Excessive sibilance and edge....treat room?

I would start with new speakers, that should cure that problem.

HI Zd542 and everyone,

Trying to minimize sibilance and edge through room treatment.

Hyperion 938
Hyperion HT 88 (18 watt mono)
Resolution Audio Opus 21 Cdp
Grover Huffman interconnects (latest version)
Supra 3.4 Ply

Need help in deciding whether it's gonna be absorbers or diffusers or a combition...before I invest in some.

Thanks again.

First step is to diagnose the problem. Move your seat so that is fairly close to the speaker (say 6ft or so away) and adjust the toe-in so it is about the same as that when you are seated at a normal distance. Now listen to your speakers. By listening in the nearfield, you are listening to your system/speakers, with room effects reduced in prominence. If you can, compare what you hear in this position at home with what you hear in other systems, such as at a dealer's showroom. This will tell you whether it is other parts of the system that are causing the problem vs. the room.

If it is other parts of the system, it is unlikely that room treatments will really solve the problem. You would end up using excessive treatment to kill high frequencies that will not easily die, and the end result will be a lifeless system.

Almost all gross problems are best attacked by addressing placement of the speakers. You need to do a lot of experimenting with room placement, amount of toe-in, height of speaker/and or the amount of back tilt to the speaker. By changing the angle of the drivers to your listening chair, you can dramatically change high frequency balance, hopefully for the better.

As for room acoustics problems that you can ameliorate with treatment, again, start with diagnosing a problem. Have someone walk around the room while talking to listen for problems with the voice sounding unnatural or difficulty in understanding the speaker. Also, in various spots in the room try clapping to determine if you can hear a distinct echo. If you do hear a long and distinct echo, you do have problems that require treatment. An excessively lively room with "slap echo" (sound bouncing back and forth between parallel surfaces), this can be the source of excessive brightness and sibilance. Also look for large flat reflecting surfaces in the path of the sound; one of the worst offenders being a coffee table in front of the listening chair.

As for specific treatment, it is pretty hard to guess what would be the best approach. As a general rule, I would say start with simple things and be wary of overdoing treatment; it is easy to start down that path and becoming obscessed with the changes and then overdoing things). If you have hardwood floors, an area rug in front of the speakers is a big help. If the wall behind the speakers and behind the listening chair is a bare, hard surface, put up a fabric wallcovering of some sort on at least one of those surfaces (by covering one of two parallel surfaces, the back-and-forth bouncing of sound that creates slap echo is reduced). You can also try putting up wallcoverings at the first reflection point on side walls to see if that helps (try blankets as a temporary fix).

For specific, dedicated room treatments, you should consult websites that discuss this matter and contact some of the vendors of products. They are pretty good at advising what is the best approach. I would pick a vendor that makes all kinds of treatment-absorbers, diffusers, combination devices, "velocity-based" and "pressure-based" devices, etc. (GIK Acoustics is an example).

My experience has been if you want to achieve natural tonal balance from the mids and up, it HAS to be inherent to your speaker's sound, not a by-product of your room. Do this: sit 4 ft directly in from of your speaker and listen to vocals from a known source. If they sound natural, you're good. If they don't, no amount of room treatment will change that.

I'm pretty sure that you are going to have to fix this with equipment. I'm not familiar with the tweeter that your speaker uses. I've never heard silk dome horn, so I can't comment on it. I do see some potential problems with certain parts of your system. Your CD player is excellent, but they don't call it Resolution Audio for nothing. Its a very detailed CD player and its not forgiving. If you play a bad recording, you will definitely hear the bad and the good equally. Normally, I don't like to recommend cables to fix problems, but your Supra 3.4 Ply is almost certainly not helping any. Its one of the more fast, detailed, bright, etc.. cables you can get. If you can somehow try a different pair of cables, you definitely should. Also, given your amp is only 18 watts, its very possible you are working them too hard. When an amp is straining, it becomes very difficult to listen to. You may have to get something more powerful.