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Broke and still not happy

I like new country and good old rock & roll. My system sounds sterile, flat sounding,not musical and harsh in the highs.I have been playing bass guitar in the same band for 35 years for a living,I think I know what music is suppose to sound like. This is my gear.
Sonic Frontiers Line 1se,Classe Cam 200s,North Star Design Dac&Transport,Sonus Faber Cremona Auditors,Rel sub.Cables are balanced Nirvana SL pre to amps,Nirvana SL to speakers and Nirvana SX from source. Vibrapods under everything but amps. Echo Busters.HELP
gellis1
jeffga
89 posts
 
I would suggest a tube amplifier. Consider an ARC VT100 or SF Power 2. I experience the same feeling from time to time and it almost always goes back to crappy digital recordings. It is amazing how bad most popular music is recorded. In fact, the better the equipment, the worse it will sound (to me). Only the best recordings and audiophile "weanie" recordings are listenable. Perhaps you should go back to vinyl. What you are describing sounds like source problems. Your digital gear is quite good.
dsiggia
54 posts
 
I wouldn't look past the tubes in your pre. You may have some tubes that don't work well in the preamp and/or sounds like the ringing sound could be microphonics.
xiekitchen
819 posts
 
Get rid of the active preamp and get a passive. Experiment with cables, try some Cardas Golden Cross and Cardas Golden power cords.
Amps like Mark Levinson would make it worse..
Try out an amp like Rogue 88 or Air Tight...
I myself have walked into some shops and heard extremely expensive systems, only to feel that they were sterile and dry, lacking body warmth and maybe even a little too clean.
wellfed's avatar
wellfed
690 posts
 
Xiekitchen, I don't know if you can get too clean. But you can have clean without involvement in my experience.
royy
148 posts
 
Dsiggia.... might be right. I have a Sonic Frontiers Line 2 preamp and I noticed that it's very picky on the tubes that you use. Try replacing the first 4 tubes with cheap match quads JAN-Philips 6922 from tubestore.com and a pair of 6H23n-EB for the rear.
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