Hey @stuartk
I’m so glad to hear you fixed your sibilance issues! I was given permission to buy the new speakers we have talked about, so now I’ll have hundreds of hours to fiddle with them until they’re just right.😁
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!
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@stuartk , Some people are sensitive to time and phase inaccuracies. Your mentioning 'sibilance' would be one of characteristics -A subtle harshness in the upper frequencies. B |
So, only the speakers mattered in your case (everything didn’t matter, apparently)...you replaced your trash speakers and the sibilance went away. You tried replacing everything else and the sibilance remained. Stop confusing yourself. |
I’m an old professional audio guy who spent over 25 years fighting sibilance in the analog magnetic tape era. I must say this post brings back many memories dealing with high frequency distortion. Eliminating sibilance was probably the hardest thing I dealt with. It will be interesting to see if your sibilance problem was really resolved by removing the paver. I could be wrong, but a couple inches of speaker height shouldn’t cause the introduction of sibilance, especially after the other room treatments had no effect on it.Consider that instead of something being wrong with your system, it could be that something is just right to the point that you can hear sibilance recorded in the original. |
- 68 posts total