Will a new Preamp sovle my Problem?

If you cannot deal with the acoustics, you are doomed to patchwork as nothing(!) will do as well. WAF is a problem which can be dealt with by consideration, stealth and psychology.

Kal

I am exploring all angles presently..

Thanks to all

You could try a little experiment. I am assuming that your listening position is somewhere greater than 6 feet from the speakers. Set your volume control to where it definitely sounds bright. Now move to within 3 feet of your speakers. It will be louder - but, if it no longer sounds bright , then you definitely have a room acoustic problem that can be fixed without a lot of $$. If it sounds louder and still sounds bright, then room acoustic changes are probably not going to completely solve your problem. If that is the case then either a "muddy" tube preamp will likely help but will probably leave you unhappy with the low frequency sound also. Biamping may help - but that is no so easy to do and get right just by going by ear. Attenutate the high frequencies either via a treble control or with filtering. By the way - I would not worry about tinnitus do to the brightness - tinnitus results from the sound wave - not the sound of the wave. The largest population with tinntus is that of combat veterans - particularly those who served in artillery units. Fairly low frequencies but massive wave fronts. It is the sound pressure that does the damage - actually distortion is likely to cause you to turn it down and prevent tinnitus - the quickest route to tinnitus is to listen to distortionless pleasant music at high spl's because you won't turn it down. A friend who is an audiologist tells me that the little in the ear canal earphones everyone uses with their ipods is about the most dangerous way to go to damage your hearing. His explanation is that the tightness of the earphone leaves no avenue for dispersion of the sound wave - it does not get dissipated - it just hits the hearing mechanisms - he predicts that there will be a rash of hearing problems directly attributed to those little gems. Fortunately, audiophiles are not big on the Ipod and earbuds.

Great advice from Musicnoise. I too was told room acoustics over and over. And A/C power. Getting right in front a speakers knocked off the brightness a bit but it was still there. Buy a Furetech didn't help matters either. I changed amps and it cured 90% of my brightness issues.

Romm acoustics wasn't even an issue until this past 3-5 years. I have been into audio for 40 years. The problem of reflections making things unbearable may be a real issue in a room that is hyper lively. Most of us have carpets padded non reflective furniture, drapes etc. I have heard rooms with every sound trapping device known employed and it sounds ghastly. An over damped room is stifeling. Kills all the sparkle and kills the staging etc. If you play music in a room with you sitting in folding chair with nothing else...sure it will echo and be inchoherent.
I really think this room treatment thing is overblown. Personally The changes I made over the years in equipment had an impact greater than any room issue.
I did truly warm up my sound with Cardas cables in one connection. I made my WAF system faster with silver thruout. Most of all I dumped my 400wpc SS monoblocs for tube monoblocs, switched my tubed pre that is worshipped by some as a classic for a $350 AE-3 and I found Nirvana. If you can get to Nirvana with bass traps etc. more power to you, I think it's mostly a bill of goods.