I'm putting to rest worrying about sibilance

Lol, yea I never gave that any thought.....hmmmm

noromance  You are unfortunataly right, I had the same problem with "Pairing" components, I switch another CD player Brand to another less expensive, and I have now a better reading music.  I wonder why companies did not put together the best match of componnets cables and speaakers to have a better music experience. ?

Obtaining a giant can of effective ’siblanc-b-gon’,and using it, consists of a LOW output MC, into a properly specced and applied transformer, and that going into a esoteric oriented RIAA amplifier of medium gain.

the RIAA circuit/amplifier/gain-stages (should be two gain stages, possibly each as passive)... must be built of non magnetic resistive components, with no Mylar, ceramic, or tantalum capacitors. All non magnetic electrolytics, and all non magnetic RCA jacks and so on.

When that is done, combined with the same emphasis and work in the tonearm (good bearings for zero chatter, etc) and it’s connectivity (good wiring, no teflon dielectric, etc, all non magnetic connectivity)...THEN..one can finally get to finding out if the sibilance is in the record (or original recording) or not.

This is done with careful set up of the cartridge, with all of the rest in place.

This is the road to low sibilance. It’s surprising how much it can be the gain stages (as a circuit design) being a problem, and not just the components in the circuit.

the whole thing is the sum of the parts and how it is arranged and then how it is applied. Any one of those steps being missed and you’ll be stuck trying fix a mess that is build into it and unrealized. (meaning -you don’t know what part is at fault, so you’ve no clue which way is up so there is no reference point to begin analysis from--you just spin and throw darts, making mistake after mistake with no end in sight)

If one wants to approach perfection then all the tiny steps must be meticulously applied as a whole set with zero of them missed or ignored.

It’s like you are trying to toss (like blindfolded mini-putt) a ball really hard down a long darkened careening hallway, and bounce perfectly of about a dozen bumpers..and nail the ball into the hole..and never be able to really see any of that pathway you just nailed. Evey inch of following the path must be perfect or the result will be a fail.

In the end, all you can do is play with low output cartridges and see if you can get the compliance of that cartridge to work in the perfected system...and then.. you finally get to hear if sibilance is on the record, or not.

To give you an idea of how rarely it is done to that required level, you can pick any piece of equipment for sale on the 'gon..and then go through them inch by inch. Somewhere near 1 in 50 to 1 in 100 will be built to that required level.

So it's all running in circles in the dark - for the vast majority of us. Never having a clue of how to fix it.

Here is something to ponder on the subject: I have some 1980 vintage stuff from Til Tuesday. Although the music is very well recorded and full of strong dynamic range, the female vocalist has always had a very harsh sibilance to my ears. In fact I could only listen to a few cuts and I had to drop the volume at certain sections of the singing.

I have not changed out any cartridges to experiment with differences, I am still using my old favorite, the Audio Technica AT20ss and now with a new old stock stylus installed (about 150 hours on it at this point). Nothing seems to knock down the harshness. UNTIL, I installed a new Musical Surroundings Nova III to replace my Gold Note PH10 about two weeks ago. I only have around 15 hours use on the Nova III at this point, however I have done a lot of experimenting with the loading and I wanted to try what I was told on another thread makes a huge difference on MM carts and that is using an input impedance value of 100K ohms. The PH10 doesn’t offer this load, only the ’standard’ 47K. When I switched over to 100K ohms, I was blown away by how much smoother, detailed and open air the mid to upper range was. In fact most of the harsh sibilance was gone. The vocals which were always bothering me seemed to be rather pleasant now. I put on another 80’s recording from Duran Duran, a 12 inch 33rpm single of "The Reflex" which has extraordinary low end, but again the vocals drove me nuts with sibilance. I noticed the exact same improvement, it was pleasant to hear now.

Finally I have the right mix of settings which seemed to have solved a decades old issue for me. A simple change of input loading to 100K with capacitance settings of either 100 pf or 200 pf, depending on how much low end you want.

Just for specification as per the post above me, I am using a VPI Ares3 TT with a SME Series IV tonearm, audio cables which are nothing fancy, but custom made from the guy up in Toronto, ground to the chassis of the Nova III, no ground to earth from the chassis (I used to have one connected, but I developed a sudden ground loop and removing the earth ground solved it).   Cartridge as noted is the AT20ss MM which is lower output for MM at 2.7mv.   Gain on the Nova III is set at 52db after initially running 50db.  

With the money spent on three mid-line record players, you could have spent on one top quality record player.   After having set up my friend's SOTA Sapphire recently, sibilance is not an issue, nor is surface noise on most records where it was once a problem.