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Brightness update
#1
After various experiments all doing very little I have decided to contact a company called GIk acoustics to see if they can offer any advice

The addition of the Melco has undoubtedly increased the brightness. I feel as if i am so close to having an amazing sounding rig, but maybe it's all about a compromise

Starting to wonder also that maybe my system is just now too revealing.
What I have noticed since the addition of the Melco is that well recorded music sounds excellent. This is where the Melco is better than AIR IMO. The latest Beck album Morning Phase really does sound sublime . Better than I have ever heard it

The poorer recordings and I do like indie so there could be a lot of bad recordings in there. Well they are virtually unlistenable , so bright. I can actually only listen to them if I turn the volume down.

I think a rug will be added , but tbh only to see if it improves the acoustics, it's an expensive gamble again though.
Do I regret the Melco purchase? Answer is not really as it does so much better, just in my case I think it has pushed the brightness up to a level which is unacceptable to my ears.

The journey confines Big Grin

As a footnote also think maybe the Dev 200 and Melco combination deserve a better speaker
Devialet 200 -- Roon Nucleus-- Sonus Faber Olympica 2 -- Tellurium Q Black Speaker Cables --
Chord Qutest -- Niimbus US5 Pro Headphone amp —HifiMan HEK, Abyss 1266TC
Newcastle upon Tyne, England
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#2
And the search for better sound continues... Big Grin
Before: Le200, KEF LS50, AQ Type4, NUC 5i5RYH/8GB/128GB M.2SSD, Roon, Win8.1/AIR2.1.3/RoonBridge, MM/AIR3/RoonBridge, QNAP TS-212P 5TB NAS, AQ NRG-X3

Now: KEF LS50W, NUC5i5RYH/8GB/128GB M.2SSD, Roon, QNAP TS-212P 5TB NAS,iFi iSilencer3.0+DC iPurifier+iPurifier2, Sonos ZP80+SPDIF iPurifier


Location: Cyberjaya, Malaysia
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#3
Your brightness is in the 2-5k hz region ...
room treatments and some soft furnishings will reduce this , but you throw the baby out with the bathwater as you will lose "air" too
The answer is a parametric eq (like a miniDSP product) or full freq correction so you can tame and tune the offending freqs.. will also do wonders for your bass
Roon/tidal > Squeezebox touch  > Trinnov St2 or DIRAC (minidsp ddrc-22d) > Dual mono D premiers > Vivid Audio Giya G1 Spirits  ...fully treated  dedicated 6x8m room
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#4
I am not really sure it is better SQ. I would like to term it more consistent.

I am starting to think that I have just got to a point where my system is better than I have ever had in the past, but some length too, but maybe the price I pay for that is that some of the music I have listened to in the past just sounds awful on it.
I think my set up is forward/bright? however you want to describe it. However this is not the case on all tracks. A lot of the albums I have been listening to recently sounds sublime. So is this a bright system or is this just me discovering that the higher up you go with equipment then the more revealing it gets. Possibly the higher up you go the more important the quality of recording becomes.

I am not new to hifi but I am new to this level of hifi, and I am learning all the time, albeit slowly I think.

It would be a shame though if I cant tame the brightness on some of my music.
Devialet 200 -- Roon Nucleus-- Sonus Faber Olympica 2 -- Tellurium Q Black Speaker Cables --
Chord Qutest -- Niimbus US5 Pro Headphone amp —HifiMan HEK, Abyss 1266TC
Newcastle upon Tyne, England
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#5
(18-Nov-2015, 06:53)Rodney Gold Wrote: Your brightness is in the 2-5k hz region ...
room treatments and some soft furnishings will reduce this , but you throw the baby out with the bathwater as you will lose "air" too
The answer is a parametric eq (like a miniDSP product) or full freq correction so you can tame and tune the offending freqs.. will also do wonders for your bass

I have no idea what this is but I will look into it as this sounds very interesting. You also raise the very point that I am finding, that I can reduce the brightness but at the expense of something else, usually clarity and detail I found.
Devialet 200 -- Roon Nucleus-- Sonus Faber Olympica 2 -- Tellurium Q Black Speaker Cables --
Chord Qutest -- Niimbus US5 Pro Headphone amp —HifiMan HEK, Abyss 1266TC
Newcastle upon Tyne, England
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#6
(18-Nov-2015, 06:53)Rodney Gold Wrote: Your brightness is in the 2-5k hz region ...
room treatments and some soft furnishings will reduce this , but you throw the baby out with the bathwater as you will lose "air" too
The answer is a parametric eq (like a miniDSP product) or full freq correction so you can tame and tune the offending freqs.. will also do wonders for your bass

Can i not do something in the Devialet configurator about this 2-5hz region?
Devialet 200 -- Roon Nucleus-- Sonus Faber Olympica 2 -- Tellurium Q Black Speaker Cables --
Chord Qutest -- Niimbus US5 Pro Headphone amp —HifiMan HEK, Abyss 1266TC
Newcastle upon Tyne, England
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#7
(18-Nov-2015, 01:00)Womaz Wrote: After various experiments all doing very little I have decided to contact a company called GIk acoustics to see if they can offer any advice

The addition of the Melco has undoubtedly increased the brightness. I feel as if i am so close to having an amazing sounding rig, but maybe it's all about a compromise

Starting to wonder also that maybe my system is just now too revealing.
What I have noticed since the addition of the Melco is that well recorded music sounds excellent. This is where the Melco is better than AIR IMO. The latest Beck album Morning Phase really does sound sublime . Better than I have ever heard it

The poorer recordings and I do like indie so there could be a lot of bad recordings in there. Well they are virtually unlistenable , so bright. I can actually only listen to them if I turn the volume down.

I think a rug will be added , but tbh only to see if it improves the acoustics, it's an expensive gamble again though.
Do I regret the Melco purchase? Answer is not really as it does so much better, just in my case I think it has pushed the brightness up to a level which is unacceptable to my ears.

The journey confines  Big Grin

As a footnote also think maybe the Dev 200 and Melco combination deserve a better speaker


YES! It took you awhile to get here but those folks are pretty good, not overly expensive and will give you a few clues for free. If you have an iPhone, take a few panoramic pictures of your room and send it to them. They will give you a few clues. Probably too many clues but you will begin to understand how important the room really is (that and doing the research).
There are other reputable companies and I would advise you to also check their solutions.
Synology 713+ -> Aurender N10 -> D 200 -> Legacy Audio Focus SE speakers. ClearAudio Emotion TT. Synergistic Atmosphere Level 3 UEF Speaker and Galileo (USB) Interconnects and Synergistic PowerCell UEF S - Virginia U. S. A.
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#8
I see GIK have an advice service on their website now, you enter full details of your room, system, add photo's etc., and they provide some lovely free advice. (Free advice that will probably be "you should spend many £'s on our products")

Looks like an interesting thing to try, it's on my "to do" list.
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#9
Is there nothing I can do in the configurator ......there is something there in time and can use a slide thing to affect the table frequencies .....or am I barking up the wrong tree ?
Devialet 200 -- Roon Nucleus-- Sonus Faber Olympica 2 -- Tellurium Q Black Speaker Cables --
Chord Qutest -- Niimbus US5 Pro Headphone amp —HifiMan HEK, Abyss 1266TC
Newcastle upon Tyne, England
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#10
I think there are multiple causes that can cause brightness issues:

- acoustics; too high reverberation times/too many reflections or uneven frequency absorption causing an imbalance of acoustic energy, irt different frequency ranges, present in a room.
- placement of loudspeakers and listening position; the frequency response is different in every cm2 in a room. Loudspeakers usually need to be as free standing as possible. The amount of toe-in can help shift the balance between direct and reflected sound somewhat
- noise and distortion; from "bad" tweeters/midrange drivers, "dirty" electricity, noisy or jittery sources

Of course all loudspeakers have differing characteristics. Some are simply more musically sounding than others. I've always seen PMC loudspeakers being characterized as being honest/ruthless. I believe the brand has it's roots in the pro/studio world and I believe it's a good thing studio engineers use monitoring gear that colours as little as possible so this could influence their 'voicing'. It could be that what they do is simply not to your taste.

PS. I strongly disagree that acoustic optimizations kill life or air. It's all about the right balance. If you overdo the absorption you'll get a very dry sounding room dulling music reproduction coming from loudspeakers that are voiced for in room usage. There's no real exact concensus on the ideal reverberation times for stereo music reproduction but I often see 0.5s mentioned and 0.3s for home theaters.
Also don't forget that one has to adjust to lower reverb times when he has listened to music in too reverberant rooms all his life. To get a sense of what acoustics do just bring a portable loudspeaker 9even an iPhone or iPad will do) with you to different rooms in your house, be sure to include your bedroom and bathroom. Smile

PS2: I also disagree that a better and more resolving system will make many recordings unlistenable. Of course a better system will make it easier to differentiate between recordings but IMO a clean, non (as little as possible) distorting system (including room and anything related to music reproduction) will make every recording sound better and enjoyable except maybe for the rare, really bad ones. I do think that it's extremely difficult and often even expensive to find the right balance between transparancy and musicality for the really critical listener. For me personally: it's cost me a lot of money, time (around 10 years) and effort to reach my goals but I'm very happy with the results I've reached thus far using what I believe are honest and transparent/little colouring components. And really I've had my fair share of harshness/brightness issues as well.
PS Audio P3, Shunyata ΞTRON Alpha Digital and HC/Furutech power cables, Paul Hynes SR7EHD-MR4, DIY Roon Server & Roon Endpoint running AudioLinux Headless, Phasure Lush^2 USB cable, Audioquest Diamond RJ/E ethernet, Uptone Audio etherREGEN, Mutec MC-3+ USB, Shunyata ΞTRON Anaconda Digital XLR AES/EBU, Devialet Expert 250 Pro CI, Nordost Tyr Reference LS cables, Von Schweikert VR-5 SE Anniversary Edition, Anti-Mode Dual Core 2.0, JL Audio Fathom F112. More detail here.

The Netherlands
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