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System phenomenon when playing loud

Great Friday Greetings All,

I'm experiencing a phenomenon which I’ve never encountered before.  When cranking some tracks to an admittedly on the loud side level, sometimes the highs and mids become suddenly muted.  Not gone altogether, but very muted.  It occurs like a switch being flipped, no fade-out, it happens in an instant.  My system is:
Triangle Volante 260 speakers 
Parasound JC-1 mono block amps 
Sonic Frontiers Line 1 preamp
Recent purchases are a Panamax power conditioner and a Yamaha Cd-S2100 CD player.  Please note, I have experienced this phenomenon several times before acquiring the conditioner and the CD player, so it’s not those.  Can anyone guess if it’s the preamp, the amps, or the speakers that’s the culprit?
When I turn the volume down, the upper spectrum returns like nothing happened, and I can turn it back up some, but I’ve been shy about going back to the level it was at when the phenomenon occurred.  There are no attendant noises the happen with the suck-out, and there doesn’t appear to be any distortion when playing at that level, and I have listened for it. It’s not like the amps are clipping, audibly.  The tracks that this has occurred on are pretty intense rock tracks.

Puzzled, I think I’ll have a Martini.  Any thoughts appreciated,

Dave
dprincipato

Showing 2 responses by dprincipato

dprincipato OP
53 posts
 
Mike and George, thank you!  Excellent thoughts.  I don’t think it’s the room, but the room is about 15’ wide (speakers are along that wall) by 25’ deep, 9’ ceiling.  No treatments on the walls (yet), outside of normal pictures and other furniture.  It’s important to note that this high frequency suck-out happens in an instant.  Not gradual at all.  And it happens in both channels simultaneously.  Thanks for asking that question!  This leads me to believe that the problem may lay in the preamp or, as George mentioned, the speakers’ crossovers.  I would have never thought of the possibility of iron core inductors getting saturated.  Thanks George!  
In any case, I’m having a wonderful time testing the outer limits of this phenomenon.  It seems that, at least in this early exploration, that this happens, once, when the system has been running, at a good substantial volume (82 on the Line 1, and I do know this is an arbitrary, subjective number, given all the components) for a longer period (about 2 hours at least this evening), the phenomenon isn’t reoccurring.  
Spoke too soon, just happened again.  It occurs in both channels simultaneously, I think it’s got to be the preamp or the inductors, not the amps, given that they are mono blocks.
dare I start digging into the Triangle’s crossovers?  Not tonight.  Too many tunes to listen too!

thanks Dudes!

Dave

dprincipato OP
53 posts
 
Much thanks, George!  I’m imagining that the hard part will be determining the value of the inductors.  Unfortunately, in my experience, they don’t often have a handy label on them when factory installed.  
Last night as I played with volume levels, I could find the point where the phenomenon occurred, back off a bit, bring the volume back up, etc.  I discovered that the phenomenon did have a fade in/out, not quite the “flipped switch” I described earlier.  But the fade was very quick, just as I’m imagining the saturation effect might be.  
Much thanks guys!
Dave
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