Has anyone mentioned that you have Horrible speaker cables? I will I’m not sure you could have picked worse if you tried. Old Cardas Quadlink, and Audioquest Indigo These are 25 year old mediocre cables. And the AQ Water aren’t very good either. If you still have the Focals before you screw yourself $$$ assuming you are in the USA please do yourself a favor and contact The Cable Company and borrow some appropriate cables.
Your advice is well founded but your delivery is a bit caustic. It has taken many of us here some time to conclude that good cables can do the work of good components. That said, OHP could benefit from strengthening all parts of the system chain before chastising the end of it, the speaker.
I was not planning to suggest cables since your root pain is probably deeper than that. But if you are really short of fund and plan to keep the speaker, here are two cables I can suggest to soften the high:
Audio Envy IC and PC, cheap but really rolls off on treble (bass too) since that is your main issue. It is better than what you have (will reduce detail, but we are talking about saving money here).
Silversmith Fidelium will sound better than your cables easily, it is warmer sounding and soft on treble. SC in this case is better than IC.
But I think getting rid of your speaker makes more sense since you still hate it after so many weeks.
Balancing out the frequencies is a challenge in this case. The “annoying” part of the sound is in the 2khz region. Current equipment and cables dull the uppermost frequencies, but elevate the midrange. Better cables that do not restrict the uppermost frequencies would help, and also stronger bass would help balance out the sound. Adding subs might help the most and just might be the biggest bang for the buck.
Mr Pony, I was thinking about you a few days ago when I was listening to your speakers (Focal Utopia Evo) driven by McIntosh 275 power amp and a McIntosh tube preamp.
I have never liked the Focal sound until these. The sound with a Technics 1200G turntable was absolutely beautiful. And the cabinets are gorgeous.
Have they improved for you?
Edit: The TT was actually a Technics SL-1000R-ES
no ones perfect