How to fix my detailed, accurate but BRIGHT system

Thank you for your posts. I will try to find some time to post some pics of my room. I think you will then see why I can't do treatments. I have tried a couple of experiments that have taught me alot about what sound I am looking for. First of all with TVADS advice, I tilted my speakers up by placing 3/4" footers under the front spikes. This mellowed out the harshness from the upper mids and highs alot, but still too bright for me. Second experiment was to by a Yaquin Tube buffer which I placed between my pre and dac. This completely changed the sound. The sound evened out with much more base, more lower midrange and a much warmer, smoothed out presentation with a nice amount of decay. Now, grant you this buffer rolls off the highs a bit, softens up the base and takes away some detail. But, it gets me much closer to the warmer more anolog sound I seek. The third thing I did, again as an inexpensive test is picked up a Play Station 1, $10.00. This was to take my dac out of the system which I believe may be, as someone suggested above a big part of the problem. I didn't expect the PS-1 to sound near as good as it did. I see why people like them. It does lack alot of detail, even more than adding the buffer, so it's ultimately not for me. My conclusion "so far" is that I like the sound much warmer and organic than what I have now, but I don't want to sacrifice the detail to get it. So, something I would like further input on is this. Should I replace my dac with a tube dac that has more detail than the low cost products I tested with, or should I replace my pre with a tube pre to get the sound I am looking for? What dac in the $1 to $1.5 thousand dollar range would fit the bill? Or should I look into a tube pre? Thanks for your help!

Greg

You can only do so much to make vanilla taste like chocolate. In the end, you have to buy chocolate if you want to taste chocolate.

I think you should:
1) Hire Rives Audio to consult with you on your room and how it can be acoustically treated.

If you can't acoustically treat the glass and tile room, and if you can't set up your listening area in another room that lends itself to treatments, then you're going to have to be willing to accept sub optimal sound (which includes "brightness").

2) Change speakers. It's an oxymoron to say you like your speaker/amp combination, but you don't like the bright sound of your system.

The 7B speakers sounded bass shy in my 21x24x8 carpeted and draped room when driven by a 500wpc Bryston beast known for its bass reproduction. I can imagine how anemic they must sound in a 22x38x17 glass and tile room.

You require a prodigious amount of midbass and low bass to balance out the highs in your large room, and the smallish woofers on the 7B speakers aren't going to get the job done.

Sorry to be so blunt, but I believe you see the realities even if you're not yet prepared to take the necessary steps to get you where you want to go. Spend your dollars where they will be most effective: room, speakers, amplifier.

Tvad is correct. Don't keep asking for miracles if your not willing to make the sacrifice...tile floors in the man livng area? Ouch...get some throw rugs at least and some decrative fabric/cloth window treatments.