Is my new amp TOO GOOD?


I recently took advantage of the McIntosh Upgrade program.  I traded my MA352 integrated hybrid for the C2800 tube preamp + MC462 ss power amp.  I have a large room with Revel Studio 2 speakers (with beryllium tweeters), and two SVS subs.  I also have some room treatments on the walls.   

I traded up because I wanted to see if I could more detail with the extra watts while keeping the tube sound I like.  

So now I have much more detail, but its sometimes too much.  Higher frequencies - like high pitched loud vocals, and some of the detail now sounds almost like static.  If I turn the volume way up I can hear that its another guitar or a background vocal.

I have turned the treble down from -1 to -4, and I can't listen at 90 db all the time.

Does anyone have any suggestions about adjusting the eq/

 

mojo771

@mojo771 

I’m wondering if it’s the tweeter in your speakers. Years ago I bought a Hegel H390.  I then bought KEF Reference 5 speakers, partly because Hegel used them at trade shows. When all was said and done, for me it was an awful paring! The metal Q drivers made listening almost painful and relatively low levels. I then bought a pair of PS Audio Mono blocks with a tube input section And a PS audio signature preamplifier also with a tube input section. The KEF speakers sounded better, but still were too bright.  About a year and a half ago, I went back to paper and silk drivers and bought Sonus Farber speakers. I can now listen at whatever level for however long I want. 
I’m not familiar with Revel speakers.  What are the midrange drivers made of and what are the crossover points?

All the best.

After everything is nicely run in there is one more important way to control HF.  Speaker rake (speaker tilt front to back) is a very effective way to add or decrease the amount of treble you hear.  Enjoy your new equipment!  

I have the Mc462 and a c53 and they are not super bright or etched or whatever you're hearing there. They're actually really neutral. Your room is probably bright or the speakers themselves. Running your set up with treble at -4 indicated there's an issue imo. You can download a free app like RTA analyzer and set your tone controls to neautral and play a few songs and you can see in real time if the treble in the room is tipped up or not and at what frequencies. If you use Roon you can then adjust it very finitely to trim down whichever frequencies are unusually bright. 

I fall into the break in crowd. I bought a very nice (to me) new solid state amp, and it took a well over 100 hours to break in. I pretty much just let the streamer play for days on end. Your tube gear probably needs more than that.

It really didn’t sound good at all straight out of the box. Give it time and don’t fuss with anything else like placement for a while.

My gosh this was a substantial upgrade. Integrated probably blended all your frequencies together versus separates that are substantially better.

My guess is it’s bringing out the speakers you have maybe in a different way. Maybe better maybe worse but your hearing them differently.

And the subwoofers probably need a lot of tuning because if they’re off probably the trebles gonna be impacted. I have gain settings on my amplifiers and when I adjusted them it reduced the trouble sound from the speakers. But I would avoid adjusting your treble so aggressively because you’ve really reduced it and I would focus on other areas.

Basically you’re hearing your speakers differently because the components you have are outstanding. I’m not a big fan of bell tweeters because they are very revealing and kind of annoying. I don’t even like the diamond tweeters I use on my Bowers speakers. So I’m thinking about sonus faber. Sometimes revealing may not be such a good idea for comfortable listening. 

Try different music because now you’re hearing the recording quality a lot better and because of this I am now very disturbed by the poor quality of most of the things I’m hearing because the engineers didn’t do a very good job sadly but I live with it but it does make even a bad recording sound better it’s just I’m noticing them more. Which is why revealing speakers can have their problems.

Final point, 90 dB is very very loud and approaches a danger zone and I'm not sure how big your room is. I would lower the volume and get used to lower volumes for your hearing health. You should be able to handle less volume now that you have a more revealing system.