The rest of my system is a Luxman 590AX II (class A) and Harbeth 30.2. So for a clearer idea of what I mean by compressed, compare an Emmylou Harris, Nanci Griffith album to Alicia Keys or Diana Krall album (ignoring genre for now). The former sounds flat, bland, the later so alive, open and natural. So I am guessing the former is due to being compressed, as mentioned, the loudness wars, so it was made for listening from FM, cassettes, or cheap record players and I'll have to live with it. I actually have used DBX in a past system, but never liked what it did. I appreciate the suggestion of the Ayre since you have a bluesound also. So, perhaps upsampling like the Ayre does will help? Perhaps an R2R rather then FPGA? Or maybe I'm just trying to just improve (not fix!) something that can't be. Wouldn't be the first time.
