Speaker glare...help

One way to fix your problem is to completely treat the room with "effective" bass traps, nothing less than 4" thick will do. Treat all 4 corners and the ceiling/wall boundaries as well. The wall behind the speakers would be best treated with bass traps as well. Don't completely cover any surface or you will "deaden" the room too much.
Two bass traps behind the listening position will also help.
You should end up with 10 traps in the room when finished. I have 12 traps (from Real Traps) in a room almost the same size as yours and it really sounds good.

What CD players did you try?

Not to doubt you, but almost all "glare" type issues start with sibilance from poor CDPs. Tweaks and cables (at best) are just bandaids and you will end up wasting your money if you expect a cheap solution like that.

Unless you've tried EmmLabs, DCS, Wadia, Esoteric or something like that, then you really haven't determined whether it's your CDP or not. Unlike speakers and analog devices, there are very few digital manufacturers creating TRUE reference level products.

The cheapest option I think you can try is maybe a DAC like the Benchmark with 30 day trial.

It could be room related, but room issues are very distinct and obvious compared to equipment related issues. Trust your instincts and I bet you can tell whether it's a room issue or not. I'm betting not.

01-04-08: Labtec said:
"What CD players did you try?
...
It could be room related, but room issues are very distinct and obvious compared to equipment related issues. Trust your instincts and I bet you can tell whether it's a room issue or not. I'm betting not."

I respectfully disagree.

You need to get the room right before you start throwing money at equipment. Midrange glare is an indicator of less than ideal speaker placement. Room treatment comes after speaker placement. You can't even begin to get the treatments in the right place until you get the speakers driving together and the most serious bass nodes and antinodes handled by placement. Residual issues are handled with treatments and the last thing is equipment.

Dave

I have not heard the Focal home audio speakers, but have read a lot about them and my brother-in-law auditioned them. I do have Focals in my car.

They seem to be love or hate type speakers. The glare you talk about is really apparent in my car. I am probably going to replace the tweeters with something else. I have tried pretty everything else I can think off.

I did find that MAC palladium ICs helped some in the car. I also have them in my home system. They make the high end more "musical". I bought them based on two reviewers, and for once they both got it right. Of course swapping out ICs to find the right combo gets pretty expensive. And MAC has a pretty steep restocking fee for the palladiums. They are fairly fragile apparently. I was lucky, I found used ones.

im thinking its the Focals ..

From Chart 3 - Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise for Mini Utopia - the metal tweeter may be misbehaving at 9 Khz (looks like it resonates at 18 Khz). Since this is probably not musically related it may add an audible brilliance or sheen or air to some sounds (only 20 db down from main signal or about 10% distortion). This distortion is probably in the frequency range for cymbals or higher (what you hear after the cymbal is struck)...it may also be inaudible to you (most adults cannot hear much if anything above 16 Khz anyway)

If this is what you are hearing as "glare" then it probably is the speakers. Otherwise it is unlikely to be the speakers but could be the recording or type of music you like.