upgrade what

corelli in our over 25 yeas of experience most of these grumbles only require modifications, not throwing out the baby with the bath water. and the 848s are excellent loudspeakers

when we put out a pair of 60k loudspeakers with diamond drivers we had to swap numerous amplifiers till we found magic.

the op has a good set of loudspeakers and amplifier the denon cd player is a weak link 

and swapping loudspeakers doesn't necessarily fix the situation

we take a holistic approach looking at all parts of a setup and many times these small tweaks can take a system to the level the op desires.

Dave and  Troy

Audio intellect NJ

I agree with @corelli that its hard to know if your in the right rabbit hole for your issues,  truth is you won't know until you dive in and dig around a bit.

It pains me to say I also agree with @audiotroy, :( whom I often see as self promoting, but honestly they are not alone, it just feels icky when they do it for profit.  That said they have a lot of knowledge and it costs nothing to speak to them.

Your Denon player is mid-fi relative to your speakers and amp.  I have gone down the DAC rabbit hole a bit starting with a few $ 2K units upgrading them to $ 3K, replacing them with a $ 5K and now am in the way beyond with my DAC.  To my ears I had very much the issues you have, and improving my DAC I could easily pay step by step to diminish the brightness and improve clarity and musicality.

The DAC in your Denon is probably not bad but not equivalent to most stand alone DAC's in the $1-2 K range which is the very least your system deserves.  If you want real hi-fi $2K is about the starting point for a DAC unless you go used.  

The old saying Garbage in is Garbage out, your Denon may not be your only problem but it is part of your problem.  Start with the source, deal with the room later.

@squared80 

+1

Hello Everyone

Thanks to all of you for your advise. Sorry if I haven't responded - I was away because of family matters. I will read all of your posts thoroughly. There is a lot to think about. Thanks again for all of your valuable advise and comments. 

bzawa

Step a) Replace Focal with a Yamaha NS-2000A or Mofi 888

Step b) Replace Rogue Magnum condom with Rotel Michi.

My system sounds pretty good but can be a little bright, forward sounding and sometimes lacks really good instrument separation. I have decent Morror cables and AudioQuest power cords. Just wondering which component would you be looking at to upgrade? 1) Denon 1700NE CD/SACD Player; 2) Rogue "Dark" Magnum lll Integrated Amp 3) Focal Aria 948 Speakers; 4) Two SVS SV2000 Pro Subs. I was thinking of better speakers. Maybe book shelves since I have the 2 subs. Thanks a lot.