Audio Research pre-amps?

I doubt the ARC pre-amp is the issue.

Can you adjust the position or orientation of the speakers so tweeters do not fire as directly at listening position? That would be an easy tweak to reduce brightness.

Or if tweeters are at ear level currently, try lowering the speakers, and use shorter stands if that helps. Try them on just a few inches above teh floor even with anything underneath them to make that happen just as an easy test.

I had similar brightness issues with my Triangle Titus speakers in my wifes sunroom at ear level. I moved them to low stands just a foot or so above floor and that fixed that.

I run other speakers in other rooms off the same source system, and no brightness issues there, so my input is that room acoustics, speaker location/orientation relative to listening position is always the first and often easiest thing to address before changing anything.

Its true a good tube pre-amp should be a step in the direction of more warmth and perhaps less brightness, but that alone is not a guarantee.

I use an ARC sp16 in front of the Triangle Titus speakers that I have had brightness issues with those speakers (not others off same rig) in some rooms/cases even with the tube pre-amp.

The sp16 is quite detailed and only the slightest bit warm to the point of making it hard to distinguish as a tube device compared to other good SS gear.

Other tube pre-amps likely tend towards a warmer tube like sound, but not the ARC sp16. ARC in general is known more for factors other than "warmth" I would say.

I am not a fan of the unnatural coloration too much warmth adds to certain recordings in certain genres in particular.

The best SS and tube gear tend to sound similar IMHO and not overtly warm, nor bright either, with the right setup to go along with it. ARC gear in general (VAC also) seems to reside firmly in that camp, especially in comparison to some other tube gear I have heard.

Rhljazz,

I use my sp16 mainly with Bel Canto ref1000 monoblock amps and my larger OHM Walsh speakers.

I would say the bass with combo is lean, but mean as well. :-)

Everything seems there and controlled and articulate and detailed. The absolute lowest octave might have a slight rolloff, but nothing of real consequence I would say.

Overall, by far, it is the best combo of quality and quantity of bass I have ever had, and no other reference systems I have heard in recent years make me feel lacking at all in regards to bass.

I have had some other amp/pre-amp combos in there that shook the rafters more easily, but that was mostly a quantity versus quality thing.

I'm sure there are other better pre-amps than the sp16 specifically, but it is hard to fault on its own terms I would say and at its price point.

I noticed a huge total change in the bass towards what I have today when the Class D amps came in. Much more open, dimensional, articulate yet powerful than anything I used prior.

The ARC/CLass D combo is most likely to come off as "bright" with some speakers that might come off that way overall normally, like the small Triangle Titus speakers I mentioned above. These are by far the most limited speakers I use with teh combo in terms of flat bass extension. Not much below 50 hz there. So things tend to come off as brighter in their case in egenral I would say compared to my larger and more extended OHMs or even my only slightly larger Dynaudio COntour 1.3mkII monitors, which do a good job down to 40 hz or so.