M80's tweeter issue

I remember reading years ago about someone being sent new tweeters to replace in these speakers. I have a pair of M80's that sound horrid on Norah Jones feels like home, track number one as well as well as her debut album Come away with me...
I notice this harshness usually with highs, piano solos, etc.


I feel like the problem may be my dvd player, but I don't have another one to A/B it with. Does anyone have the same disc, and can verify if it is the CD recording? I tried the CD in my iMAC and I did not detect the high frequency aberration... But the test was using the built-in speakers at the bottom of the computer screen.

I did try a second speaker, and the high distortion was there also... Could it be the "cheap" Toshi SD-5980 DVD player? I noticed this using an HK 550 receiver, using parasound A23 amp for mains, and now, since I changed over to an ONKYO TX-SR805 and the problem is still there.

Where's Gonk?

Help!

I doubt that the DVD player is to blame, as it should be passing the digital bitstream without any alteration - something so badly out of whack that it could create an issue with the signal would show up in lots of other ways. My initial suspicion is related to either the speaker (even without damage to the tweeters, the combination of metal dome tweeters and Canadian speakers like Axiom or my old Paradigms can come across as bright in some circumstances) or how the disc is mastered, but I am not familiar enough with Norah Jones' discs to know if it could be as simple as the way the disc was mastered. The speakers in your iMac are likely to roll off a lot faster than the M80's, so it's very possible that the computer speakers wouldn't reproduce the "problem" frequencies even if it was a disc issue.

Others who are more familiar with Jones' work may be able to answer fairly readily of what you describe is typical for these two discs. Failing that, I may be able to run a little test. I just looked next to me and discovered a copy of the CD of Come Away With Me in among my wife's CD's (I think she got it from her sister at some point and decided she didn't like much). If you know of some consistent problem spots on that disc, I can toss the CD in my two-channel system (OPPO 980H and Outlaw RR2150). I usually use AV123 X-LS speakers in that system, but if I can get that close to the floor I'll finish hooking up the old Paradigm towers to the B speaker output of the 2150 and try those passages with both sets of speakers. The Paradigms and M80's are voiced rather similarly, so there's a fair chance that I could slot a disc issue.
Sitting in his den, resting a bit (stood too long trying to help with the dishes, curse this bum leg) while a certain three-year-old watches Dora behind me... Hey, you asked...

thanks. The speakers i used for the a/b comparison are optimus radio shack highly regarded lineaum tweeter bookshelf speakers ( i can never rid myself of these, as many others have stated in many posts elsewhere...) I tried xm radio over directv and I have not (after two hours or so of listening) detect any irregularity whatsoever.

Two nights ago my family and I watched Sweet Baby James' pull over DVD and listened to it start to finish. My living room guests never mentioned any irregularity, nor did I notice one.

I am really at a loss as to what in the world could be causing this. I am thinking that a logical upgrade for my system now is an Oppo that you beta'd, so I would eventually find out for myself, but..
if you are willing to continue to research this issue, I would be eternally grateful. I have followed your work for years, reply after reply to others like me.

thanks again, Gonk.

David

I'll give the Norah Jones CD a listen on both the X-LS and the Studio 60's. High notes and pianos, right? If I notice any odd spots on the disc, I'll also try them on the main system with the Outlaw speakers.

correction, that was a 525 HK receiver, not 550.
I would think that it would not be the DVd player either, but the only one real non-isolated item in this experiment to determine the cause is the speaker wire.

I used signal cable, and then switched out to zip cord type speaker wire (monster or like type, not cheapo).

then, I used that wire to power my Axiom and had the same problem after switching it to the main audio out of receiver.

so, isolate wire, check. isolate speaker/ a/b, check. use two different receivers/amps, check.

what does that leave us? I can only think the CD!!

Am I crazy?

The cause is very likely the recording. It is quite common for female vocalists to have difficult to record voices that sound too sibilant right next to a microphone. I've battled many such singers myself; sometimes de-essers help, but they still end up sounding hard and harsh.

Electronics, and especially things like speaker wires do not cause harshness to the degree you're hearing.

I've listened through around half of Come Away With Me on my Paradigms, and I've also noticed moments of harshness, mostly with piano and cymbals. I really think that the issue is related to the CD rather than the hardware.

thanks. I thought for a while that I was up for new speakers. hooray, since I love these Axioms!!

regards,
senordaley

Your speakers are probably like many these days - more hot in the high end than they should be, along with a somewhat sucked out high-midrange. That voicing is not going to do any favors to recordings which have accentuated high frequencies. The ideal frequency response at the listening position is a very gentle and linear rolloff from the low frequencies to the very highest so that at 20kHz the response is down 5dB to 10dB.

Interesting, Altec - wasn't that pretty much the frequency response of the classic Acoustic Research AR-3a - pairs of which back in the early 60s, if memory serves, actually passed "live vs. recorded" tests before live audiences, driven with Dyna tube equipment? The recording medium must have been open-reel analogue tape.

Ah, progress . . .

The classic AR speakers were not like today's in that they did not have a tipped-up "tizzy" high end. If anything, they had a rather mellow extreme high end, which lent itself to sounding very convincingly like real musical instruments. An overly accentuated treble makes a speaker sound more like "HiFi" than real musicians, and is a sound I personally do not like. The upper midrange was a bit laid back however, and this gives the impression of more "depth", for better or worse.

The AR live vs recorded demos were recorded on analog 1/4" tape in anechoic conditions out-of-doors so that there was not any built in "room sound". This let the sound of the hall in which the music was played furnish the ambiance, which was the exact same ambiance supplied to the live musicians. The effect was convincing, especially because the audience was far enough away that the spatial relationships were difficult to tell apart between the musicians and the speakers.

Yes, Dynaco MK-III 60 watt amplifiers were used for these demos. This was in the days before AR came out with their own 50 watt "AR Amplifier".

Ah, progress?? Interesting you mention that. I recently posted a thread called "Smackdown - have recordings improved over fifty years?" in the Sound and Vision forums. My intention was to take vinyl reissues of classic jazz recordings made around 1958 - the sound that the proverbial audiophile of 1958 would achieve - and compare it with the latest and greatest digital jazz recordings made now - what that audiophile would hear today. I interspersed the vinyl selections with the digital selections on a CD so that it could be easily distributed.

Interestingly (but not surprising to me), the 1958 vintage recordings on vinyl were generally acknowledged as sounding more like real musicians playing in front of the listener than the 2008 digital recordings.

Progress???? I think they already had it right in the 1950s - all that has taken place since has been marketing department hype.

Thanks, Altec - you must be about my age. One more bit of AR curiosity - do you happen to know if anybody ever tried biamping or even triamping the big AR's? I know it would have been difficult considering the well-sealed enclosure and would have required mounting more binding posts on the rear, but if speaker-level crossovers are a weak point in the reproduction chain someone might have made the attempt.
Just speculating.

Oh, I imagine that somebody probably did use bi or tri amping on the original AR speakers, but I don't know of any instances personally. In those days, people weren't likely to try active crossovers for the simple reason that fewer commercial active crossovers were available. Now we have quite a few, albiet for the PA and musical recording sectors.

The first instance I have read about where bi ampling was used was in a 1951 issue of High Fidelity magazine where it was used in conjunction with the FAS 'bass coupler', an organ-pipe like contraption which must have sounded rather bad by today's standards. The crossover itself was a simple RC passive affair with a tube output buffer.

Altec wrote, [Interestingly (but not surprising to me), the 1958 vintage recordings on vinyl were generally acknowledged as sounding more like real musicians playing in front of the listener than the 2008 digital recordings.] You are so right.

I'll even take that to late 50's recordings available on CD. I have people try to excuse poor sounding 70's classic rock as old recording techniques and then I play them some beautiful 50's recordings to show them that the potential was always there. Sometimes it depends on the Masters still available / used but they definitely knew how to record the material.