B&W 703 - How to tame the highs?

I also have 703's and I'm experiencing the same problem as the original poster.

For certain types of music that don't involve too much high frequency information these speakers play wonderfully. A good example would be Eva Cassidy's Live a Blues Alley. For other recordings such as any Rock album that involves wailing guitars the music just starts to hurt the ears after couple of songs.

When it comes to using these speakers for HT purposes, I honestly can't find any fault - even if I try. It makes me wonder if designing speakers to reproduce movies and music requires a compromise in one to benefit the other.

But getting back to the original topic, I'm thinking of giving a pair of 805's a listen to see if their top end is smoother. I think the 703's are clinically revealing as opposed to musically revealing, that's how I justify the day&night difference the present on movies vs music.

I'm well aware of the loudness wars but since we can't change the recordings, there really aren't a whole lot of options to chose from.

A few options that come to mind are:

1) Re-purchase the bulk of my CD collection in vinyl since vinyl recordings tend to be mastered better. This option would probably be the costliest and would re-add a degree of manual labor back into the listening experience.

2) Change the type of music I listen to. Not likely to happen as I grew up listening to the popular music of the 70's, 80's and 90's which was mainly Rock.

3) Treat the listening environment. This option depending on the degree of treatment necessary and the quality of the job you want to do can vary from something trivial to something that requires great effort, time, research and cost.

4) Change the equipment connected to your speakers and/or change your speakers. This is probably the most commonly explored option when things start sounding bad