FWIW, taming my bright upper-mids and lower treble was a very long, involved process. My original speakers, with metal dome tweets, were very harsh at higher volumes. An amp upgrade, from a Rotel to an Odyssey Audio Stratos, did a lot to clean up that band, but I realized that the speakers were just bright-sounding, too much so for my tastes. I upgraded to Ohm Walsh 2000s a few years ago, and the problem is mostly gone now. But along the way, changes to other components, cables and even a power filter all helped in taming a hot brightness range. With each improvement, I got smoother sound in this range and beyond, while gaining improvements in detail retrieval. So it was not just the amp, or just the speakers - it was everything in the system, even the room treatments, that killed the harshness. IME, I found the PSBs that I've heard to be extremely harsh in the upper-mids and lower treble, especially when pushed hard. In fact, I find most affordable speakers with crossovers in the 2-4kHz range to be too hot in that frequency range. YMMV, of course. Older SS mid-fi amps, like the Yammi, also tended to be harsh in this range. Although there were, and are exceptions. While my old Pioneer AVR lacked detail and soundstage dimensionality, it was not too harsh in theat frequency range.
I guess the challenge is to "warm up" the sound without throwing a blanket over it, losing detail in the process. To me, that elusive combo of detail with natural warmth is my holy grail in this hobby. I am getting close, but a recent loan of some high-powered Class D amps has made me realize that I need a lot more power.
I guess the challenge is to "warm up" the sound without throwing a blanket over it, losing detail in the process. To me, that elusive combo of detail with natural warmth is my holy grail in this hobby. I am getting close, but a recent loan of some high-powered Class D amps has made me realize that I need a lot more power.