Hegel H390 DAC

If the transport is the root cause of the sibilance, you have to try a few things. 
1. get at least 200hrs of play time on the Jays. Not just on time but playing and passing the signal thru

2. try different digital cables. Doesn’t have to be expensive but must be either 75ohm coax or 110ohm AES. Using regular balanced or rca cable can cause sonic degradation. The impedance of the cable is critical. 
3. Assuming the transport is broken in with at least 200hrs of play and you’re using proper  digital cables, and you tried stock and upgraded power cords, and your old dvd player isn’t exhibiting the same issue, you need to contact Jays Audio and discuss this situation. 
 

If the sibilance is just as nasty with the DVD player as transport into the Aqua but there’s no sibilance with hegel inbuilt dac, your dac is the issue. 
 

Let us know. 

@stuartk

I ran across this little tidbit using Google (link)

This a response from Christian Bakken at Hegel when I asked him the same question about XLR and H390.

“Hi Rob,

Please note that there is absolutely no point in using XLR connectors unless the signal path is balanced, all our XLR outputs and inputs are balanced. "Fully balanced" is a pleonasm, a circuit is either balanced or not.

Best regards

Hegel Music System AS – Oslo, Norway

Christian “

The Aqua La Voce S2 specs note ’asymmetric’ XLR output. That seems to imply that it is not a balanced output but a voltage doubled single ended output using an XLR connection. So probably not an ideal situation for the amp’s balanced inputs from Hegel’s point of view.

Here's an article explaining the difference between balanced and unbalanced connections - link.

@audphile1

1) Jay’s: It has many hours on it, as I bought it a year ago.

@bigtwin has described it as "somewhat forward" compared to other transports he’s heard. I actually did contact Alvin at one point re: brightness/sibilance and he recommended some inexpensive (Mogami, perhaps?) IC’s. I didn’t find they helped and the overall SQ was severely compromised by those cables.

2) Sibilance:

a) With Jay’s -> Aqua -> Hegel, sibilance was mostly confined to female vocals -- soprano range being noticeably worse than alto range.

b) With Jay’s -> Hegel, sibilance was lessened. At first, I thought it was gone, but further listening has revealed it remains to some degree. Fatigue, on the other hand, was much less evident.

c) With DAC loop, sibilance became more exaggerated, with longer "trails" and not only S sounds affected. Furthermore, male vocals were also affected. This is the worst it’s ever been. In other words, whenever Aqua is in signal chain, sibilance is worse.

FYI, I searched Forum threads for "sibilance + DACs" and came across numerous references to guys modding their DACs to get rid of sibilance.

3)

RE: DIgital cables: I just looked at the description on A. Art site and it says: "Audio Art’s new Statement Digital employs a Single Crystal (OCC) silver conductor".

This might be another issue. 

@stuartk so you’ve pretty much narrowed it down to DAC. I wouldn’t worry about silver in digital cable. It won’t impact the sound the same way the silver in analog cables would.
My conclusion is your dac/amp/speakers combination is not very synergistic.
The DAC is emphasizing the sibilance and the amp is exacerbating it.

At this point no amount of vibration control, tweaks or cables will fix this issue. At best it would provide a temporary bandaid. Probably time to try a new DAC or a new amp. Room dampening might help as well if you can add some.