Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo High Frequency Annoyance

Alright, first of all I should give you a little background information on the equipment I've gone through. My initial stereo was a sanyo reciever from the 80's with 60 watt papercone sanyo speakers. A few years ago, after being convinced by a salesman I bought a Onkyo DS595 reciever. At the time I thought that I was going to eventually do a 5.1 setup in my room with SACD's and the works. When I brought it home, I hooked it up to my crappy speakers and it did sound better. About a year later I started hunting for speakers, I was looking mainly at polk, kef, and reference klipsch. Then I stumbled on a dealer who had a pair of demo M80ti's and I bought them for $1000 cash. I brought them home, replaced my old sanyo speakers, and lo and behold, I heard clarity for the first time inside my house instead of a dealer's showroom.

A few months down the road, out of curiosity, I switched back to the reciever from the 80's and the music sounded a lot better. I didn't know why, but I figured that the Onkyo reciever was a piece of crap and sold it to a buddy for $250. That's when I started looking into seperates, I auditioned equipment from various companies once again; this time with a lot more scrutiny. I tried equipment from H/K, Aragon, Marantz, Bryston, some pro audio stuff from Bryston, QSC, and AB Int. Eventually I stumbled upon a company called Odyssey Audio; after talking to the owner (it's a online company based in the states) I decided to make the plunge and purchase one of their amps. It cost me almost $1500 with shipping, and that's what I have sitting in my room right now.

I love the sound of the amp, and the music it creates, I'm currently feeding it through a Mackie mixer; yes please don't laugh, I'm using one source and the tape loop. In any case, there are certain songs Eternal by Trans Syberian Orchestra comes to mind, which sound fatiguing. I borrowed a 16 band eq from a friend and if I lower the highest frequency the annoyance goes away. I've read about people saying that amps can be too analytical, and the Odyssey being a 60lb solid state monster could be one of those amps.

At the moment I'm looking for a good tube preamp to try with my system in order to fix the problem. I'm looking for an Audio Blues 7B MKII but those are so rare that I haven't seen one on audiogon or ebay in ages.

I suppose that my question is whether this would fix the problem, or if perhaps it's a bias problem w/ the amp? if anyone know what a bias problem would sound like.

BTW, I'm 19 years old, and I suppose that I can hear higher frequencies than most audiophiles on here.

Rob.

Your off to quite a good start for your age, Klaus is a great guy too, A couple months ago I bought a pair of Khartago Mono's for my M80's and they have been great. If you hadnt been following Odyssey lately Klaus has recently come out with a tube preamp called the Candela, If youve got the cash for one of these im sure it would be a significant upgrade over the mixer your using now. If its just a couple of songs then it could also be the recording itself. One particular album that comes to mind with a high frequency noise thats quite irritating is Santana's Shaman. A couple of tracks contain some real irritating noise.

I cant imagine how a bias problem with the amp would do such a thing, However if you think the bias is off you should give klaus a call and he can help your figure out further what you can do to get more enjoyment out of your system. The Odyssey amps have a reputation for being one of the best sounding SS lines out there, Meaning that they dont have the usual solid state sound.

My advice, and I think that of many others would be to get a proper preamp, You dont mention what sources you use but that could also be one of the reasons for the annoyance you describe.

My main source is a HTPC, it's a pretty cool setup, I should post some pictures on here. At the moment I'm using an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 Soundcard, I'm considering eventually going into a USB - Digital - DAC setup, but I'm not sure if I would gain anything in terms of sonic quality. All I know is that I used to have an older REGA Planet and I didn't find any differences in the sound coming from that source and my lossless cd rips. And this is coming from a guy who can hear the difference between 320kbit/mp3s and lossless rips.

Yes the mixer has to go, it's not even mine, I'm borrowing it from a friend who's a DJ; that's how I got my hands on the QSC and AB gear in the first place. But the $1200 price tag of the Candela isn't very friendly to me right now. I don't really want to spend over $500. One thing that I'm keeping in mind is buying a BottleHead Foreplay III kit and building it myself, I've used a soldering iron more than once before and had even at one time started a tube amp project.

The original rega planet is known to be a very warm sounding cd player, even a bit too rolled off for some folks so I would have my doubts that would have anything to do with it. I think that building the Foreplay would be a great option, Not only are they good preamps but its also a good feeling when you actually build your own gear. Sounds like you dont need any help at all on deciding where to go with your next upgrades

Im not sure if you keep your Stratos on 24/7 but if you do then you will want to consider adding a mute circuit to the foreplay so that you can power the preamp on and off without having any risk of damage to the amps or speakers when leaving the poweramp turned on.

Do you have any other preamps that come to mind other than the Foreplay that are tube based and under $500?

This is another option. Haven't heard it, but from what I've read it seems to be pretty darn good.

I've also been looking at this: YS Audio Symphonies Plus

Any thoughts on a 12AU7 vs a 12AX7A based preamp?