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New member Username: IcingMetro Boston, MA USA Post Number: 1 Registered: Aug-07 | After 15 years with a consumer-grade system (Sony), I recently began upgrading to the next level, starting with an NAD C325BEE and B&W 602.5 S3's. After several months of listening, I'm very pleased with the clarity and detail this setup provides, especially with complex source material. The sound is spacious and effortless, imaged in an extended seamless soundstage. Like many people do, I'm discovering my CDs all over again, hearing all kinds of new things in them: the clacking of the keys of orchestral wind instruments, the evolving harmonic envelope of a sustained solo piano note, the reverberation of the performance space, etc. It's great fun, and my listening pleasure has been greatly increased. And all for $1000! I'm posting to ask for advice about the one aspect of the system I'd like to adjust: it can be a bit bright. Particularly at high volume, with demanding source material (e.g. blasting techno), the treble can be harsh, even strident. At the highest listening levels I can sometimes pick up a faint "crackling" in the high frequencies. I've taken to leaving the NAD's treble control turned down about 1/3 of the way. This tames the harshness, but the sound is still bright. Getting the NAD and B&Ws is only the start of my system upgrade. I have a bunch of thoughts about what to do next, and want your advice. 1) wait - I've had the system for a few months now, typically with a couple of hours of listening per day; is that long enough to break in the NAD and B&W's? I understand that break-in tends to mellow the sound, but how much? 2) upgrade CD player - I'm still using the old Sony $100 CD player (!). I just haven't gotten to upgrading yet. The natural first choice is to audition a NAD C525BEE, which I will do when I can get back to the store to borrow one. I plan to upgrade the CD player no matter what, but can I expect this to remove some of the brightness? 3) upgrade interconnects / speaker cable - I'm still using the junky interconnects I had lying around. The speaker wires are some 12 gauge that the store sold me for under $1/foot. 4) change room acoustics - the room is very active, with hardwood flooring and mostly bare walls. I can't do too much to change this, but maybe I can put a big rug in front of the system. 5) ??? Which of these options do you think is likely to do the most to temper the treble a bit? I know that using the cheap CD player, etc. in this system means I still have a lot of room for improvement. I do intend to continue upgrading, but want to do it incrementally. I'm already amazed at the improvement over my previous consumer-grade system, so there's no way to go but up. I'm by now quite familiar with the sound of the system as presently configured, so I feel ready to make changes, be they tweaks or upgrades. Thanks for your help. Regards, Icing |
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Bronze Member Username: WattsssupBarrie, ON Canada Post Number: 49 Registered: Aug-06 | Congratulations on your system, and your enjoyment of experiencing music again for the first time. I'm sure everyone will have differing opinions and options of what you can do to tame the harshness of the highs. I see that you are still using "junky interconnects". Let me offer a bit from my own experience. When I went from my own "junky interconnects" and replaced them with some from a small internet company called Aural Thrills for about $80 Cdn each, they improved the clarity and the smoothness of each note and introduced space between the instruments I had never heard before in my system. I couldn't believe the improvement I got from the very small outlay of cash. I am still very much enjoying them. I am in no way suggesting that you purchase interconnects from the same company I did, only suggesting that you may want to consider interconnects that will allow your system to show you more of what it's got. |
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Silver Member Username: StefanomVienna, VA United States Post Number: 893 Registered: Apr-06 | Well, I'll go by your list one by one. 1. Break in could help. If nothing else, you might also get used to the sound after a while. 2. Will help to some degree. Garbage in = garbage out. A low end Sony is certainly a bottleneck in your system. 3. Unless you have reason to believe that the cables are the problem, I wouldn't mess with this just yet. Using wiring as a tone control is a poor solution. 4. Treating the room will help by reducing reflections. Some things I will note though: 1. If it is harsh only at ultra high volume, you may be reaching the limits of the amplifier. Any amp that gets strained will let you know it with such harshness. It is also possible the speakers at being strained, and you are hearing significant amounts of distortion. 2. If it only happens with certain source material, such as the techno, I would point my finger at that. Some things are just naturally meant to be bright/harsh. Techno at club volumes is one of them. |
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Bronze Member Username: WattsssupBarrie, ON Canada Post Number: 52 Registered: Aug-06 | "Using wiring as tone control is a poor solution" I agree. But in my case, changing interconnects wasn't for tone control. It was to get a cleaner purer sound that my system could offer, and which my old I/C's were mucking up. Respectfully, Marc |
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Silver Member Username: StefanomVienna, VA United States Post Number: 896 Registered: Apr-06 | Certainly crap wiring can present some problems (I've had first hand experience recently...), but in this case, it wouldn't be the first issue that would pop into my head, particularly when "harsh" and "blasting techno" are used together. |
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Gold Member Username: NuckPost Number: 8392 Registered: Dec-04 | Yup, the little Nad is being driven into distortion, and the tweeters(as usual) pay the price. B&W won't warranty tweeters obviously damaged by oscillation, and it is quite possible that only the robust build of the high drivers has prevented the eventual outcome to this point. In fact, the driving to oscillation fact will pop the Nad in time. It's a tough Nad product, but misuse will kill it off. Likely just after the warranty runs out. |
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Gold Member Username: NuckPost Number: 8393 Registered: Dec-04 | Icing, the title of your thread is 'entry level'. You may consider treating it as such. |
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New member Username: IcingMetro Boston, MA USA Post Number: 2 Registered: Aug-07 | Stephen M. wrote > 1. If it is harsh only at ultra high volume, you may be reaching the limits of the amplifier. > 2. If it only happens with certain source material, such as the techno, I would point my finger at that. > Some things are just naturally meant to be bright/harsh. Techno at club volumes is one of them. Nuck wrote > Icing, the title of your thread is 'entry level'. > You may consider treating it as such. Okay, points taken. :-) I certainly don't make a habit of listening to it that loud, which is rather uncomfortable. I've only driven it that hard a couple of times while exploring what it can do (it is my first decent system). It did occur to me that I might be overdriving the amp, but when I turned on the NAD's "soft clipping" feature, it didn't change anything. It's true, the sources which cause the harshness are probably meant to be that way. Thumping techno is one, but I first noticed it with the "Spring Round Dances" section of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring". I used that as one of my standard audition tracks while shopping, because it has a quiet bass-heavy section into which comes crashing a torrent of blaring brass and wild percussion. It certainly sounds like it could be a challenge to a system. All that said, I'd still like to see if I can tone down the brightness a bit. Maybe just keeping the treble control down is sufficient (it doesn't take much adjustment). So my original questions stand. What aspects of a system can make it sound bright? I will probably go ahead and audition the NAD CD player regardless. I'm very curious to hear how much of a difference it will make next to the cheap CD player. I have read in a couple of places that a cheap CD player can make for harsh highs, but I have zero experience comparing CD players. Overall, I really love the sound of the NAD+B&W. I'm not looking for wall-shaking power; I'm looking for clarity and presence, and I feel like I've found something pretty good for my bugdet and listening tastes. Thanks for the replies. Any more advice about refining a system is welcome. |
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Gold Member Username: NuckPost Number: 8398 Registered: Dec-04 | Icing, look into a Nad c542 cdp if you want a nad. otherwise, look for a Rega Apollo. Let us know what you think of a better cdp. You'll love it! |
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Gold Member Username: My_rantzAustralia Post Number: 1518 Registered: Nov-05 | I agree with Nuck's post above. Also, I note you said you had the treble turned back, try using the tone bypass and take advantage of the uncluttered signal. Also, many ss amps, especially in the lower end, only have a certain amount of 'clean' power and when you turn that dial around you could be getting into the 'dirty' power area and hence the resulting distortion. Maybe. |
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Silver Member Username: Nickelbut10Post Number: 272 Registered: Jun-07 | Icing - I have heard the 525BEE and the c542 side by side, in the same set up and felt the C542 was just a slight improvement, and both produced the same type of sound. The Rega on the other hand that Nuck mentioned will be a big improvement over both, but comes in around the same price as your whole system. Although the 325BEE integrated amp is one of NAD's weaker of the bunch, coming in at 50 watts per channel, your going to be hard pressed making that thing crap the bed with soft clipping on. But, you never know. Upgrade the cd player. Your going to want to anyway, it can only help. |
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New member Username: IcingMetro Boston, MA USA Post Number: 3 Registered: Aug-07 | Thanks everyone for your comments; the wealth of experience on the forum is impressive, and the civility refreshing. M.R.: I definitely would prefer to keep the tone controls bypassed. I started that way and then turned the treble down to temper the brightness a bit when I found it Interestingly, last night I did a little more close listening and I found that now with the tone controls defeated, the sound doesn't seem as bright as it did at first. Perhaps I'm starting to hear the results of break-in? I'll have to try some more with some of the particularly bright source material I've used before. Can anyone comment in general on the break-in process? How can one expect the sound to evolve? How does the break-in of an amplifier differ from that of speakers? Nick K: Thanks for the note about the 525BEE vs. the 542; I was going to ask about that. The Rega Apollo is intriguing given the raves I've read about it here, but it's beyond my budget. In addition, my dealer, to whom I want to be loyal, doesn't carry Rega. I'll give the 525 a listen in my system, and maybe the 542 next to it if they'll lend me both at the same time. A couple more questions: Is there any particular advantage to pairing an amp and cdp from the same manufacturer? I can certainly imagine that the designers might be able to improve the synergy between components by designing to that end, but I have no idea if it's true in practice. Is it the case that the sonic qualities of a particular company's amps might also be present in their cdps? |
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Silver Member Username: Nickelbut10Post Number: 277 Registered: Jun-07 | Icing- Synergy is key. That said, that doesn't mean you can't mix brands. From what I heard from the Apollo owners, that it has great synergy with the likes of, Classe,NAD,Mac,Rotel and so on. But by pairing products that are the same company, in your case NAD. You will get, as you put it, synergy. Speakers do need some time to break in, Paradigm states 40-50 hours of listening until the mold they use in their drivers become relaxed, producing more low end. This also may be the case for your speakers.Here is a link on speaker break in: http://www.audioholics.com/education/loudspeaker-basics/speaker-break-in-fact-or -fiction |
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Silver Member Username: StefanomVienna, VA United States Post Number: 901 Registered: Apr-06 | "Is there any particular advantage to pairing an amp and cdp from the same manufacturer? I can certainly imagine that the designers might be able to improve the synergy between components by designing to that end, but I have no idea if it's true in practice. Is it the case that the sonic qualities of a particular company's amps might also be present in their cdps?" You got it. |
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Gold Member Username: My_rantzAustralia Post Number: 1526 Registered: Nov-05 | Yep, that's right, but that doesn't mean other cdps won't fit better with another company's amps. The example of the Apollo replacing the NAD cdp in our system proved diversity can prove very beneficial. Brand synergy isn't everything. But 'source first' is a good start. . |
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Silver Member Username: Sukhoi30New Zealand Post Number: 155 Registered: Jun-06 | Icing, This is what i would do obviously once the speakers are run in for a few weeks and if you are sill longing for smoother treble Step 1.) Try Audioquest Type 4 or 6 cables between the amp and the speakers, i used more than few cables and finally got some very good results with the aforementioned cables - very good value for money and an easy upgrade and might deliver more than 50% of the improvement you are looking for (in regards to treble), they also help provide a good sound decay especially with Pianos and like wise. Your amp is rated at 50 watts but should be fine to drive your speakers since it gets help from a bigger cabinet and a smaller driver comparitively. Step 2.) Yes i would have normally suggested sticking to a similar brand - especially because NAD makes better CDPs than most others at that price, however as mentioned earlier going higher like the apollo would definately help, especially since you are wanting smoother treble, NAD does not have a smooth upper range which is especially exposed by the B&Ws tweeters. Wait if you can and get a CDP higher than the NADs, especially because you know what you want which is an advantage. If you are still not happy then look at the speakers again since they have a tendency to go slightly on the bright side. Just in the B&W 600 range - speakers sound very different, for example a 603 sound much warmer when compared to a 602 but they use almost the same drivers and tweeters.... Hope this helps Cheers |
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Gold Member Username: Stu_pittIrvington, New York USA Post Number: 2074 Registered: May-05 | Icing - Sorry I'm a little late here. I owned the 320BEE for a few years. Everything you've mentioned should help out. The least of your concerns should be the wiring, unless you're using absolute crap stuff. For interconnects, Audioquest's bottom of the line stuff worked pretty well for me. Their better stuff showed improvement, so if you can get it for a good price (I got mine about 70% off)) it may be worth it. If you're staying with the BEE, I wouldn't spend much more than Audioquest's low end interconnect - Copperhead and Sidewinder. I used Monster and Acoustic Research speaker wires with good results. I wouldn't get too crazy with this stuff. The BEE isn't the most transparent and revealing amp there is. Audioquest also makes a pre-out/main in jumper for $25, which is pretty good. The BEE will show you differences between the 542, 525BEE, and even a Rega Apollo. My first step in upgrading my system was from a NAD 523 CD changer to a Rega Apollo, connected to my 320BEE. It made a huge difference. It isn't worth spending the extra money on the Apollo if you're keeping the BEE for a period of time, but it shows what the BEE is capable of. The 542 is a better CD player than the 525BEE in every way. Your system should be able show the differences. If its worth the extra money is totally up to you, but it would definitely be worth it to me. Some of the brightness/harshness is the 325BEE, and there's not much you can do about it. You can try and tame it, but no matter what, some will still be there. Moving up NAD's line will take care of this. Also keep in mind that the BEE isn't the most powerful amp out there. You should be fine as long as you keep it within its limits. |
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New member Username: IcingMetro Boston, MA USA Post Number: 4 Registered: Aug-07 | I haven't had any time recently to post, but I've been thinking a lot about all your responses and all the informative suggestions you've thrown out there. Here's what I think I'm going to do: As soon as I have the time, I am going to audition a NAD C525BEE in my system. If I like the sound, I'm going to buy it. Then I will try replacing the lowest-common denominator interconnect I'm still using. If I find something that sounds better to me, I'll keep it. Everything you all suggest about trying better equipment than NAD's entry level is very seductive. But I'm going to restrain myself and stay within the limited budget I have set. In addition, despite the fun of it, I don't want spend too much more time exchanging and comparing components; I just want to get to listening to music. It's really tempting to try out every component you've all suggested (the raves about the Rega Apollo are most intriguing), and I have little doubt that they would change the sound in a way I would enjoy. But don't forget where I'm coming from: a 16 year old consumer-grade Sony system. My expectation is that the jump from Sony to the NAD+B&W system is going to provide a much bigger change in the sound than a jump from the NAD entry-level components to the next level up. Is that a realistic expectation? Already, after replacing just the amp and speakers, the improvement is striking, and I'm still using the old Sony CD player and junk interconnect! I can't wait to audition the NAD CD player. Assuming I like the C525BEE and find a better interconnect that I like, I hope to sit back, enjoy the system for a while, and get to know my CD collection again. I'm sure that after a while I'll get the itch to upgrade some more and I'll look at trying out some better equipment. I feel like the more familiar I get with the character of the system I settle on now, the better position I'll be in to do comparative listening when the time is right for me to start upgrading again. So that's my plan. What do you think? Thanks to all of you for joining the discussion. I hope to continue hanging around this place. |
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Bronze Member Username: WattsssupBarrie, ON Canada Post Number: 72 Registered: Aug-06 | Sounds like a good plan to me man. |
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Silver Member Username: Sun_kingUK Post Number: 424 Registered: Mar-04 | Those speakers are fairly bright at the top end and they may just be the culprit. Adding a warmer, smoother cd player will help, as will a smoother interconnect between cdp and amp but the speakers will be a problem I think unless you match well. The Nad BEE cdp will be warmer than the SONY and it will be interesting to hear if it cures your problem. What speaker cables are you using? |
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New member Username: ObonillafPost Number: 7 Registered: Sep-07 | Icing, that sound like a good plan to me also. Enjoy your great system and relax, spend the extra money for great CDs you will rediscover. I read that the BEE 525 CD player makes a great sinergy with the 325BEE. I also suggest you to hook up your "crappy" cd player via digital as a transport and let the 325BEE DAC do the work. Talking about good cds to audition your system is Peter Gabriel's Greatest Hits. Gabriel is a genius, you will wonder how many instruments, effects and more he uses in his songs. One great song to explore from him is RED RAIN. Give it a try. |