Wrong mating of cable/amp/receiver? = brightness

danger boy

This isn't a review, just some general observations that i've noticed today when I got some new Monster Z2 biwires that arrived today.

First off... i got a great deal on b-stock Monster Z2 biwires. Very happy about that. The cables arrived today. I knew what to expect... they are 15ft very sturdy and heavy cables. It came with those skinny **** gold pins... I've never used them before on any of my gear.. so I thought what the hell, I'll try em out.

@%^&*)+

Anyway. I get them connected.. and fired everything up. Right away i notice a more open upper end to everything. It's like wow.. this is nice. Before I was using Monster XP biwired speaker wire. Now I had an actual biwire cable.. I'm thinking cool. Right on!

I should back up and tell you two weeks ago.. i added a Adcom GFA5400 amp (125wpc) for the mains. Cool. Love that amp to death. It helped with the front soundstage a little.. that little extra umph it needed. It also added a little brightness.. not much, but it was nice. Well today when the Monster Z2 arrives.. after hooking it all up.. the biwire cables really opened up the highs.. to open as a matter of fact.

Yes I like clean highs as well as the next guy. But now the highs are nearly to bright. A little upper end brightness I can live with.. but the combanation of the Monster Z2's and the Adcom don't mate well IMO. Now i'm fighting to much brightness in mostly stereo listening. Movies in DTS and DD, DPL sound really great.. the added brightness while watching a DVD is not to harsh at all. It added what was missing. I'm hearing things in the upper end that i've been missing for a while.

My problem is 1. I need to get rid of those damn skinny pins and replace them with banana plugs or spades. I emailed Monster and they will do it for $125 for the service charge for both cables.. plus the connector cost which would be another $75 on top of that. Dang! So while I got a great deal on the Z2's... i guess i'll be changing out the connectors myself.

Anyway.. my question is.. is there anything I can do to lower the brightness in my system now? I guess turning down the treble is one way.. changing out speaker cables is another. Replacing the Adcom with another amp is another possiblity.. i have a couple mono block amps I could switch out and see if some of the harshness goes.

I guess either the brightness was always there.. and the Z2's just brought it out. Or the Z2's added the brightness to my system. Whatever the case... I need to explore how to lessen it.

peace, Al

fireshoes

I would check with local retailers of Monster cable. Since Monster has a lifetime warranty, maybe one will let you swap out to get cable with spades or something.

danger boy

good idea. but i'm not sure local retailers sell Z2 biwires. at least that i've seen around here b4. other problem is since i didn't buy it from them. they may hesitate. but it's worth a try at least.

Does anyone here us those pesky thin Monster pins on their binding posts? If so.. how do they work for you?

thanks, Al

F1nut

Ok, a couple of things. The brightness may go away after the cables burn-in, it took my MIT's awhile and all is sweet now. It might be your source (cd?) or your preamp. Now that you've got cleaner power and a better way to get it to the speakers, you might be hearing the short comings of those components. As for the little pins. I'm not sure what Monster is using, but MIT has what looks like little pins, that are actually a post that you screw on whichever termination works best for you. Could that be the case here?

RuSsMaN

I'll add my $.02 to the fray. Thumbs up F1, that was right where I was headed.

What kind of connection are you using from your source (dvd) to the receiver? Optical, Coax, RCA?

May seem odd, but once seperate amp(s) and better speaker wire is added in, I've had a few people begin to hate the optical connection, and switch to coax. It is as if the system has reached a point with the upgraded wire/amp, and reveals more of the 'flaws' in the optical cable, or the source itself.

Cheers,
Russ

F1nut

Back at ya, bro....
That's another good point.

danger boy

I kinda forgot about the burn in period cables/wires/components need to settle in. That's probably the case here. I will give it some time and see if it smooths out and report back to you. Thanks for mentioning it.

RuSsMan,

I am using a monster coax from the DVD player to the receiver.
I strongly believe that two things occured here with my system. Yes the better external amp produced more and cleaner power to the speakers. I forgot to mention that I also upgraded the interconnets from the receiver to the Adcom. Much better IXOS cables. But the real kicker was the better speaker cables. The wires were holding back on me. I am now convinced that speaker wires DO indeed make a big difference. I already knew that better interconnects did.

what really impresses me more than anything is the openness in the sound field when listening to stereo or pro logic. Wow.. the sound pattern seems to have become more wide. The left and right speakers now perform like I've heard many of you all described as having depth to the music. I think imaging and soundstage are more correct terms... so much so that it sometimes sounds like I am sitting in a large hall or church. It's very sweet.

Here is a pic of said Monster Z2 cable and the pins I have come to hate more than a root canal.

F1nut

I see what you mean about those pins...hmmmm, they do look like dentist tools, yuck!

STUFFMD

Hey Dangerboy...I had the same problem as you describe with the pair of Kimbers I purchased. I love the highs too but the Kimbers were too harsh/tedious for my setup as well...I tried somthing just for the hell of it, I put the straps back on the 800's and the whole thing smoothed out substantially...I would suggest trying a non bi-wire situation with your same wire and see what you think.
GoodLuck ..Enjoy. Stuff

izafar

Those pin ends I believe are for spring loaded connectors. I have similar connectors on surround wire runs and I know it is hard to use these with binding posts. Once I get a good deal on nice banana plugs, I will swap them out.

To tame the highs you can do the following:
1: If your source has resonable DACs, try using analog connection for stereo listeniong.
2: If you have towed in your speakers, try them without towing.

I am also looking for an article that I once read about this, I will forward you the link once I get it.

danger boy

STUFFMD and izafar, those both are easy fixes... i'll try them today and see what results I get.

thanks, Al

jrausch

In my experience with cable burn in, the harsh sound you are hearing will only get more pronounced. Usually new cables tend to sound a bit muted and less open and reverse these problems after burn in. F1 brought up the point about hearing the short comings of your other components. I just went through the same dilemma trying to figure out that crude harshness I was hearing and it turned out to be my DVD player. It has 24/96 DAC’s in it, but apparently that means nothing in terms of reducing jitter and chilling out those highs. I figured the signal that was starting out in my 2/ch rig was not a pure enough analog signal. I bought a nice DAC and not only did it clear up those nasty highs, but it also made the music sound like music as well. If you want more consistency out of your listening material try an out board DAC or a SACD player if your wires seem to get worse. Trust me you won’t kick yourself in the ****, but just wonder why you hadn’t done it sooner. Those are really nice Z2’s and I’m sure they are just letting you hear a lot more of what your system really sounds like. Just remember when you start to hit the higher end of audio “Garbage in equal’s Garbage out” and only means more upgrading.

danger boy

I really don't want to go there.. in terms of an outboard DAC. but what to they range in price. Please don't say they begin at $1,000 on up.

danger boy

jrausch,

my Toshiba DVD player has the same 96/24 DAC's. I think it's not just the DVD player.. because other sources sound bright too. Radio sounds pretty harsh too.

I think it tends to be the Z2's. it added extra top end, and may only get worse as the cables burn in. My receiver sounded muddy for the first month or so.. but after proper burn in time it settled in to a nice warm sound open sound.

jrausch

I know what you’re saying about the tuner section. Since I’ve gone with a line drive pre-amp and better cables I could hear the same things you described about the system really opening up, but when you start to pour on the power a little those high’s are like nails across a chalk board. The thing about that Tosh DVD player is that it has feature in the audio setup section that allows you to bias the signal to keep the highs from getting out of hand. This works, but cuts out the dynamics of the music. The normal setting is for watching movies where the sound does not peak as much as an audio CD. I am now using the coax out of my DVD into a $500 top of the line Parasound Ultra Analog DAC that sold for $1700 new (audiogon). This DAC is by far the best out of their line-up, no coloration of the sound and very analog is the best way to describe it. My audio friends drop their jaw when they heard what this DAC will do. I have a fairly extensive cd collection that's why I went with a DAC. If your collection is not that big a SACD will give you even more control over the signal you feed it. Your speakers won't produce a nasty high if your system is not given a jitter signal that it will pass along unless the pre-amp adds its own color. I firmly believe this is a big part of what you are hearing. Welcome to the high end.

danger boy

i tried to move the fronts out a bit so they fire straight ahead instead of toed in a little. that seemed to help some. at least the tri lam tweeters aren't firing directly at you. I also moved the treble back to 11 o'clock instead of 12 o'clock. that helped a bit also.

I've got more tweaks to try out later tonight.. thanks guys.

jrausch, how do you hook up your cd/dvd player so that you bypass it's dacs' and use an external dac? how does the player know to do this? I use the DVD audio portion of my player quite a bit.. it's the 6 RCA outs on it. i tried running analog out from the player to the receiver instead of the coax i have.. and it killed quite a bit of the three demensional effects to sounding very narrow.

just my findings as I tweak with it this week while on vacation. what a better way to spend your vacation then tweaking your system.

jrausch

The 6/ch RCA jacks provide the analog signal that has been decoded by the players DAC's. The coax and the fiber out provide just the digital signal from your players transport so you can have another DAC do the conversion. Some nicer players and transports use a balanced output for a better digital transfer. Like I said before that audio feature on the Tosh cools down the highs, but also kills the soundfield. You will bring your system into another realm with a nice DAC. SACD also gives you this without the expensive DAC.

HBombToo

I am a firm believer in outboard DAC's.

I have a DAC in my Rack!

HBomb

danger boy

why does an outboard DAC sound better? Better quality or what?

jrausch

It provides more of a “cost is not so much of an object” approach to the D/A conversion since all of the money goes to better parts. What you get is a more discreet, clean, linear and dynamic signal to feed the rest of the system. As you can see it's not just a chip in a box. When you start to hear the quality of each of your components, this tends to clear up allot of those issues. Read some of the past threads on out board DAC's and see if you can find someone complaining about them.

HBombToo

jrausch, what unit is that? SWEEEEEEEEEET!

Also the clocking in an external DAC is very accurate and if your source is jittery then the DAC will correct this problem.

HBomb

byteme

I'll have to concur on the improvement an outboard DAC can provide. I first just tried adding a dedicated CD player and ran through 3 of them (Rotel, Rega Planet and Sherwood newcastle), each providing better sound than a DVD player, but not quite what I wanted. So then it was outboard DACs. I've gone through 4 of those now and finally settled on a Scott Nelson Tubedac, which narrowly bested a Channel Islands Audio VDA-1. Channel Islands and Scott both used to design for other more well known companies, Channel Island (Dusty Vawter) designed for Audio Alchemy. I just liked the tube smoothness better. Other DACs I tried were EAD DSP 7000 MKIII and McCormack DAC-1. Both were a far cry from the much smaller tubedac ($350 new) and Channel Islands ($350 without upgraded power supply). I've since also added a transport but that's not totally necessary, you can easily use the Toshiba as a transport.

Overall I'd have to say the DAC opened things up much more and gave a very live sound. I don't know much about Monster cables as far as sound, but I remember that Adcom stuff can be bright. Another possibility may be to add a preamp to the system for two channel. I did that too which was also a very big help! Although your Marantz receiver should be pretty good for that, but not as good as a dedicated pre. I know it was suggested, but after looking at your equipment list I'd have to say I'd try using the Adcom for two surrounds and move a couple of the monoblocks into the mains. See how that goes.

As a disclaimer, I've got the Channel Islands stuff for sale right now, but there is a sale pending.

lastly - here's a link to Scott's stuff, doesn't look like much, but WOW does it sound good!! - http://www.scott-nixon.com/dac.htm - the tubedac is the one on the right in the top picture.

danger boy

what are other good brand name outboard DAC's? I've seen a few of the Audio Alchemy for sale recently.. for what seems like good price.. around $200+

I would need one that has coax in and coax out. I don't mind used or refurbished at all. What about a DAC's made say in the early to mid 80's? has there been big improvements in DAC's in the last 15 yrs? so that the early ones may lack something??

Al

byteme

It'd be easier to tell you at a certain price point. The older DACs will work just fine but you'll probably have more advance conversion chips in your DVD player, it's just that the surrounding components (inside the DVD player) won't be as good as in the dedicated DAC of older vintage. There is another Channel Islands with upgraded power supply that just got listed at audiogon you'd be VERY happy with ( http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?dgtlconv&1055807921&class&3&4& ). Otherwise, you could check out EAD DSP 1000 MKIII, but I think you'll be happier with something newer like the CIAudio stuff or the Scott Nixon Dackit for $250 shipped ( http://www.scott-nixon.com/dac.htm )!! That Dackit will blow the socks off of anything old you'll get except the crazy high end stuff. Another good choice would be the CAL Audio Sigma tube dac ( http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?dgtlconv&1055464468&class&3&4& ). Regularly find these under $300. You could also go with Adcom GDA 600/700 both stereophile recommended ( http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?dgtlconv&1054599706&class&3&4& or http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?dgtlconv&1054482029&class&3&4& )

have fun!!

By the way, you'll probably get coax in with each of these but there won't be any digital output on them at all. These all convert to analog so your output will be either balanced or rca analog output which you'll then run through one of your receivers analog inputs.

danger boy

byteme,
by adding an outboard DAC it will no doubt make the transport sound better. but i'm afraid what it will do to the harsh brightness i'm having already. Would it sound better. but not really tame the highs?

thanks, Al

byteme

Danger,

Before I went and bought more stuff, I might rearrange some stuff in my system or try a cheap tweak. Did you get back there and rearrange the amps yet? As I said, from what I remember Adcom has a tendancy towards brightness so putting a Marantz mono back there in it's place would be my first fix, especailly because Polks lean towards bright as well. Speaker placement (toe-in, etc.) has aslo been mentioned. Those are both free for you. Second would be a toss up between cables and the DVD player. I used to have the 4700 and loved it as a dvd player but typically DVD players SUCK at two channel redbook reproduction (dvd players in the $200 price range - not ALL dvd players). Before messing with cables, which will cost you anyway, I might spend $200-250 on a dac and get a pair of DH Labs Silver Sonic BLII cables for another $40 or so. Something tells me that would really open things up for you. If you keep your $$ target in that range, get something used from audiogon or ebay and end up not liking it you can turn around and resell it for damn near what you paid and have only spent your time futzing around!

Sorry I just re-read your post, yes, I do think adding an outboard DAC will not only improve sound but also tame the highs.

I went through a similar effort when I converted from 2 channel to home theater. I missed 2 channel so much I spent a year going through various equipment trying to get it back! I'm very close now though, but I did go through 4 CD players, 4 DACs, 3 preamps and tons of cable!!

danger boy

Okay I spent the past few hours rearranging things in hopes of getting this brightness problem solved. Here are my findings after taking your suggestions guys and without purchasing anything yet.. here is what happened.

First I hooked up the DVD player using L&R RCA cables (really crappy 15 yr old cables that came with my first Sony CD player) to the receivers CD input. Nada happened. The sound was the same whether I used the RCA cables or the coax. No difference at all.

Secondly, I switched out the amps in hopes that the Adcom was just to bright and the Marantz mono blocks would tame the brightness. Once again, nada. The sound did not improve or degrade one bit. Hmmmm? Time for a beer break.

Lastly I took STUFFMD's suggestion and put some straps between the binding posts.. using 14 guage (didn't have any 12g in da house at the time). Guess what? Nothing happend to the highs. UGH! The only thing I DID notice was the three dimensional soundstage was somewhat lost. It had narrowed enough for me to take notice. I swapped everything back to the original setup.

Music I used was Coldplay. CD's Parachutes and A Whack to the head. ha ha ha. This resembles the type of music i listen to most of the time.. and I'm familiar with it enough.

My final thoughts.. are that I think the brightness issue is coming from the receiver itself. Had no idea till i hooked up the Monster Z2's that the receiver was that bright. It was there all along, just hadn't been brought out with the speaker wires I was using.

An outboard DAC is a good idea. Even though it may not solve my brightness problem, it should help.. and if nothing else.. it will make everything coming from the player sound much better. Does an outboard DAC work on DD and DTS as well?

Thanks guys.. this was frustrating.. but yet fun to see what could be done and it certainly helped me to identify some weaknesses in my system. I thought by upgrading to external amps, better interconnects, and biwire speaker cables it would sound perfect. Boy was I wrong.. all it did was give me cleaner sound.. but it exposed a weak spot in the process. I'm not upset that I purchased the Monster Z2 biwires. It was needed. Now it just opened up a new can of worms. But it in the end, i do have better sound, it's just a little too bright.

thanks to everyone who helped and anyone who might have a similar problem in the future, maybe this will help you too.

laters, Al

ken brydson

I see the problem......only one beer break
TGIF! Coronas are calling my name

F1nut

I agree with byteme that using a DVD for cd playback isn't the greatest, so if you're sticking with the DVD/CD player then get a DAC and that should solve the brightness problem.

danger boy

Since I don't have a dedicated CD player I was wondering if that would help the brightness problem?

Here is one i can get for $300

Cambridge Audio
D500-SE CD Player w/ 24 Bit DAC and Special Jitter Reduction Circuitry

* Single-disc CD player with:
o 24-bit DAC
o proprietary jitter reduction circuitry
o regulated power supplies for both digital and analog circuits
o high-stability clock module
o numerous dual-mono topologies
o state-of-the-art Sony VLSI (very large scale integration) laser-control circuit
o front-panel shuttle control
o wireless remote
* Digital connections: coaxial digital output and Toslink optical digital output.

ANyone have any experince with Cambridge Audio?

F1nut

Al,

I'm sorry, but I don't have any experience with Cambridge. It looks like it might be ok. The jitter is what causes the harsh/bright sound and the clock is what controls jitter, so it looks like they have tried to address that. How well they did remains to be seen. Have you tried finding any reviews? Not to discourage you, but even the $5000.00 Sony SCD-1 is said to benefit from a super clock upgrade....it never ends...lol.
I'm sure a dedicated CD player will help, but it still may be necessary to add a DAC. Can you bring the Cambridge or any other CD player home for a demo?

Jesse