[westyjeff]

I noticed a big difference with my M3’s between my Hypex amps and my EL34 tube based amp, the tubes brought the shrill highs down. My room measures basically flat.

[soundapprentice]

Good idea. I'll try my PL E34s to see. From what I read the 150s are supposed to give more highs and lows with slightly less mids...but mostly more bass.

I just ordered some 1" hockey pucks to put under the front feet for 1" more of tilt. thanks all.

I do think this will improve with more time but I don't think more breakin will get this tamed as much as desired. I'm excited to try these suggested changes but something tells me it is the PL int. amp....maybe not.

I had the PL DiaLogue Premium HP Integrated for many years. I ran the stock EL34, Gold Lion KT77, New Production Mullard KT88, and Tung Sol KT120, among various 12AU7s. I didn't try the KT150, but I did in a different amp, and wasn't overjoyed with it. In my PL amp, I ultimately used new Gold Lion 12AU7s and Mullard KT88s. This combination gave me the most organic sound I could get out of it, which I do agree that the PL leans toward the brighter side. KT120 was very bright, sibilant, and U-shaped sounding. KT77 was a nice improvement over the stock EL34, but the KT88 had a nicely balanced voicing and had the best bass performance.

[sockpit]

I guess I'm going to commit heresy and say that as an early adopter (Jan '20) of the original design of the M5s with two years of hours on them, I find them to be on the bright side. Now I'll readily admit this could be a function of my 10 by 14 listening room (my listening position is very constrained with the speakers 3.5 feet out, and I'm more or less near-field), my ear/brain (ironically I have significant high frequency hearing loss), or my taste in sound (which tends on the warmer side).

I've spend a lot of money trying to take the edge off the top end and get a more balanced presentation top to bottom. I bought anti-cables speaker wire first (nice wire, but it reinforced my skepticism about wire and cable being able to change fundamentals), then a whole new amp (because I had convinced myself the old one, no slouch, was to blame), then extensive GIK room treatments. The last was a good investment.  The first two were too hasty.  No big regrets but if you're on a budget you might see things differently.

My caution to anyone in this situation is, again, not to spend a ton of money (or think cables or power cords are going to make a scrap of a difference) until you've put the hours on them.  If you still find them bright, then say so.

The M-100 driver is a super easy customer capable swap out. Maybe some day Clayton will develop an identical driver for those who like their highs a little less honest. All parties could profit from such an upgrade and people could pick how forward they want their top end to be.

I'd love to hear from Clayton on a related topic.  Those of us that bought our Sapphires before something (resistor, capacitor?) was put into the crossover to protect the M-100 from overextension would appreciate knowing how susceptible our tweeter/mid unit might be to flaming out, and if this is a concern is there an easy fix we could order as a prophylactic?

Thanks.

[doggie]

I guess I'm going to commit heresy and say that as an early adopter (Jan '20) of the original design of the M5s with two years of hours on them, I find them to be on the bright side. Now I'll readily admit this could be a function of my 10 by 14 listening room (my listening position is very constrained with the speakers 3.5 feet out, and I'm more or less near-field), my ear/brain (ironically I have significant high frequency hearing loss), or my taste in sound (which tends on the warmer side).

I've spend a lot of money trying to take the edge off the top end and get a more balanced presentation top to bottom. I bought anti-cables speaker wire first (nice wire, but it reinforced my skepticism about wire and cable being able to change fundamentals), then a whole new amp (because I had convinced myself the old one, no slouch, was to blame), then extensive GIK room treatments. The last was a good investment.  The first two were too hasty.  No big regrets but if you're on a budget you might see things differently.

My caution to anyone in this situation is, again, not to spend a ton of money (or think cables or power cords are going to make a scrap of a difference) until you've put the hours on them.  If you still find them bright, then say so.

The M-100 driver is a super easy customer capable swap out. Maybe some day Clayton will develop an identical driver for those who like their highs a little less honest. All parties could profit from such an upgrade and people could pick how forward they want their top end to be.

I'd love to hear from Clayton on a related topic.  Those of us that bought our Sapphires before something (resistor, capacitor?) was put into the crossover to protect the M-100 from overextension would appreciate knowing how susceptible our tweeter/mid unit might be to flaming out, and if this is a concern is there an easy fix we could order as a prophylactic?

Thanks.

Can you give us some details on your front end and amp/preamp?

[Tyson]

I guess I'm going to commit heresy and say that as an early adopter (Jan '20) of the original design of the M5s with two years of hours on them, I find them to be on the bright side. Now I'll readily admit this could be a function of my 10 by 14 listening room (my listening position is very constrained with the speakers 3.5 feet out, and I'm more or less near-field), my ear/brain (ironically I have significant high frequency hearing loss), or my taste in sound (which tends on the warmer side).

I've spend a lot of money trying to take the edge off the top end and get a more balanced presentation top to bottom. I bought anti-cables speaker wire first (nice wire, but it reinforced my skepticism about wire and cable being able to change fundamentals), then a whole new amp (because I had convinced myself the old one, no slouch, was to blame), then extensive GIK room treatments. The last was a good investment.  The first two were too hasty.  No big regrets but if you're on a budget you might see things differently.

My caution to anyone in this situation is, again, not to spend a ton of money (or think cables or power cords are going to make a scrap of a difference) until you've put the hours on them.  If you still find them bright, then say so.

The M-100 driver is a super easy customer capable swap out. Maybe some day Clayton will develop an identical driver for those who like their highs a little less honest. All parties could profit from such an upgrade and people could pick how forward they want their top end to be.

I'd love to hear from Clayton on a related topic.  Those of us that bought our Sapphires before something (resistor, capacitor?) was put into the crossover to protect the M-100 from overextension would appreciate knowing how susceptible our tweeter/mid unit might be to flaming out, and if this is a concern is there an easy fix we could order as a prophylactic?

Thanks.

Don't even need a new tweeter.  Just put a small resistor in-line with it (or change the value if there's one already in-line).  The resistor determines how loud the tweeter is in relation to the rest of the speaker.

[sockpit]

Audirvana to microrendu to Exogal Comet to LTA z10i.

The Comet is a terrific dac with no rep of being bright. Don’t tell me I need a Lampi or Denifrips or Border Patrol to fix it.



Let me be clear.  On great recordings it’s bliss.

[Rocket]

Hi,

In my experience its probably poor quality recordings that is the issue.  This is the problem that audiophiles face and we usually end up listening to great recordings of classical, jazz and female vocal.

Its not the speakers or your equipment. I wish I had a modwright phonostage .

Good luck.

Cheers Rod

[dallaire1]

Dirac Live comes to mind, that is what I have ended up using until I can get my room fully treated. Night and day difference. Not for everyone I realize, but after endless hours with and without, I'm a believer !! 2db shelf from 3k-5k in my room anyway. As we all know, room conditions can trash a speakers perceived tonal balance that is otherwise spot on.

[dallaire1]

I would also add, I don't think I would recommend the M3's (my speakers) to anyone that was heavily into hard rock. They are so revealing, some of the purposeful distorted guitar amp solo's kill me to listen to, but might sound great on an old school boom box. I have found having a ultra revealing speaker to be a double edged sword. Would I buy them again ? Yup !!

[sockpit]

I agree about old hard rock completely. Better cranked up in the car.

Lucky for me I like jazz, classical, bluegrass, vocals, and all things Charlie Haden.

[forky]

Had some friends over yesterday but didn't listen to any of the "problem" records - which again are 10 or less percent of my collection and what I listen to - probably <2% or less now that I think about it. Please note that on all of these "problem" records, they are still in my top recordings section of my collection. Reason being in the "cleaner" parts of the record, meaning w/o screaming guitars, they sound REALLY GOOD - it is only screaming guitars that is an issue. They are also very highly rated on discogs although I realize those are heavily system and ear dependent. 

That said, Tool - Undertow (promo) and RATM (1st album) sounds almost unbelievably good and both are fantastic recordings and although they do have heavier electric guitar they are still a "cleaner sound" than (most of) Siamese Dream.

Once my room treatment stuff arrives I'll listen to my "problem" recordings and report back.

Brother's amp is here but haven't tried it yet. Same goes for the new preamp tubes.

Most of my listening is to "regular" rock and electronic music like Thievery Corp and K&D along w/ some jazz and jazz funk (Maceo Parker) - but most is "regular" rock like PFloyd, F Mac, Beatles, Dire Straits, Santana, etc.

I even told my buddies this system isn't built for hard rock and if I have to skip listening to some albums or listen to at a lower volume (which I usually have to anyway), I'll live.  but will keep working at this.

[sockpit]

Funny coincidence. I’m by pure chance listening to Tool, The Pot, at high volume and DAMN it sounds good!

I’m thinking so much of my own concerns are just recording quality dependent.

[Mr. Big]

Funny coincidence. I’m by pure chance listening to Tool, The Pot, at high volume and DAMN it sounds good!

I’m thinking so much of my own concerns are just recording quality-dependent.

This is how it is, if the recordings are over-processed, overly compressed, and mixed poorly then the better the speaker the more you will suffer. I have the M3 Sapphires, and then can sound warm and tubie if that is how the recording was recorded say in the '50s, to brighter sounding for recordings in the mid 60's and past, and then compressed sounding with muddy bass with recordings in the '70s, and today overly processed pop music, just flat sounding with lots of bottom end and highs that are forward. So how can any speaker solve these issues to make a poor recording sound decent? Got me there. The same bad recordings sound good in my car audio system as they should because that is the level of quality playback they were made for, not a good high-end audio system. Maybe Clayton will design a new tweeter and offer it for sale for the Saphhires and the other M series that may help on such recordings without hurting the wonderful sound of the hundreds of well-recorded music I own.   

[DannyBadorine]

Funny coincidence. I’m by pure chance listening to Tool, The Pot, at high volume and DAMN it sounds good!

I’m thinking so much of my own concerns are just recording quality dependent.

That Tool record, along with the other last two Tool records sound amazing.  You can thank Joe Barresi, the recording (and sometimes mixing) engineer.  Of course, Tool sounds amazing too.

I really think what you're hearing is the recordings/mixes on record.  It's not easy to get the upper mids of a guitar to have depth.  They are often just pointed and harsh sounding due to how much distortion guitar players use.  And now you have a speaker that is showing this.

[genjamon]

Sockpit, one item to consider is going up the chain with the Sonore products.  When I upgraded from microrendu to ultrarendu, I found ultrarendu much less "thin" and bright sounding than the microrendu.  Much more relaxed sound, more detail and dimensional, and less thin/bright.  Why?  Ultrarendu has much better power regulation.

Also, not sure what power supply you're using with the microrendu, but better quality power supplies definitely bring improvements.  And even more so when it comes to Ultrarendu or Opticalrendu.  In fact, upgrades on the endpoint, server, and network side of things can yield large dividends in taming brightness and digititus in my experience. 

Just something to consider.

[forky]

This is how it is, if the recordings are over-processed, overly compressed, and mixed poorly then the better the speaker the more you will suffer. I have the M3 Sapphires, and then can sound warm and tubie if that is how the recording was recorded say in the '50s, to brighter sounding for recordings in the mid 60's and past, and then compressed sounding with muddy bass with recordings in the '70s, and today overly processed pop music, just flat sounding with lots of bottom end and highs that are forward. So how can any speaker solve these issues to make a poor recording sound decent? Got me there. The same bad recordings sound good in my car audio system as they should because that is the level of quality playback they were made for, not a good high-end audio system. Maybe Clayton will design a new tweeter and offer it for sale for the Saphhires and the other M series that may help on such recordings without hurting the wonderful sound of the hundreds of well-recorded music I own.

Point well taken and agree about the tweeter offerings. I have records that I purchased in 1978 at the age of 8 years old and am now 52. I have around 400-ish records, of those about half are rock and of those probably 20-30 would be classified as hard rock (have a greater % of hard rock w/ cds). Most of my rock records were purchased in the past 7-8 months (but not all). I wasn't even aware of different and better pressings until around September or so and have gone on a mass buying campaign to help drive up vinyl prices further (!).

IIRC I recived my new amp and cd player in late July last year and the first thing I did - and this is before I knew (or it dawned on me) that there are different pressings of albums I pulled out what I thought were my best sounding CDs (about 1k of those). A few were The The - Mind Bomb (one of the first I reached for and it does sound great), DSOTM, Rumours, Rage ATM, S/T and EE, Tool Undertow and a few dozen more.

I started buying and rebuying records in late July of last year and reading online articles of the best sounding records but none of them said anything about pressings. The usual suspects were listed and some I hadn't heard of before. I listened to on youtube (no real streaming) to make sure I liked the actual music).

Then, probably in late August/early Sept, I started reading forums - mostly Steve Hoffman - for forum member's best sounding records. It is then I started noticing pressings mentioned. Before then I was unaware there was more than 1 pressing of DSOTM! And I consider myself a music lover before an audiophile (which I'm really not I don't think - depending on what that definition is) and know more about classic rock band and albums than most anyone I know (but much less than many here or Hoffman). I just didn't know. I didn't even know what Discogs was until August-ish.

That was a whole new world and I dived in head first. I purchased 9 pressings of DSOTM including an A2/B2 that I'm returning to Russia today (sigh), 4 of Animals, 6 of The Wall, 3-4 of each late Beatles, 3 Neverminds (after I purchased the 30 yar ann and found out about pressings, ugh), a few GBYBR, Gaucho, Aja and Nirvana Unplugged and many more.

I spend a lot of time (besides $) researching the best pressings and am very happy  with all of them.

The problem records/pressings mostly have great reviews on S HOffman and/or Discogs but I'm very well aware that their ears and systems are different, some much different than mine. However, for all the trouble makers, they DO sound excellent on the cleaner and mellower songs, it is only when the screaming guitars come in that things fall apart - or rather the opposite, everything is jumbled together from beautifully separated to noise.

Some of the problem pressings are:

AIC / Self-titled (Dog on the Front), original US pressing- again this sounds GREAT - until heavy electric guitars come in. OTOH Dirt sounds like total S*** from start to finish and I have both the original pressing and the MOV repress.
Smashing Pumpkins - Sim Twins and Gish - again both sound GREAT - until things get heavy.
Tool - Anemia - original pressing ($$$) - mentioned in this thread as their worst pressing which I thought was interesting. I need to listen to the CD again but the vinyl does sound very good in the quieter sections but nowhere near Undertow.
Pearl Jam - Vs, original US pressing, again sounds GREAT - until things get busy.
RATM - Evil Empire - original pressing - does not sound as good as their S/T but I'm confident that things will sound better once I make some changes.

This is out of about 120 rock records I have set aside for excellent pressings. There are a few more but the math says <1%. So I can either just not listen to these above 83 db or work on it. Because I really love all of these I'm working on it - esp because before a few days ago I had 0.00 room treatment.

Also, ******because these do (!) sound great all the way through at lower volume I don't think it is the pressings. After all the great posts here (thanks again all) I'm fairly confident the answers are:

1. Room treatment - most important - because my budget got wiped out by all the records and my wife is sick of all the deliveries for now I'm going at this a bit (lot) more half-ass than I usually would but part of that is we're moving next year and I have no idea what that room will be like. I've spent about $400 so far and am going to see what that does and then re-acces. Also don't want to get too crazy for a house we'll be selling within the year. However, the room isn't too bad (except shape) to start with so hopefully I'll get some results w/ what I've purchased. Treating 1st reflections and deflection behind the speakers first.

2. Tweeter breakin. This may take years w a wife who is super sensitive to "noise" but will soundproof the listening room in the next house if not a detached building.

Those are the main two. I'll try my new 12 AU 7s later this week and like the post about KT88s vs. KT150s. Also looking at that and may try some KT88s. If none of these work I'll buy an EQ.

As far as clean power my EMI reader says only 18 plugged into the wall. We have our very own power transformer (I realize power until it gets there may not be great) so I'm less concerned about this. I also am running LessLoss Entropic power cables to the Int amp and phonostage. Still running DH Labs (silver) power cord to the TT. May see if a stock cord makes any difference but I doubt it.

Thanks again for all the great info. Happy to hear more  but this is my plan....which really isn't much of one for break-in I admit. Wife leaves for hair and dr appts a few times pe month and I go straight to 85-90 when she leaves but that is only 4-6 hours per month. That said, I still need to find the older post about reversing polarity or whatever and facing the speakers together w a blanket over. As long as there isn't any noise I'm going to start doing that.

Sorry for any typos, don't have time to proof read today.

P.s. if one is board, most of my good sounding records are here: https://www.discogs.com/user/Cayman964/collection  ,  but not all are good sounding like Dirt. I haven't cataloged the crappy sounding records -well not most of them anyway. Have a top 20 (then another 20 after that and so on) and may start a new thread w/ those at some point.

[forky]

One more note - the 1-Step of JJoplin's Pearl is fairly bright here and isn't hard rock. Also per Discogs I'm not the only one that thinks that (haven't read S Hoffman about this one). I'll probably try that first once I have all my room treatment up.

[forky]

PSS 

I hit on this on my long post above but I really don't think it is the recordings or the tubes or even the amp itself because:

1.for the records: these records sound great (!!!) below 83 db
2. for the amp/tubes: my other records sound great (!!!) up to 95-ish db which is usually as high as my peaks go when the wife has left the building.

I sense that for these recordings - mostly heavy electric guitar, but that isn't the case with Pearl, that when the sound gets "busy" that these certain frequencies are bouncing around at a higher DB and higher pressure (?) and at a faster rate and they start tripping on top of one another. Which to me, with my limited knowledge sounds more like room acoustics than anything - but of course maybe I'm wrong.

I need to take measurements, which of course  I'll do after I install the stuff that I recently bought.

But also maybe at these certain frequencies the new-ish tweeters are having issues "keeping up". Maybe the shrills are around where the crossover is-- but I think they are higher than that.

[Tangram]

95 db: are we talking A- or C-weighted. If A-weighted, that’s pretty loud.
I think it is less about the quality of the recording and more about the content on the recording. At 95 db, a well-recorded trumpet would almost split my head in half. But a 95 db kick drum? Not so much.

[Tyson]

At a certain point the room overloads and causes unpleasant distortion like this.  IME, a quiet room is always better than a lively room, if you want to listen loud.