Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater How to make m60 ti se. sound better

Hi, All:
I owned pair of m60ti se for about 3 months now. So far I like them, very detail and clear. But I have found the tweeter of this speaker a little harsh. When I watch dvd and orchestral trumpet is playing high notes the sound from tweeters is very harsh,like the tweeters are broken. In music, when lyric has s in it, the tweeter has this unnature Ssss sound, like a scissor slice through paper. I am using denon 3802 to drive them. I wonder how can I tame this harshness. Would use a class A amp or tube amp can help me archive this?
Thanks in advance for your help.

Daniel

Ok, lets look at this systematically:
1) has this setup always exhibited this problem?
2) if not, what has changed?
3) can you play another source (CD, tape or record) that does not annoy? (This would determine if the DVD player is the problem.)

Assuming your Axioms are not damaged(I will leave that for Ian to discuss with you), you mention the receiver, and allude to DVD as being the source. Your amp section is fairly robust and not likely to be the cause of problem if it is functioning properly. With the BIG assumption that your amp is not damaged I would suspect your source, as DVD tends to be harsh, especially if the product is less than optimum. Do you have access to another source? Can you play a record, CD or tape with different results? Have you ever had DVD playback without this problem?

A last item could be the room acoustics.

I would doubt that another, higher quality amp would solve the issue.

Regards,

BBIBH

Hi, Stranger:
Thanks for your suggestion.
For:
1) It does have this problem from the beginning.
3) I use Panny RP-91 as my dvd/cd player. I don't have other transport.
I think my speaker, receiver and player are not broken because I only have those problems as I described, most time the sound is great. That's driven me nuts.
My room is 12x16 with one side open to dinning room and two doors to the hallway. The floor is bare hardwood but I have a huge cafe table between my sofa and speaker. I can try put a rug to cover some area.
Do you have any experience with class A amp? Do they have warm highs than other amp?
Thanks again.

Daniel

Interesting problem.....the other variable is source media. Most of your media sounds ok, but you mention some are poor? Is it always the same media that sounds bad?

Class A amps are can be excellent or poor. They do not escape the designer/manufacturer and the quality of the materials. This is no different than any other piece of equipment. When done correctly, they are very detailed and warm.....and I do mean WARM! For serious listening, it would be excellent. For home theater, it would not. An amp of that design would certainly expose any other weaknesses in your system (source, cabling,etc)

This could be a very long discussion, and I won't discuss what a Class A amp is unless requested.

Regards,

BBIBH

Just thought I would insert a few comments here. I would agree with BBIBH that it is unlikely the amp is the issue. I think you are experiencing a combination of recordings and room acoustics. Unfortunately how a movie or music is mixed when originally recorded varies widely. Many recordings are recorded "hot" for radio play or whatever reasons the recording engineer may have. These "hot " recordings can cause some real problems in live rooms. I do believe the carpet would help quite a bit. Further to this you could remove your tweeters and place a 2-ohm resistor in line to the tweeter. This will dampen down the high frequencies without affecting the overall speaker performance and compensate for the live room.

Ian Colquhoun
President & Chief Engineer

Thank you for your help.
The problem exists on all dvd and cd that have this kind of recording. The good examples are "Fantasia 2000" dvd and Areosmith cd. But the severness is much less on cd. I do not have classical symphony cd yet. I will try that see how does it sound.

Daniel

So you have specifically defined that it happens on certain media. Does this happen if you play them on another system? I must believe that your media (CD, DVD) is causing the issue.


Regards,

BBIBH