Perhaps @NigelB has an idea here, as he uses Monitor 300.
What I found on the net quickly is that they seem to be very revealing and not forgiving. Poor recordings will not sound pleasant.
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+1
That’s been exactly my experience, also with an ND5 XS.
Curtains make a very big difference to room acoustics even when they’re not pulled across the windows. No curtains may have been ok given the previous warmer sounding Audiolab amps, but the balance is now on the brighter side with your chosen Naim amps. A change of speakers could restore the balance but a change to room acoustics will better fix the root of the problem.
“metal dome tweeters have a bit of a reputation for being bright”
I’ve always been under the impression that they are harsh and sibilant. The flooring wood /tile or carpet may also have an effect?
Pre naim I can remember trying to tame sibilance/ harshness with different cables and got nowhere
Carpets will make a small difference to HF as will curtains but it depends where the curtains are positioned. First reflection points or behind the listening position will help but they will make little or no difference to the upper mids which can also contribute to an overly bright sound.
I would have thought problem is in the source as ND5xs is not up to the task at all and suggest getting an nDAC for real bass, dynamics and stronger saturated mids and treble.
as you say there’s plenty of bass, but, are you sure it’s not bloated lower midband?
BTW better cables wouldn’t solve anything here I fear.
Truth. However, I have to put it in context: my pair is from 2014 and his tweeter is metallic,
with the aforementioned tendency to brightness.
(New generations are better at this topic).
I kept the pair, inherited from my previous system, mainly because
they have a lot of sound, for the money.
Used to be a trick of finding some fairly stiff felt large enough to cut out two tweeter faceplate shaped discs - allowing enough room cut out in the centre for the tweeter dome.
Was meant to help dampen down the brightness of some metal domed items.
Some manufacturers had them included. You can buy them ready made with sticky back tape.
For a few £s, could be worth trying
MA Studio 20SEs are a very different speaker to the MA GX Gold 200s or 300s. The GX Golds have a wonderfully smooth ribbon tweeter and mine (GX300s) have never suffered from brightness in all the various Naim systems I have used them in. These systems include Uniti2, NDX, NDS, ND555, 282, 250DR.
So the OP’s brightness could be due to the MA Studio 20SEs (I have heard they can be bright, and Richard confirms this), and I have similarly heard that the 20SEs are not a great match with Naim. The Gold GXs are a very different speaker and if the OP likes MA he could do worse that seek out a pre loved pair of GXs, as I have seen them very reasonably priced. A demo at home however would be preferable to ensure the balance is right and that brightness is removed.
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Mine is from 2009 actually but it has the ribbon tweeter. My room isn’t very damped either. I guess the upshot is that MA has lots of different models spanning many years and maybe some really are a poor match (and to some ears), but “MA don’t match” might be too broad of a statement.
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Ok So I’ve been driving the misses nuts with moving things around. Have now ended up with the speakers facing the window with a solid wall behind and off the wall about a foot which is completely opposite to how it was and this has really improved the base and took away some of the brightness to a point where it’s now much more enjoyable and I’m beginning to appreciate the system. I think the 282 has so much detail that it shows up the difference between a good and bad recording especially with vinyl and maybe some days the network quality could be varied?
On the upside the studio 20s base response has been transformed and because I’ve not got a brightness issue listening to vinyl I think maybe I do need to upgrade the ND5xs
maybe speakers will follow after some research.
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