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Sibilance in recordings: your experience the same?

I have just finished a remodeling project and added new 20amp lines to feed my system. Rather suddenly I became annoyed with excessive sibilance on Patricia Barber's Mythologies recording (CD). I had never noticed this before. I looked at my system configuration and could find no obvious changes in the pre/post-remodeling arrangement of my power cords and ICs, so I have to ask if others have had the same experience with this recording. While I'm at it, are there other recordings, say, in the female singer/songwriter genre with inherently excessive sibilance? The really annoying thing about sibilance is once you hear it, YOU REALLY HEAR IT!
128x128mdrummer01
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,216 posts
 
"While I'm at it, are there other recordings, say, in the female singer/songwriter genre with inherently excessive sibilance?"

The short answer is "yes" I believe.

Sibilence can be a natural phenomenon that gets captured in the recording.

It can also be artificially introduced during playback, in particular during vinyl playback when say a stylus is worn and/or when a cartridge is misaligned.

Otherwise, based on my own experience, properly functioning playback equipment of relatively good quality should not typically introduce additional sibilance artificially.
sns
3,237 posts
 
You're likely simply hearing more resolution from your system, only uncovering something that was already there. You need to look at your system as to cause.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,216 posts
 
And yes, I agree, sibilance, particularly the artificially created kind, is extremely annoying. When it occurs, I can no longer listen until the cause is corrected.
sns
3,237 posts
 
Almost forgot, the sibilance could also be partially due to lack of burn in, settling time on new AC lines, I've found a lack of refinement in newly installed lines. I could also be in the recording, you'll have to play a lot more cds in order to determine recording or system at fault.
mdrummer01's avatar
mdrummer01 OP
103 posts
 
Thank you gentlemen. I'll stick with the current arrangement for awhile. Starts me thinking about these new power lines. I've seen some pretty ridiculous threads on burn-in (volume knobs??) so I won't even go there...for now. Really...what's the current literature say about that?
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