Reference 3A Decapo "i" sounds shrilly

Good Day: I have a pair of these speeks as well. I found them bright as well. To tweek this I did a few things, firstly I had installed a pair of resisters onto the tweeter. I can't remember the value of them but you can contact the manufacturer and they will be glad to help as they did for me. The other thing I did was change my speaker cable to Cardas Golden reference bi wire. This helped as well, perhaps the previous cable was on the bright side. This is one of the downfalls with switching speakers because you end up changing things to compensate for them. Be patient these speakers are fabulous! you just have to tweak your set up. Let me know how you make out.

Mike Fraser
mikef@alpalumber.com
p.s. they may take up to 300 hours to break them in. Once broken in they will sound better.

Acoustics in the Room.... Bottom line I have had shrilly sound and very thin sound, make sure you have a full wall behind the listening position and the Speakers, Sidwalls are not that important, actually the further away the better getting rid of direct reflection and adding body to the sound on the outside of the speaker as well as between them, I recommend no closer than 2 feet to sidewalls if at all possible. Your room if in the wrong configuration or even not very well acoustically treated( via, carpet, wood(not too much glass and windows) etc.) then you will never get best results, many have complained of this problem with a Monitor of any sort between your speakers as well due to the reflections off it, so big screens can be a deterent as well.

I have moved shrilly speakers into other rooms onto full walls with nothing deflecting sound down the side walls and they sounded almost like the tweeter and upper midrange were cut out! So its simply possible you just have a bad environment. I would not be so quick to dump cables or electronics in or out of the mix, you seem to have pretty well regarded to the slight side of warm equipment(accept maybe the siltech stuff). Good luck, but move them first it works substantially if you find where they need to be placement wise in the first place.

I have the "i" version of these speakers with a Cayin A88-T integrated . They definetly are not bright !
I am using Z Squared au/au Top I/c's on a Granite 657 CDP .
I lost a little bit of sparkle on the top end as compared to my Soliloquy's , when I switched. I am not sure if that sparkle is attributed to a coloration by the Sol's or what . I only have @135 hrs. on them and I really like the sound .
I am using some 8th Nerve room treatments in a small , 10 X 10 , room .
FWIW , I don't think that it is your speakers either .
Good luck .

The sound is shrill to the point of listener fatique and dissapointment. Is it my cables, the amp/speaker combo, the speakers? I'm confused and frustrated. Any suggestion?

I sold mine and bought a pair of Melin TSM-MX. No more fatique and much better mids.
My 2$
Bryan

I heard the DeCapo I at a dealer, using a tube amplifier which was unknown to me. I found the speaker to have a bass response which was surprising to me for its size, a seductive (although I am not sure how smooth it was) midrange and highs which I felt ranged towards the soft and lush rather than brilliant and shrill. I would suggest swapping out the Siltech cable temporarily, as silver cable tends to be bright. You could try a very inexpensive cable such as Kimber PBJ between CD player and amp. I find that the connection between CD and preamp usually doesn't require an ultimate megabuck interconnect anyway. If you don't get any improvement, consider a temporary change in speaker cable A good choice for speaker cable is Kimber 4TC. Borrow these, if possible or buy (and possibly resell) at a good price so you don't lose money if you have to resell. Whether these cables will match your system perfectly, I can't tell you, but if the problem is your current cables, this test should tell you.

I somewhat agree with those who suggest you look at placement and room issues. This could be a problem, but as you describe the problem as something which seems quite severe, I am tending to look elsewhere. I agree with making sure that the speakers are not pointing at you, but at (imaginary) persons sitting on either side of you. As reported earlier, if the toe-in of the speakers is not correct, this is one way in which you can get the results which you are currently experiencing.