Smooth treble

It is all to do with waterfall...driver resonance is what messes up treble. Soft domes treated with damping material on the fabric work well.

It is often a fight between on one hand stunning brochure quality frequency response plots versus a not so perfect treble rolled off above 12 Khz. If you let the frequency reponse plot dominate your design choice then you inevitably end up with a metal or very stiff type tweeter and that is how you get a waterfall with resonance.

Most people know as a rule of thumb that soft dome tweeters are smoother than metal ones...now you know why.

I did similar to Saki but for the purpose of changing the sound overall based on what I had heard auditioning various reference systems. I did not find the treble per se on my particular system with SS gear problematic at all though. When it occurred it was usually on certain (soft dome tweeter by chance) speakers with certain recordings in a certain room.

I "ditched" the SS pre-amp only because a) I need a SS power amp to properly drive my speakers and b) I want as few tubes in my system as possible in order to minimize maintenance and c) tubes in power amps are probably the most finicky and expensive.

So you can achieve smooth treble with SS as well of course.

A single tube in a tubed DAC is a good place to start if your issues are mostly with digital sources. Next step would be the pre-amp and finally the power amp if you turn out to be so brave.

What one hears at a live concert is very dependent upon the concert venue and the actual seat.

Dazzdax

Great observation about the transition from low fi to mid fi. It appears to me that a number of speaker companies "pray" on those people, knowing that they will be in awe of the "detail" that speaker reproduces. I own a small shop and have "kissed a number of those frogs". A number of them have big names.
It is sort of like learning about red wine. I was in wine country last fall sampling from a very small grower. He said that the industry has been dominated by wines that are way over the top. He referred to his wines as table wines, meaning those that you would drink with food. They would not over power the flavor of the food.

Interesting observation and one that makes sense. I have tried some wines that at first taste "soooo goood" End up buying a case and then regretting that decision.

Sounds_real_audio,

I don't want to put you on the hot seat, but could you mention some specific brands/products that you think fall into this category?