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It's been a quite a while since I last posted but I need the circle's exprtise.I've had to give up my home office/listening room to the arrival of a new family member- I have now relocated to the library and since then my system sounds a little too bright and this is the one negative attribute I have always tried to avoid as I am particularly sensitive to it- the irony of it all!Anyway, my speakers are placed in respective corners of the library with french glass doors between them and I suspect they are in large part the culprits for why the treble sounds a little edgy- unfortunately I cannot use any type of room treatment.The room is 20ft long by 11ft wide and the speakers are placed on th far end of room some ft apart and the listening position about 7-8ft away. The system itself consists of:ZU Druids + Mini Method subMastersound Compact 845 SET integrated; this replaced a Cayin 50t which I still own.Musical Fidelity X-Ray v3 cd player + X-10 v3 tube bufferMitchell Hydraulic Reference tuntable with SME 3009 tonearm and Sumiko Bluepoint Special Evo IIIBellari PhonoCables are all Paul Speltz anticablesSince I am reluctant to start swapping out components as the treble brightness occured both with the Cayin and the Mastersound, to some degree confirming that at least part of the problem lies with the room itself, I am considering adding a preamp (for which the Mastersound has an input). In order to deal with the treble edginess, I was looking for a full function preamp with tone controls (yes yes I know, heresy!) and here is where thigns got interesting- there almost no such preamps left in the market. I do want a remote control because of the distance between the system and the listening position and I discovered there are very few choices- most notably I looked at Mcintosh (C45, C46, C2200, and C220), Van Alstine, Rotel, and Arcam (though I have discarded the latter 2 as in numerous instances I have read that they tend a little to the bright side which is the very problem I am trying to overcome).The point is that I was surprised- very surprised. In the very understandable pursuit of sonic purity, ie reducing as much as possible any electronic components that may interfere with the signal, I fear high fidelity may have taken a wrong turn.Room interaction is a fact of life and in most cases our systems have to perform in real world environments, not in dedicated hifi listening rooms that can be treated appropriately.Not only, but as a fairly frequent concert goer (I say that but it's been over a year since I have visited Carnagie Hall or Lincoln Center) half the time the recordings themselves are far from neutral. The more I pondered this issue as I agonize over what to do to solve my specific problem, the less it makes sense to me- yes, hi-end under ideal circumstances is just fabulous but ideal circumstances are not quite common enough to reasonably make me think that the industry has possibly gone too far in one direction. Furthermore, what sounds good in one room might not sound as good in a different one and a minimum amount flexibility even at the cost of a little sonic purity is probably a decent trade-off assuming one likes the overall sound reproduction of the underlying components. In essence I am left with either going for digital room correction/equilization, which is indeed a viable possibility but quite a complicated one, or a handful (literally) of preamps equipped with tone controls just to pull back the treble a tad.In any event, just thought this was an interesting issue and a good way to ask you all what you think I should do- any thoughts in general as a point of discussion or specifically on the preamps I mentioned above would be very very helpful.PLG
Quote from: soundbitten1 on 1 Aug 2008, 07:47 pmIf tone controls were a good idea more manufacturers would have them on their products .Fashion. Trends. The high end audio world is full of it. Kind of like the Automotive world.It's like saying "if 50 MPG were a good idea more manufactures would have vehicles that would achieve it". It's fashion.Sorry to take this off topic pgastone, but this discussion brings up an interesting question. How do all you guys without tone controls deal with brightly mastered recordings? My music collection has a lot of them, and your's probably does too. Makes no difference if it CD or vinyl, all formats suffer from this phenomenon. How do you all deal with it?
If tone controls were a good idea more manufacturers would have them on their products .