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What is wrong with my system?

Hi everyone -

I’m posting here because individually I think my components are all good, but together my system is not making music, rather is is making bright bass less noise. Honestly, I’m thinking it’s no one component, but the matching of components that is causing this issue. I would like to get everyone’s opinion as to what I’m hearing. My components are as follows:

B&W 802D (first generation diamond)
Audioquest bi-wired Indigo speaker cables

Classe CAM-200 monoblock amplifiers
Audioquest Water XLR interconnect

Bryston BP26 preamp
Audioquest Water XLR interconnect

Mark Levinson 5100 cd player (PCM slow minimum phase)

thanks in advance.

Mark Levinson 5100 CD player


onehorsepony

Showing 2 responses by invalid

invalid
1,104 posts
 
the importance of room placement.


I doubt room placement is going to fix this problem, it will help a little, but it’s still going to be bright and analytical. I had the same problem as the OP a few years ago, a krell amp and a solid state preamp it wasn’t even listenable. I have a dedicated room and placement didn’t help much. I inserted a tube preamp in the chain and it’s very musical now, I actually think I’ve gained some detail without that bright sound etching at the ears.
invalid
1,104 posts
 
Others have already mentioned this but if that were my system the first thing I would do is try a tube preamp, see how that sounds and go from there.


I would even go a step further and get an octal tube preamp with a tube rectifier. To my ears the octal tubes have a bigger more airy sound than the small signal tubes.
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