My system is not sounding its best after the parting of highly thought of speakers, The Cyrus Icons, they have to go because I need the storage space and I much prefer the ESL 57 anyway, why keep a extra large speaker around. However, the ESLs are in storage whilst awaiting another pair to match the room décor. Furthermore, my two favourite players Sharp DX SX1 and the Sony SCD1 are in for repair. So a Sony DVP9000ES is standing in for the Sharp and the ELAC 310iJET is standing for the ESL 57.

Against this backdrop, listening sessions were not altogether as satisfying I as recall them, the treble was a bit prominent, at times glassy, the system even sounded fragile at times, what’s this all about? I begin to casting suspicious eyes on all the components, first stop the ELACs, you are guilty of prominent treble, I am going to the hardware store to buy some 2ohm resistors to cut down your treble a notch. But wait one minute when the DX SX1 was around treble was excellent. Is it the amplifier? Unlikely, but let me tweak your impedance settings anyway, problem solved? No. Maybe we should buy copper silver cables, the extra resistance would help tame the treble.

Chilling out on the Saturday morning, system still sending out the wrong signals, I decide I will get the copper speaker cables later in the afternoon or some silver solder to attach a 2 ohm resistor in series to the crossover. However let me tweak the settings of this DVP, I will change the settings to “Audio Direct”, after all my system it is strictly an audio only player.

And bam!!! Everything falls into place, the treble regains it smoothness and harmonic coherence is restored, all that fragility is gone. So there is nothing wrong with the existing components, the DVP had the wrong settings ad the system being transparent let’s all that harshness through the system, is only as good as the weakness ling. Well I can see that a system is only as good as its weakest link