Hegel H390 DAC

@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.

@stuartk  I think you have me mixed up with some other contributor.  Those aren't my words.  I had to google  "sibilant" to get the meaning. 😆  I have never experienced the effect in my system so can't speak to it.  Luckily the only thing that gives me fatigue is getting up too early in the morning.  Cheers.

@yage

This does indeed seem like an incompatibility and yet I have no other choice; utilizing the Hegel’s DAC Loop function requires connecting the DAC’s xlr analog output to the Hegel’s xlr analog input. I’ve been instructed it will not work any other way. I’m not wedded to the DAC loop --just explaining why I did what I did.

@bigtwin

My apologies. I’ve clearly confused you with someone else. At 67, my memory is not getting better! ;o)

@audphile1

Yes, I’ve reached the same conclusion -- it’s most likely a synergy issue -- but perhaps not exactly how you describe it.

Consider that, when I had Simaudio transport - > Aqua -> Hegel, there was no sibilance or fatigue.

It wasn’t until I replaced the Simaudio with the Jay’s that problems started.

I could try another DAC or another transport and see what happens.

Thanks for hanging with me through all of this -- it’s much appreciated!

@steakster

In Sacramento area. I know there's a fairly active forum member who lives in Folsom, but unfortunately,I don’t remember who it is. There is a local audio club -- I just haven’t been active in it but am good friends with one of the members who used to be a dealer. Good idea!