensive wire with expensive equipment but I found that wire to be just what I was needing to deal with excessive treble energy after replacing my amp. His description of the speaker wire in the Audiogon advertisement is not hype.

Right tube amp and cables ?

The TAD’s are had a little too much air from my time demoing them. Coaxial drivers have a very wide and uniform dispersion pattern and perhaps that’s why KEF rolls off the off-axis response of their drivers quite aggressively, whereas TAD chose not to, resulting in perhaps more detail but a sound that will be much more aggressive in the highs.

Your best bet is probably some form of multi-point measurement room correction software like ARC or Diraclive and tune it to a more rolled off target curve.

Placement along with room treatments....   I recently moved, my last room was a nightmare.   New room has better dimensions but more importantly a thick carpet.

I used my Veleodyne sms 1 to measure the new room's low freq response and it was damn near flat... the sms applied very little eq...   the old room has a serious room mode centered at 40hz that really muddied the sound ,  the sms 1 used a lot of eq for the old room, -9dB  and unlike the old room, the new room has no clap echo.  

This system has never sounded better and the only thing that changed was the room....  I know its probably not possible to set up in another room but my experience really demonstrated how much the room and it's properties play into the overall sound .  

Room treatment for reflections is high up the list.

Electronically, it would be to increase the resistor value in the tweeter’s high-pass filter on the crossover (e.g. go from a 2ohm resistor to 2.7ohm resistor). This would reduce the level of the tweeter by a db or so and leave everything else the same. But you’d need to be OK removing the drivers, crossover, and soldering. Tweeter crossover capacitors could also be swapped out for more boutique brands with a warmer sound signature. A couple of resistors would just be a few bucks. Boutique caps could get much more expensive depending on brand and values needed.

Otherwise, cable switching (or biwiring) could give you the normal audiophile "solution" to tone controls!

One might also consider a dsp solution for room eq.

A sub does not "solve" bright treble; it would rather change presentation if low end is lacking. Not the same thing.

TBH, everything except room treatment and the resistor change would be of dubious value for money in my eyes.

Need to know which cables, power conditioner do you use one, power cables stock or aftermarket, high end rack or not, room setup, and of course what is your source.

What setup which works for one set of speakers may not work for another, so this might mean a retuning of the system.

Please feel free to contact us, we are really good at system matching and tuning. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

Thanks jtcf,  Yeah my room definitely needs some work.

Think about room treatments also.Reflections on hard surfaces and glass will emphasize high frequencies.You can make your own very inexpensively.Experimenting with chair and sofa cushions at first reflection points costs $0.I agree that subwoofers can help take some of the workload off your speakers and smooth things out.