Thanks for the suggestion. Panels are not an option in my listening area.
Thanks for your comprehensive response. At times, I do hear a slight hissing and have so for decades but I hear no sibilance when people speak. Nor am I aware of any other sort of distortion of everyday sounds. Watching tv and listening to instrumental music are sibilance-free. By no means does the" whole world sound thin and tinny" and the hissing has not worsened in the period of time during which sibilance has become an issue.
I only notice sibilance when listening to music with vocals. The rest of the track will sound fine but most vocals exhibit exaggerated T’s, P’s and especially, S’s. I’ve directed a couple other forum members to tracks I find especially annoying and they’ve heard sibilance in those tracks, too. They attribute it to overly hot recording levels. This may well be true but I find it very difficult to accept that across many genres, most of the vocal tracks in my collection were recorded at too high a level. That makes no sense to me.
I’ve swapped out everything in my system except for the speakers and the integrated. I just took delivery of a different integrated. I’ll hook that up tonight and see it it makes any difference but like you, I doubt gear is to blame. I don’t have another pair of speakers but as I mentioned, sibilance is clearly audible on my desktop monitors so I doubt it’s my speakers. It’s possible that a warmer, less detailed amp might be less annoying to listen to, when it comes to vocals. I’ll have to experiment.