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I'm depressed, my system hurts my ears.Please help

I've been enjoying my stereo for quite some time now, but my latest component addition is hurting my ears. My system is as follows:

Music Hall CD25 CD player
McIntosh MC2105 amp (30 year old amp)
Joseph Audio RM22si signatures
Signal Cable Analog 2 interconnects
Kimber 4TC biwired speaker cable
Denon AVR1700 HT receiver as preamp

With the Denon the system sounded pretty good, but it was the obvious weak link, and was actually performing its own unnecessary A to D to A conversion). I swapped the Denon for a Creek OBH12 passive. I added the Creek because in my careful, volume leveled comparisons of the Denon compared to no pre at all, no pre was much cleaner and more natural (I an use no pre because amp has volume knobs).

So I put in the Creek passive to keep that clarity along with switching and an easy volume control, but now I can't sit in the sweet spot of my speakers and listen, because my ears start to hurt at volume levels that used to be just fine. Is this clipping due to an impedance matching problem? Is this just me receiving the full spectrum of the sound and my ears can't handle it? I remember having a similar problem with a very nice car stereo I installed, it sounded very good but always hurt my ears compared to my worse sounding older car stereo.

I almost wish I had never started down the audiophile path, this is depressing. It's tough to do swapping style comparisons because once my ears start hurting, any music will make them hurt until they have a chance to recover. Any suggestions would be most appreciated.
matt8268
matt8268 OP
92 posts
 
Thanks for all the suggestions. One thing I should reiterate is that the sound is not necessarily bad, but that it literally hurts my ears. Like it is too loud (resonating) at certain frequencies, probably midrange. Midrange resonations I believe are super unpleasant because human ears use these frequencies to speak to each other, so they're the most sensitive.

It's so hard to believe that this is because my system is now so transparent that I can't handle it, and that cables alone could fix the problem. I'm willing to try, just don't know an easy way to try out lots of cables. I may also experiment with the room treatments suggested.

Thanks for your suggestions,
Matt.
subaruguru
1,353 posts
 
Really sounds like additive room reflections in the upper midrange. Very carefully check out first reflection absorption (pillows, carpeting, stuffed furniture). Use a good test disc with 1/3 octave warbles and notice the change in loudness as you move your head back and forth and forward/backward. You'll be surprised at how much the upper mid (500-1200 Hz) stuff will change. Find the sweet spot that doesn't hurt and isn't too far off the vertical axis of your drivers. Hope this helps.
newbee
4,093 posts
 
matt, your creek could well be just allowing you to hear your CD player for the first time. CD players are notorious for producing unpleasant upper midrange glare etc. Thats one reason why so many folks prefer tubes in their players or preamps. I am also suspect of the Kimber cable, i've always found Kimber to be on the bright side. But before you start spending a lot of bucks i would try playing with the toe in of your speakers. Many speakers sound too bright if pointed straight at you. If they are pointed straight ahead you could have excessive wall reflections. Using your head a a 0 degree starting point i would rotate them up to 25 degrees in both directions. I ended up with mine crossed in front of the listening position when i did this.
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drubin
3,240 posts
 
I wrestled with a similar problem when I owned Avalon speakers. I felt exactly the same despair about the whole audiophile thing--why did I do this? I thought something was wrong with my hearing, had hearing tests, read a lot of stuff on the Internet, etc. For whatever reason, that problem seems to have largely disappeared, though so have the Avalons.

There are certain frequencies that seem to overload my ears with many systems and even with live music. Vibes, for example, and classical soprano vocals. (I think it all dates back to the drum solo during a free Poco concert in Washington D.C. in 1970, but that's another story.) In any event, my advice is to be patient, remove the pre-amp for a while to get relief, then put it back in a few weeks from now and see if your ears still hurt. Experiment gradually, don't panic, and don't be discouraged.
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
There is another cheap solution to acquire Musical Fidelity X10 tube buffer for your CD-player. Despite adding extra pair of interconnects this unit realy brings lifeless digital components with CDs together to the life.

I believe in your situation you simply experience "digital sickness syndrom" that I used to have not a long while ago thus transfered my collection almost entirely to vinyl. As to this X10 unit it realy brings digital playback to life since I heard in ensemble with vintage NAD CD-player.

It is well known that re-locking errors, lack of resolution brings very unpleasant audiable waveforms onto the wide-band amplification components that can affect upper mid-range, high freequencies and even but not to the significant level bass. Your new passive Creek tend to reveal everything good and bad so the solution is to improve the source at first.

Also you can try to get high quality DAC such as Bel Canto DAC1 that can also someway cure DSS.

As to my digital setup I have a very good transport with relatively mediocre DAC. It doesn't produce any fatigue freequencies to me but I admit sounds cold. For now I only care about analogue and digital setup will probably be for the separate system(bedroom).
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