Lack in harmonic richness

First of all, let's eliminate the SoundLab A1's as the problem. The most important thing to me in a music system has been to render the space and harmonic overtones. And the SoundLab A1's like the big Maggies do this incredibly well. However, the SoundLabs are far far more resolving of low-level detail. If anything, the A1's are now bringing through even more of the sterile sound that you have described.

The big SoundLabs have a goofy impedance curve which makes them not a good match with solid state amplifiers. This has been covered here multiple times by A'gon members Atmasphere, Audiokinesis and others.

Since you describe your problem also with the Dunlavy speakers, I would tend to focus ALL your attention on the preamp. Time and time again I have found the preamp (line stage) to be the make or break link in a system when it comes to portrayal of space, decays and harmonic information. I have dismissed far too many preamps and line stages over the last 25 years because they failed this test miserably.

Shadorne is not correct about the A1's needing help with a subwoofer. These speakers go way down to the low-mid 20hz range with A LOT of low frequency energy if driven by the correct amps. The A1s move a lot of air. JGH's reference speaker was the A3 - a much smaller version of the A1.

A subwoofer will do nothing to bring back the truncated decays and harmonic overtones most likely being clipped off at the line stage level.

John

On the other hand, I have never heard instruments "bloom" in the concert hall.

That's interesting as I was in Carnegie Hall in April and
even up 20 rows or so, the piano had tremendous bloom. I can only dream of having that sound in my room; but after a beer or two, it starts getting closer and closer.

The idea of inserting any kind of EQ will only destroy more of the harmonic information. Such a device resolves issues with tonal coherency ..... it has NOTHING to do with retrieving the dimensionality aspects, decays and bloom in the music.

I tried this game with the Rives device. Oh yes, it resolved bass peaks but it clipped dynamics and removed details in the music that I had worked so hard to bring through. Two well-respected A'gon members both told me not to do this but the curiosity got the best of me. It might be fine in some cases, but if you are after the 3D and bloom like VERY FEW systems out there can pull off, any kind of EQ is NOT going to work. And it will cost you serious money in an additional IC and PC with such a device before you can appreciate the value of the EQ in bringing on tonal coherency. But ultimately, you need to resolve this with room treatments, speaker placements and not get caught up in the "synergy" game where you add one tonally imbalanced cable to match that of another with opposite flaws.

Chris, if you have much bass energy from the A1s, pull them out into the room another meter or so. This reduced bass peaks significantly for me. I keep the A1s near the side walls and this works mighty fine. Speaker rotation does not make much difference as the image is very good all across the listening position.

Once you get the bass more in control (coherent with the mids/trebles), do me a favor and borrow a tube line stage from a dealer. This will be a major mind-opening experience. Try any of the mid-top-tier Aesthetix, VAC, BAT, Lamm, CJ and you will hear it. Once you find one that really impresses you, you can roll tubes (as Paul wrote above) to bring on yet another level of performance over the typical stock EH and Sovtek tubes.

One other thing: Time and time again as I have played with ICs in the system, the MOST critical cable link is from line stage to amp when it comes to getting that harmonic information through. I don't care what people say about putting the "best" IC at the front of the chain. Put everything you have in an IC in that link and let me know what you hear. The Purist Dominus, Stealth Indra, Jade Hybrid are all ICs that will make a MAJOR difference here with your quest for harmonic detail.

Chris, you have some top-notch products here. Don't mess things up with band-aid solutions.

John