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Help me tame the brightness of my Triangles

I bought a pair of Triangle Zerius speakers a month ago, and in some ways they're the most amazing speakers I've listened to. Incredibly open, detailed, fast, and dynamic (as advertised).

But I also find them to be too bright and too hard for my ears, at least with a good amount of my music. I've taken care of the obvious things, like break-in (approaching 300 hours now) and matching with a warm system (Rega planet 2000 cd player, Unison Research Unico integrated amp with Mullard cv4003 tubes). I put little thought into cables .. i'm currently using straight wire rhapsody 2 interconnects and 20 feet of audioquest gr8 speaker cables.

The hardness comes in the upper midrange/lower trebble, typically at high or moderately high volumes, and typically on vocals and guitars. Especially if the recording is at all aggressive. The brightness is just an overall sense of the tonal balance. It seems lighter weight than what I hear in live music. I expect the music to have more weight and roundness (this is why I have the Planet and the Unico to begin with).

I've played with position and toeing in. My room is large (about 16 x26 feet with 10 to 11 foot ceilings). It's slightly bright and splashy, although i believe most of what I'm hearing is the direct sound of the speakers (the tonal balance is the same when I get real close).

I'm wondering about new interconnects .. perhaps cardas. the Quadlinks seem like they'd make the most sense. Any thoughts on this? How big a difference they might make? Would the Cardas Cross cables be unreasonably pricey in this system?

I'm also wondering about tubes. The Unico with the mullards has a wonderful, liquidy midrange, and great transients and dynamics. Are there any tubes that might darken the sound and soften the lower trebble without killing detail, dynamics, transients, and soundstaging?

I suspect most people would find my system sounds more balanced than I do ... my ears seem to be pretty sensitive to brightness and hardness. But it still seems strange that these speakers that everyone seems to like can sound bright even with these other componens I've chosen.

Thank you for any thoughts you might have.
paulraphael

Showing 1 response by stehno

stehno
1,453 posts
 
You don't mention how the bass or lower regions sound. And I don't recall hearing anybody consider the Triangles to be a 'warm' speaker.

Based on what you say above, I'd focus first and foremost on speaker placement and room acoustics. Room acoustics, as they say, can affect the sound you hear upwards of 80%.

This probably is not your problem but Totem makes some 'beakers' that you sit on top of speaker cabinets. I listened to a pair of Totems floorstanders without the beakers on top. The highs were somewhat shrill and beaming and causing a near ear bleed. The saleman then put the beakers on and the beaming stopped instantly.

Apparently, Totem had discovered that the highs like to gather at the top of the cabinet and then shoot straight into your ear and the beakers prevent that gathering from occurring and their subsequent beaming. (or something like that).

I believe they sell the beakers seperately if you think this at all could be contributing to the problem.

Altering the room acoustics may solve most of your problem. But in the end, you may have to switch to a warmer speaker with a soft or silk domed tweeter.

-IMO
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