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Your problem may be easily solved by a simple mod to your speakers

Posted by Charles Hansen (M) on January 28, 2008 at 19:52:25

In Reply to: Just generally, what does an upgraded power supply do to a DAC's treble? posted by audiohound on January 28, 2008 at 14:54:57:

<< I have Paradigm Studio Monitor 20 speakers with aluminum or titanium tweeters (not sure), as opposed to silk domes. They sound very good with audiophile vinyl but digital is more dubious >>

The problem is NOT the metal dome. A good metal dome tweeter will sound sweet, open, transparent, and resolved. The problem is that 98% of all metal dome tweeters put a "thing" in front of the dome. Sometimes they call it a "phase plug". Sometimes they call it a "diffusor". But in reality it is neither of these things. Instead it is actually a Helmholtz resonator (think of blowing across the top of a pop bottle), but tuned to 15 or 20 kHz. The Helmoltz resonator rings like a bell at that high frequency, and THAT is what makes the thing sound "metallic".

The larger the structure in front of the dome, the worse the problem is. Most of the time these things are plastic and can be cut off with a pair of diagonal wire cutters ("dikes"). If you are brave enough, you can cut them off in two minutes and your system will sound much sweeter and smoother in the high frequencies.

The only catch is that if you screw up and damage the tweeter you will have to buy replacements. You may want to call Paradigm first to check, but I would guess that they are somewhere between $25 and $60 each.

I'm not just some crackpot on the internet giving "advice". I was the founder of Avalon Acoustics, and we were the first US company to use metal dome tweeters. This tip was given to me by Martin Colloms in '85 or so, and he was right on the money.

Good luck!

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