Help ...... excesssssssive sssssssssssssssssssss

The first obvious question relates to system set up. Have you eliminated hard surfaces at the first reflection points on the side walls, floors and ceilings? They are a big contributor to sibilance, overall brightness, and 'distortion'.

Second biggest contributor (If not the first - I'm not familar with your speakers), are you listening to your speakers on the speakers axis? Many speakers are hot on axis and must be pointed straight ahead, or something in between. On occasions I have gone so far as to toe my speakers in so that the axis crosses in front of my listening position to avoid both sidewall reflections and still listen well off axis.

Lastly, have you listened to other sources on your present stuff and found the presentation to be with out the same sibilence?

I'll not comment on the wires. While I've found wires can seem to be a contributor to brightness on occasion I have no experience with your equipment. Perhaps someone with your stuff will have first hand knowledge, but FWIW I've never been able to tame sibilence with just wire changes.

Have you noticed any change in sibilance across the LP (i.e., outer track compared to inner track and middle track)? Also, try increasing your tracking force to 2.0 grams. Finally, try a different alignment protractor.

Also, and my apologies if you already know this, ensure that you are aligning the cantilever and not the front of the cartridge - I'm not familiar with the VPI alignment rig, it may "force" you to align correctly.

Good luck and keep us posted on your results!

Terry

speakers closer together get warmer and have more attack. too close gives "third tweeter" ...also suggest corner tunes, echo tunes, wall tunes. wall behind speaker is reflective, so do you have a picture or something behind speakers? ...last thing ....maybe ear height/ time alignment of tweeter. ...have you heard other great systems lately? could be your spoiled.

Jeff

I assume this problem happens only on vinyl?

If so, phono input impedance too high is a possibility.

I'd go with Doug's suggestion, EXCEPT that you've had the problem with (at least according to your description) so many different cartridges. It could be that something is being overdriven -- like too high a gain setting in your phono preamp.

OR, if it happens with all sources and not just vinyl, it could be due to an impedance mismatch between your preamp and your amp. I've certainly run across that one before! And this particular amp needs to be configured to match your speaker drivers. Both of these issues are mentioned in the notes published on the First Watt website:

"It is well suited to sensitive full-range drivers such as Lowther or Fostex, and allows easy use of parallel loading networks to tailor the driver response.

It has both balanced and single-ended inputs. The input impedance is nominally 80 Kohm, and the output impedance is 80 ohms."