Summits/harshness

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khenegar

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My wife wanted me to play the cd copy of the nutcracker yesterday, and it sounded good until the part when the cymbals came crashing in and it was really harsh, my equipment summits using Audio research LS27, and Bryston 4bst, sanders speaker wire, home made interconnects, Oppo bdp83 DVD/cd player. Room is 11'5" w, 23' l, 8'h carpeted floor, 4 cloth covered recliners , front wall hard, side walls behind speaker some damping , side walls hard with numerous painting, rear wall bow window with Venetian blinds, using corner traps where the ceiling and walls meet. Reverb echo is not bad. Any suggestions well be appreciated. Thanks
 
Pretty much all systems will fall over with certain recordings. Only worry if it seems a common problem over many recordings.
 
Garbage in GARBAGE out.. If its a shitty recording then ML will make it sound worse .. Cross overless in the sweet area has no where to hide..
 
Hola Ken. I had the same thing, using a nice digital gear. Bernard was here when I was having that harsh problem. Its a digital thing. That distortion could be at the copy that you made. Why don´t you check with the original cd, and listen. Jitter is the most common problem. As Dave said, garbage in, garbage out, it has to do with the quality of the recording or the copy of the cd.

I had the Audio Lab MDAC for some time along with the Bel Canto RefLink, which the sound was not too bad, then I did change it for the ExaSound DAC E-20MKIII. With this gear, I do not have any harsh, even with bad recordings that usually I could not stand them, due to that heavy distortion. Right now I am a very happy user of the model E-22 Version 2. Its an experience to have digital sound very enjoyable, where I do not have any harsh at all. I am playing with DSD recordings, native and up-grading to an over 11M sampling rate. I do like a lot what I am hearing or better say listening.

Do your best and get a better digital gear. On these days, you can´t go wrong. A lot of good things have being happened to digital gear in the past four years. Computer audio is getting more popular and friendly to use.
Don´t get me wrong with your Oppo. Its a fine DVD Player and also you can play DSD format as SA CDs. On these days, really worth to invest a little more on your digital devices. At www.computeraudiophile.com you could aks and read about the latest gear, and not too expensive. I do recommend the use of a virtual CD player as Audirvana Plus (www.audirvana.com) , or the HQPlayer by Signalyst (www.signalyst.com).

Happy listening!
 
it sounded good until the part when the cymbals came crashing in and it was really harsh
Could it be that this particular passage caused an mic overload, thereby resulted in a clipped passage recorded onto the CD? There are too many variables coming into play BEFORE the bits are imprinted onto the CD medium, causing the audible harshness. Now, we have to evaluate not just the physical signal chain in the reproduction system, but also the chain of event in the production process as well!
 
Agree with all of the above ^^^

How long since they got a nice vacuum?
 
Summits/harshness

These two words don't go together, look elsewhere for your problem. Unless they've got a fault, but if their charging and not down on spl, it shouldn't be them

Cheers George
 
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My wife wanted me to play the cd copy of the nutcracker yesterday, and it sounded good until the part when the cymbals came crashing in and it was really harsh, my equipment summits using Audio research LS27, and Bryston 4bst, sanders speaker wire, home made interconnects, Oppo bdp83 DVD/cd player. Room is 11'5" w, 23' l, 8'h carpeted floor, 4 cloth covered recliners , front wall hard, side walls behind speaker some damping , side walls hard with numerous painting, rear wall bow window with Venetian blinds, using corner traps where the ceiling and walls meet. Reverb echo is not bad. Any suggestions well be appreciated. Thanks

As MLs are a very tough load (particularly at high frequencies), an amplifier not up to the task will sound terrible. I'm not sure if how the Bryston goes because I've never heard it with MLs, but this could possibly be your problem?
 
My wife wanted me to play the cd copy of the nutcracker yesterday, and it sounded good until the part when the cymbals came crashing in and it was really harsh ...

While it might be upstream of the speakers as others have suggested, I will go with the option that what happened there is a symptom of room overload on that cymbal crash.

Well powered ML's (and yours definitely are) can put out a ton of high-frequency energy, both to the front AND the rear, and at certain frequencies and volume, these can ring due to room dimensions and treatments (or lack thereof).

Before I added the last decades worth of treatment to my room, there were certain passages that just could not be played at volume because it would get really harsh in the high-frequencies. Turn it down a good bit, and it was OK.
Scroll forward a few years, and after extensive acoustic treatments, those exact same recordings could now be played at reference levels and with no ringing. And no change in the upstream gear either.

Most people have no idea just how much acoustic treatment is required to appropriately manage the substantial output a large ESL can put out. And most have rooms like yours, with hard front walls behind the speakers, and if they have treatments (like you) it's generally focused on the modal behavior below the rooms Schroeder Frequency (~300Hz). But the high frequencies are left to bounce around the room unchecked, and when too much of that energy is accumulated, it can and will ring in ways we find quite objectionable.

For the majority of the members of this board (ya'll have nice gear), the number one source of system distortion is your room.
 
I agree with John's comments about the room as well.

I've also found that some songs with certain high frequencies don't sound right at very high volumes in my den, and I feel like I've reached some pretty darn high volumes :rocker:

FWIW, I tried out a Bryston amp out and it sounded perfectly clean to me on my system.
Bryston's are built like tanks and come with the longest warranty I've ever heard of.
I don't remember if I tried the 4bst or another 4 series, but I could find no fault with it.

(Then again, I've been told my opinion is next to worthless, lol)
 
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"it sounded good until the part when the cymbals came crashing in and it was really harsh,"

This sentence of the OP, tells bit. As the problem seems to be up very high where the ML's can present a load of 1ohm to the amp, I would seriously be looking in that area of the amp, if it can remain stable at those impedance's.

Cheers George
 
"it sounded good until the part when the cymbals came crashing in and it was really harsh,"

This sentence of the OP, tells bit. As the problem seems to be up very high where the ML's can present a load of 1ohm to the amp, I would seriously be looking in that area of the amp, if it can remain stable at those impedance's.

Cheers George

My brother drives ascents with a 4bsst. No problem. But the Bryson is certainly not a warm amp. I have read that the 4bsst is a bit smoother than the 4bst. But that is relative. What is the exact recording and passage you speak of? What label... orchestra etc. maybe someone has it and can listen.
 
My brother drives ascents with a 4bsst. No problem. But the Bryson is certainly not a warm amp. I have read that the 4bsst is a bit smoother than the 4bst. But that is relative. What is the exact recording and passage you speak of? What label... orchestra etc. maybe someone has it and can listen.

+1!! John, right on brother!!
 

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