I recently purchased the following: Cambridge Audio 540 Azur - Integrated Amplifier Paradigm Mini-monitors - Bookshelf Speakers
I'm currently using them with a progressive scan dvd player for playing CDs. I know it's not optimal, and will most likely only be this way in the short-term.
For the first couple of weeks of owning my new gear I was using speaker pins (with a compression - non solder fitting) to connect to the binding posts on both the amp and speakers. It sounded fantastic. I was in heaven!
I wanted something a little cleaner for quick connection, and decided to switch to banana plugs. I am not an electronic expert, but nevertheless I soldered (rosin-core silver) the speaker wire to the banana plugs, avoiding a cold-joint to the best of my knowledge.
After I finished with connecting the banana plugs, I could swear that I was getting a slightly different sound out of the system. I listened closely (at relatively low volumes) and on some recordings was noticing what may be distortion. I played the same music through headphones on a different system and was not hearing the distortion in some cases and hearing it in others.
Am I going crazy?
I feel confident that in those cases where there was distortion in both, it must have something to do with the way it was recorded. Is this a safe assumption? And could this damage my speakers in any way, if I continue to play it?
In those cases where it differed from one system to the other, what is going on?
Also, the distortion is not consistent. I do not run the speakers at a high volume, so it wouldn't be any sort of amplifier clipping. I'm not sure what could be causing it. Could it be the solder job I did?
Are there any other diagnostic tests I could do to be sure I am not damaging my speakers and that any perceived distortion is coming from the recording and not a part of my setup?
Though a bad solder joint will eventually sound nasty, it would take a rather obviously poor job to sound bad immediately. As long as you made clean connections and there are no strands of wire touching from + to - legs, the bananas shouldn't be the cause of the distortion. A crummy connector will do some other things to the sound such as dulling the highs, lowering the dynamics of the system or adding a hardness to the sound, but these are rather minimal in the effect on the system and should not be easily confused with "distortion". The only sure way to know would be to remove the bananas and cut back the cable to bare wire. Or, replace the cable with a clean set of wires and listen for any problems.
Any discs which sound distorted over your speakers and headphones can probably be blamed on the recording. Try it in you computer and listen for problems there or ask a friend to play the disc on their system.
If the distortion is low enough in level that you have to listen for it to occur, you shouldn't be damaging your system, particularly if you listen at no more than moderate volumes.
If you have a particular disc or discs which are offensive, take them into an audio shop and ask the staff to play them on their systems in the store. Draw further conclusions from that experience.