Looking to add warmth

FWIW, I would start by holding onto your 8008 and your W4S Dac 2. Seen lots of descriptions of these pieces and "dry and uninvolving" have never cropped up. Or at least the amp wouldn't unless it happens to be some sort of mismatch for your Philharmonic 2's (which are themselves an unknown to me). But, if it's not that, then I, too, would be looking at either the at the HTPC or the USB connection itself, as well. I agree with Tomcy6 that PS Audio DAC's will likely not solve the problem. But, be wary of "high bitdepth" tracks. Just because they are labeled such does not mean they were necessarily ripped from anything other than 44.1k (or, sometimes, even less...!) sources, or that any meaningful attention at all was paid to the ripping method quality. HD Tracks is a very popular site, but also loaded with plenty of 'stinkers' as well as good ones. You just have to be careful and your ears may end up being your only reliable guide.

For your evaluation purposes you may want to consider if you can beg, borrow or steal any good, regular CDP or transport long enough to see if that has any impact on the problem and give SPDIF a try. But, from what you describe, I don't really think this is a 'bad component' problem per se (the HTPC possibility aside). I would guess that the problem is more basic than that...like a digital formatting issue (or possibly even an EMI/RFI-influenced problem). A tube amp or pre could offer gains, but again, it doesn't seem to me like those are the original problem. Likewise a tube buffer would seem to be an exercise in trying to cover up the problem instead of trying to sniff out the cause. But, as far as that goes and if it were me, I think I'd try to temporarily swipe any decent CDP I could and see what that does to it. Even if it had no real effect, it might help you to eliminate that particular possibility. But, if that solves it, then take a hard look at either your HTPC, the USB protocol or the USB wire quality itself. Also concur with Tomcy6 that trying to tame inherently uninvolving (overly analytical) speakers through better electronics is not worthwhile - but, I myself have no way to know if your Philharmonics actually fall into that category or not.

Without seeing your room, I do know that many audiophiles manage to find some pretty good success with crazy rooms, despite no apparent degree of symmetry. Even the description of the spiral staircase doesn't necessarily set off alarms for me. A speaker being wedged up tight against a wall while the other is in free space, maybe...otherwise it might be ok. Hope this helps. Regards. John

Hello Tomcy6,
I know in the current audiophile vernacular analytical is synonymous with accurate, (personally this has never made sense to me). I just wanted to clarify that's what Koenigr2 meant (I didn't want to make a wrong assumption that's all). He'll get some good suggestions from the members on this site.
Charles,

thank could be as easy as adding Shinkoh resistors to your amp or preamp. They have a very emotional sound.

Happy Listening.

If you want to warm it up and get more involved with the music, you can tinker with your system, or you can change it over whole hog. Since someone has already recommended tinkering, I'll go with the whole hog approach. If you've got the green and don't mind buying used stuff of the Gon, pick up the used Ayon CD-1SC that's going for $2375 (that'll give you a very musical and involving tube cd player that's also a DAC and pre), and then go for the Music Reference RM-9 mk 2 that's going for $2300, and you'll have a very engaging and musical system. I'm willing to bet it'll be off the charts in terms of musicality.

"Warmth" is a curious thing, to me I equate it to richness and vibrancy in mid range tone color. My experience was that it took synergy to get it and that you don't have a prayer if its not supported by the DAC. You would think an all tube solution would do it yet I would not call the pre section of my Prima Luna warm compared to my CJ preamp. And I was never able to get a consistently warm sound with digital until I changed from asynch USB to DLNA. I think either the Perfect Wave or a Naim Media Player would guarantee good results for the digital signal to analog output section and then the thread originator would have to judge if the amplification is capable of passing good tone color from what the source feeds it