Sibilance

I had a sibilance issue that was driving me MAD for close to a year.  I had my system sounding excellent (Innersound Eros stats and Innersound amps in those days).  SOUNDED MAGNIFICENT so I decided to make 2 upgrades (at the same time).   The bigger upgrade was replacing my Esoteric X03SE SACD Player with a new K03;  at the same time, I purchased Symposium Svelt Shelves to go under the speakers.

BOY, did I have sibilance, which I attributed to the new SACD player requiring break in;  also got it a new Shunyata $2,000 PC just in case that was giving me trouble.  More time for break in.  Making a very long story short; when I added the symposium svelt sheveles under the speakers, I did not realize I had to remove the metal feet under the speakers.  I had spend thousands to try to find/remove the sibilance.  Needles to say, once the feet were removed, it was heaven again.  

Ever consider......your room?

Of course you will notice at times....

And if you are streaming its worse.

Sometimes harsh high freq. are caused by mains pollution, which is in turn caused by RFI and switched-mode power supplies. Variations then are a result of variations in the mains. You may change the DAC and harshness disappears, but not necessary because the DAC sounds differently, just because its power supply is less prone to those distortions.
One solution that works in my setup is Audioplan PowerPlant 100S, which is just a 100W isolation transformer for my DAC. It won’t help with a poorly balanced, bright system, but if all you need is just some fine-tuning, it does the job. It has no effect on my server though, but works well if connected to the DAC ( Aqua la Voce). I’d say cotton highs become silky. And you need a resolving setup to hear the real difference.

Clearthinker, jitter sounds much different than sibilance. I had a great jitter lesson once. I was trying to set up Pure Vinyl (Channel D) and was using an ADC and DAC on different clocks. It sounded like pop corn. That was a severe case. In minor form it sounds like little pops. 

Stringreen is right. There is no sibilance in any version I have heard.

jfk011, I hate to be blunt (right) but, you have two choices to fix this.
You can deaden your room starting with the first reflection sites or you can get a DSP and program a notch filter as I previously described. This is purely an acoustic phenomenon aggravated by a bump in our ear's sensitivity in and around 3000 Hz. Google Grundy Curve or BBC curve.
It is not your equipment doing this. Cartridges miss tracking can sort of sound similar but that is distortion. Sibilance is not distortion. It is a frequency response aberration.  

That would be a huge waste of time and esp money even if my wife would allow room trat wants which she won't. I have to do all audiophilia on shoestring budget and no credit. Where do you people get all this money? Buying room treatments, much less ever upgrading a component for those kind of dollars (even interconnects and such), to me, would be the same as financing a trip to Pluto - and we make good money but we have a lot of expenses and other hobbies. If I never wanted to travel, ride bikes or motorcycles, have a car, etc. then I'd spend crazy money on audio. I can't. 

But, much more importantly,  the problem, I think, is my ears. I hear it only on certain tracks from all sources - even the car! I googled sibilance related to hearing problems there's nothing on the internet.  Guess I'll just have to suffer.