Warm vs Revealing—the struggle for balance

@w123ale as I read your original post I was nodding my head yes.As you already see you definitely aren't alone. I'm at the point myself where I know my room needs a little more help but my overall satisfaction is 90+% with how the music sounds.I don't want to replace anything and throw off the balance. I just replaced my CDT reluctantly expecting the worst, days or weeks of tweaking.Big sigh of relief when it fit right in and was an improvement.

There is no question that this struggle is frustrating but a couple of things you might want to consider:

1. At least you understand the struggle and the sought after solution -if there is one.

2.Given that the recording engineers that are involved in the recording process for the material you are listening to are also afflicted with which is best and that confusion likely manifests itself in the recordings you listen to--i.e. one is too subdued without enough detail and definition and the next is waaaaay too sharp/harsh but with a lot of detail.  

 I am going to suggest that no one system is enough to deal with these two issues since there is no consistency from one recording to another. What you are doing is very good for the economy if not good for your personal economy but I wonder if there is any one system/combination of components that is going to be pleasing from one  recording to another.

3. I just bought a Van Morrison recoding and hands down it is the worst recording I have ever heard-there is no system that could fix this recoding. I have reached a point where I wonder if some recordings are presented with the thought in mind that a re-mastered and better version can be sold next year. Top flight performers and their recoding companies can afford the best engineers and likely already have the best equipment but yet some of the recordings offered are unlistenable.

We talked about this earlier in the forums. Get yourself an equalizer from Schitt. It inserts between the preamp and amp and adds a nice way to adjust tone without a negative impact on the sound quality. Then you might be able to dispense with other expensive tweaks. It has been positively reviewed.

Once you settle on which kind of sound, warmer or cooler, pleases you the most, you just have to keep experimenting with different gear before you can finally achieve true audio satisfaction.  Just that simple.