End of a long quest to vanquish sibilance.


As some of you are aware, I’ve spent nearly two years attempting to root out this annoyance, along with fatigue, from my modest system. No one knows just how frustrating this has been more than the handful of forum members who’ve provided numerous suggestions and insights along the way. You gentlemen know who you are and I’d like to thank you again for your ongoing generosity and camaraderie. Eliminating the source of fatigue (DAC) proved easier than the sibilance.

Having swapped out everything except speakers, with no impact on sibilance, I identified a pair of monitors that 1) I could afford, 2) are universally praised and 3) come with a refund policy. I figured this was the only thing left to try, aside from power conditioning.

When the new speakers arrived, I noticed they were a bit taller than my Silverlines so in an effort to compensate for the difference in tweeter height relative to my ears when seated, I removed the concrete pavers under my speaker stands. These are clearly visible on my virtual systems page.

When the new speakers were hooked up, I pressed "play" on my Jay’s transport remote and was immediately shocked. The sibilance was gone! I put the Silverlines back onto the stands and the sibilance was still absent. That was about two months ago and the sibilance demon has yet to reappear. Although I preferred the sound of the Silverlines and returned the other speakers, if it hadn’t been for them, I wouldn’t likely have solved this problem.

Perhaps my experience will help someone else. I was familiar with the maxim "everything matters" but I still failed to consider one "thing" that was sitting in plain sight the whole time I was tearing my hair out.

So, I will reiterate : "Everything matters" actually does mean every thing!

 

 

 

 

 

stuartk

It's important to realize that sibilance, and other distortions, are sometimes "baked in" to the recording. Nothing to do about this. 

@sls883 +1 I replaced my front coffee table with an end table by the side of my chair. Whatever works. 🤔

@steakster  +1

I can easily hear the "glare" coming off the coffee table in front of the listening position.  So that somehow disappeared into the garbage truck one day.

Shouldn't be anything between you and the speakers unless of course it sounds better to the user.  Not my experience though.

Now let's talk about wing chairs!

Regards,

barts

Seeing as how speakers are the only possible thing that might produce "sibilance" I'd have checked those first, but maybe that's just me. 

@audphile1

Thanks!

@asvjerry

Yes; the Silverlines sound fine. I don’t, at this point, see any justification in attributing fatigue or sibilance to them. I may look into replacing them, at some point, but for now, I’m more inclined to be guided by the "if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it" maxim. I’m more inclined to explore DACs as I’m pretty certain the Hegel integrated’s internal DAC can be bested by a separate DAC.

@iseland

Sure -- if you can afford it! Why not? That’s not my situation, though. Even if I had teh $, I don’t have the space!

@dweller

Yes; of course. I get that. But I was experiencing exaggerated sibilance, on all vocal CDs.

@steakster

Moving the coffee table is impractical simply due to the room and existing other furniture. Not an ideal situation but it’s what I have to work with.

@barts

Well, I’ve tried covering the coffee table’s glass top, slate hearth and glass-fronted fireplace insert with blankets and foam and heard no difference. I hate tipped up or otherwise fatiguing sound so if doing these things made a perceptible difference, I would surely do them! I have lots of glass and closing the lined drapes also makes no difference. I’ve been told that covering glass with most fabrics will not help much and this has certainly been my experience. If I had a dedicated room, I would try attaching some of the "tuning" devices sold by Synergistic Research to glass surfaces but my wife, understandably, is not open to this in the living room.

@roadcykler

I can’t argue with your logic. All I can report is that 1) having removed the pavers sibilance is gone and 2) with previous (less resolving) components and the same speakers, there was no sibilance.

@ltmandella 

While I've read about that scenario, I've never noticed it.