I too once battled sibilance. It was a long hard road, but with the right therapy of repeated viewings of the Cindy Brady lisping episode of the Brady Bunch, I was able to come to grips with it and learn to live life with its existence. I now sell seashells by the seashore. Each sold separately thru September. Godspeed
My battle with sibilance.
At the minimum sibilance is annoying to me. Its only present on a small percentage of my records. However today I wanted to see if I could improve it. The song in question is Men at Work's "Down Under". The cartridge is an Ortofon Cadenza Bronze retipped by Soundsmith. I went through a lot of the protocols for abating annoying sibilance.
1.My anti skate was not optimally set so I thought and I adjusted to less using a dead spot on a test record. I know some people don't agree with this. I tried Soundsmiths method but until I see a video I won't understand it.
2. I adjusted my VTA to at least 20 degrees. I realized it was off. It was set at 12-15 degrees. I know the Shibata stylus is sensitive to VTA.
3. I checked the VTF and it was set at the manufacturers suggestion at 2.5 grams. Which is dead in the middle of 2.3 to 2.7. I adjusted to 2.62. A lot of people think the higher range is optimum.
3. I made sure my stylus was absolutely clean.
Guess what? After all this, the sibilance was less but still there. As a check I listened to the song in streaming and it was in the recording!!! However not as bad as my record before my TT adjustments. So I'm happy now my TT might sound better on other recordings. Anyway I hope my fellow members here have had some success on sibilance and maybe some will benefit from what I did.
1.My anti skate was not optimally set so I thought and I adjusted to less using a dead spot on a test record. I know some people don't agree with this. I tried Soundsmiths method but until I see a video I won't understand it.
2. I adjusted my VTA to at least 20 degrees. I realized it was off. It was set at 12-15 degrees. I know the Shibata stylus is sensitive to VTA.
3. I checked the VTF and it was set at the manufacturers suggestion at 2.5 grams. Which is dead in the middle of 2.3 to 2.7. I adjusted to 2.62. A lot of people think the higher range is optimum.
3. I made sure my stylus was absolutely clean.
Guess what? After all this, the sibilance was less but still there. As a check I listened to the song in streaming and it was in the recording!!! However not as bad as my record before my TT adjustments. So I'm happy now my TT might sound better on other recordings. Anyway I hope my fellow members here have had some success on sibilance and maybe some will benefit from what I did.
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- 68 posts total
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There seems to be a lot of confusion as to what sibilance is and means. It is not tracking distortion and it is not due to tonearm misalignment. It is due to the high sensitivity of our ears to frequencies in the 3-4 kHz range and systems or recordings that tend to emphasize these frequencies. It has nothing to do with distortion. You can eliminate any sibilance with a notch filter at 3500 Hz. You can not get rid of distortion this way. Sometimes all you have to do is reduce the volume a little. Rickie Lee Jones will always get sibilant if you push the volume to high on even the finest systems. |
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My experience with sibilance is as a live sound technician and in a home recording studio environment. This article will explain a tool used by sound engineers to control sibilance, a deeser. https://ledgernote.com/columns/mixing-mastering/de-esser/ I run audio systems in churches where there is a large number of older folks with reduced ability to hear high frequencies. So I feel pressure to provide a generous amount of high frequencies associated with sibilance but without creating an unpleasant sound. When I am working with a powerful digital audio mixer that has plenty of parametric EQ and deeser or compressor with frequency side chain (explained above) there is little difficulty controlling sibilance. Sometimes I’ve noticed that sibilance can be controlled by reducing the attack time of the compressor. For a home situation EQ would reduce sibilance but also hacks the high frequencies (4-8khz) for the entire mix. That is why a deeser is preferable. If you notice the problem mostly when the volume is loud or when you are boosting the volume of a preamp, maybe the sibilance is causing unpleasant high frequency distortion somewhere in your signal chain. Be sure to check your signal chain for a volume knob that is too high followed by one that is too low. In the case above maybe a tube preamp or tube compressor will create less offensive distortion in the highs while providing some gentle compression. The compressor will likely have an insert so you can use an EQ to turn it into a pseudo-deeser. Your solution will likely be greatly influenced by your budget. There are plenty of options, including some not included above. |
- 68 posts total