I've owned the X2.5 and the X-1 and both are near identical in sonics and thought them both to be quite neutral. At least with my line conditioners plugged into them.
I'll guess two possibilities as to what you may be experiencing:
1. Your system's sonic presentation is not properly weighted between the bass and high frequencies. Now with a preamp that allows more of the high frequencies to pass thru, the impression is the presentation is even more unbalanced. You seem to have already alluded that this could be a possibility. And it most likely is the bass that needs beefing up. Again, as you seem to indicate, this may best resolved by different amplification.
And/Or
2. The ics and scs you are now using may be adding much grain, glare, and/or a digital hash. And again, the X2.5 will present more of this. I've owned the AZ Satoris as well as the Harmonic Tech Pro 9's. Same engineering principles, design philosophy, etc.. Not bad cables I suppose. But with the Audience Au24 speaker cables, the improvement were rather tremendous and much of that grain, glare, hash, etc. disappeared.
Essentially, the rest went away when I inserted the Au24 ics. Prior to that I owned Pure Note Epsilon Ref ics which were slightly better than the Harmonic Tech Pro Silway Mk II and Magic Link One ics prior to.
That may well take care of much of your problem. And if you did pursue the Audience Au24 line up, with a little work on your part, you should be able to get all of the Au24s for about the same price you can sell your existing cables.
Or for just a fraction of the price, you can try the new Anti-cables by Paul Speltz. These are easily the best speaker cable I've owned thus far (I've had them for two weeks now) and they only cost $60 for a 6ft pair.
To take care of the rest of any electrical-related issues, you should consider proper line conditioning.
-IMO
I'll guess two possibilities as to what you may be experiencing:
1. Your system's sonic presentation is not properly weighted between the bass and high frequencies. Now with a preamp that allows more of the high frequencies to pass thru, the impression is the presentation is even more unbalanced. You seem to have already alluded that this could be a possibility. And it most likely is the bass that needs beefing up. Again, as you seem to indicate, this may best resolved by different amplification.
And/Or
2. The ics and scs you are now using may be adding much grain, glare, and/or a digital hash. And again, the X2.5 will present more of this. I've owned the AZ Satoris as well as the Harmonic Tech Pro 9's. Same engineering principles, design philosophy, etc.. Not bad cables I suppose. But with the Audience Au24 speaker cables, the improvement were rather tremendous and much of that grain, glare, hash, etc. disappeared.
Essentially, the rest went away when I inserted the Au24 ics. Prior to that I owned Pure Note Epsilon Ref ics which were slightly better than the Harmonic Tech Pro Silway Mk II and Magic Link One ics prior to.
That may well take care of much of your problem. And if you did pursue the Audience Au24 line up, with a little work on your part, you should be able to get all of the Au24s for about the same price you can sell your existing cables.
Or for just a fraction of the price, you can try the new Anti-cables by Paul Speltz. These are easily the best speaker cable I've owned thus far (I've had them for two weeks now) and they only cost $60 for a 6ft pair.
To take care of the rest of any electrical-related issues, you should consider proper line conditioning.
-IMO