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What is the cause of my sibilance problem?

I have been fighting a sibilance problem for about a year. I thought I had it beat but it is back. I've tried cleaning and treating all connections, acoustic foam treatment at first reflection points on side and front walls and ceiling, different interconnects, speaker position, and even a different digital front-end. The problem manifests itself as extremely harsh 's' sounds in both male and female voice. I am beginning to wonder if I need to have my hearing checked - I tried headphones and hear the same problem. Well, here is my system:

Aiwa XC-37M CD-changer
MSB Link DAC III with 24/96 upsampling board
B&K Ref. 10 preamp
B&K AV6000 poweramp
Paradigm Reference Studio 60 Loudspeakers
Hsu Research VTF-2 powered subwoofer
Signet center channel
Atlantic Technology surrounds
Sennheiser HD580 Headphones
Home Grown Audio Super Silver interconnects
Monster Cable subwoofer cable
Ted's Excellent Cable speaker wire (mains)
Kimber 4TC speaker wire (surrounds)
Mapleshade Brass cones, weights, and cork/rubber feet
Michael Green 5-shelf Audio Rack.

A Television, the subwoofer, and the Audio Rack sit between the louspeakers; which are approximately 7' apart and 7' from the listening position. My room is highly irregular and ASC claims that $1200 in acoustic treatment is the answer to my problem. I'm not saying they are wrong. But, having experienced the same problem with headphones (and acoustic foam not alleviating the problem one iota) I am beginning to wonder...
gallaine
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,348 posts
 
Gallaine, is it possible that your source material is the problem? Performances of close miked female vocalist, if not processed fully, will tend to be somewhat sibilant. This can also be the case if the singer is not familiar with the recording process. Is this problem on all your music, or only on a select few discs? It's unfortunate, but as you system gets better and more resolving, the quality of the disc becomes an issue.
gallaine OP
114 posts
 
Onhwy61 - it is certainly possible that it is the source material. I don't have that many CDs with female vocals, but the problem occurs on all of the them.
sol322
426 posts
 
Gallaine:
My question regarding the use of cones is a key one.
Please advise which brass cones from Mapleshade are you using and how specifically you have them set in your CD player and DAC. Where and how are the cones positioned?
Do you have one of the cones at the rotation axis of the disc? Are they point up or point down?
This cone detail has a great doing with overly enhanced highs in my experience.
detlof
1,899 posts
 
Gallaine, I've made a different experience. I listen to a lot of vocals, male and female and I've got the problem of sibilants perfectly licked, inspite of having very resolving tweeters,( plasma) which go up to where the bats hear. With me it was the front end and I suggest, that Gallaine experiment with that.
Cheers
nightdoggy
32 posts
 
I guess that it is high frequency oscillation and/or ringing riding on the music waveform caused by RFI being picked up/reflected back into components by too many cables and wires. Also, so many connections to component input and output stages with so many series and parallel input and output stage circuits terminated could be setting up a "tuned circuit", ringing like mad or even picking up RFI at frequencies all over the spectrum. I would simplify the wiring and connection paths and pay close attention to a true single point grounding as well as common shielding and shield current direction.
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