By ear piercing do you mean distorted? In my experience I only come across one cd where the beginning of the song would be what I call ear piercing. I always thought it was the recording until I upgraded to a power amp. With the power amp it comes off smooth. So in my opinion your problem is a probably a combination of your receiver distorting the signal and your speakers not being able to handle those frequencies.
On my system with good power amps the highs are never ear splitting. They are smooth with maybe a bit of edge to it, like if its a trumpet or similar type instrument.