Getting rid of harsh, shrill treble


I cannot play my classical cd's at a volume where the midrange and bass come through without harsh, shrill treble, especially the violins. I have bookshelf speakers on stands and subwoofer in a small 120 sq. ft. room. I have no treble control on my pre-amp. I tried a Taddeo passive Digital Antidote II between my CD player and pre-amp with minimal result. I have a solid state integrated amp, will switching to a tube integrated amp cure this problem or is it my speakers?
classical_fred

Showing 1 response by rja

I think Rodargent has a very good point. The treble on some CDs is extremely shrill and after all this time I still think, what the hell's wrong with my stereo and get pretty disappointed with the sound. Then I put on a well recorded CD and ahhhhhh.... So there are Cds that for me at least are almost unlistenable. Unfortunately I like the music on some of those bad sounding CDs.
So a lot of this problem can be software based. Of course, if the treble is always harsh then you probably have a hardware problem. A bad CD on such a system can leave one seeking shelter and give you a negative attitude about audio in general.
Reasons IMO some CDs sound bad is the technology used to record them in the first place. Recordings made when tubes were just going out and being replaced by early solid state can be harsh. Also early DDD digital recording can sound nasty but with no tape hiss:^). Authentic classical instruments (which I like a lot) recorded either way can sound extra harsh.
Classicalfred, have you noticed some of these problems with recordings of specific eras? Also you might want to audition some tube buffer stages, preamps or CDPs with tube output stages and/or warmer cabling.