The question you pose isn't as easy to solve as just buying a new amp. The other guys have already addressed several issues. Part of your difficulty is the fact that you have a pair of monitors that don't go very deep, and this relative lack of deep bass tends to make the upper-mids and highs stand out. Adding a subwoofer may make things seem smoother, but infact will simply be balancing the overall frequency response of the system. I have owned several Adcom amps, currently have a Bryston 4B-ST, and have extensively auditioned a number of other high quality solid-state amps. The Bryston is not, infact, bright. It is exceptionally revealing and neutral, and will point out deficiencies or problems in other areas of the system. There are several things I suggest you try: audition a tube amp in your system; trying some acoustic room treatment to see if that takes the edge off the brightness; add a subwoofer to get a wider freqency response in your system; get a pre-amp that has controls that will let you do some tonal adjustments. If all else fails, you might try a good 30-band parametric equalizer in your system.
Help me find a smooth solid-state amp?
I'm currently in the market for a *smooth* solid state amp (~100-150wpc into 8ohms) to mellow out an exceedingly bright system. I currently have an Adcom GFA-5400 with Adcom preamp and Soliloquy 5.0 monitors. Front end is a Pioneer DVD/CD player. Any suggestions as to what brands I should check out? Names off the top of my head include: Aragon, Classe, Bryston, and McCormack. I'm not too sure of the actual models I should try out. I'm also not averse to buying used items. Thanks. dd