How to tame brightness

I agree with the post from Duke as well. I have a pair of Aerial 7Bs and was having the same problem with too much brightness. I tilted my speakers back at first by just putting a couple of 1" wood blocks under the front feet of my speakers. This made a substantial difference and really help the tonal balance. I also ended up getting rid of my upsampling dac and purchased a nos tube dac, now this really fixed the issue. Good luck!

I also agree with Duke's suggestion to felt the tweeters. Just go to any fabric store and pick up some felt and double sided scotch tape. You can choose a color to match the speakers.

Carefully cut a hole slightly larger than the tweeter and apply it to the speaker. You can then add additional pieces, layering the felt until you reach the sweet spot in terms of what you want to achieve.

Completely and fully customizable sound in terms of what you are looking for at a cost of around $6 to $7.

I've done it. It works. If it doesn't, you're not out very much.

I picked off 2 30" by30" by 2" buchter blocks for $10 each at an auction and put them under my paradigm60v5's,put a piece of carpet on the wall and made sure all 4 speaker feet were footed well on the block,and use a level on top of the speakers and a ruler to exactly match tweeter height on both.For almost no $ nice upgrade and less harsh,wider sound.

Try different toe in, more,less, loudspeaker may have a on axis peak in response this could reduce it. Also address room acoustics if you have not, might but be a reflection off side wall floor etc.

I agree with attacking the acoustics first since this is where a smart 'file begins the quest to get great (best) sound. If you can take the brightest sounding system/room and turn it into a dull mush by overdoing sound treatment, then your happy medium obviously lies somewhere in between. If you have slap echo, you're gong to have bright sound. Start with the 1st reflections then the room tri-corners where slap echo lives.

While I agree that felt is a good thing because diffraction sucks, diffractions usually affect imaging more than anything else.