Sibilance in recordings: your experience the same?

Given the factors above are attended to, I have found better digital analyzing or decoding, eliminates much of the after edge from voices.

At times it can be difficult to tell if it's entirely the recording, the artist's enounciation, or the replay gear itself.

Reba mcEntire's voice is one of the best on the planet, superior range, emmotive, and evocative. however many of her recordings don't seem to be done with better audio replay gear in mind. Alan Jackson is in the same camp, production wise.

I feel the producer of the album is largely responsible too for artifacts in it's content. though keep in mind whose audience these recordings are targeted for as to the why of it. It wasn't long ago that some genres were mixed in such a way as to be replayed, primarily on a single speaker car radio... or just boom boxes. R&B, Rock, Blues, Pop, etc.

Bluegrass & Folk, for instance is not far removed from being tilted more towards a content oriented sector. Today that same group of devotees are older and consequently possess better replay devices. Add in further refinements in electronic recording gear, and today's 'grass by and large, sounds excellent regardless the level of gear.

Top tier artists also usually get better studio efforts... though not always.

If you pay attention to the producer of the great sounding albums more so than the artists, you'll find you amass a better level of quality recordins in your library.

Annoying sibilance is most likely systemic...not break in and such.
Do you have anything (power conditioner) between the 'box' and your system? I didn't see any reference to one.
Check the wiring to make sure that you have everything wired correctly, and that you're getting 120V from the wall, and that it's clean power.
This is an all day project, one best done with a step by step process, committed to paper beforehand. When you come up on the problem,(polarity, whatever) you'll join the 'flat forehead' society which I founded many years ago.
My oldest rule of audio...."If something sounds wrong, something IS wrong..."
Don't try to rationalize or make excuses. If it sounds wrong it IS wrong...you just have to find out what that wrong thing is.
Good LUCK!

."If something sounds wrong, something IS wrong..."

Good advice.

Also I like to follow "if it ain't broke, then don't fix it".

Most, if not all, Pat Barber recordings are sibilant. She is sibilant even live. Don't worry about it. Never tune your entire system to a specific recording.

Sibilance is nasty. The higher the resolution of your system, the worse it is when it comes to sibilance. The only way to deal with it is to try to have your system render it in the most natural way. Source components, cables, acoustic treatment, power conditioning all can change it. The most difficult part is taming sibilance if you have metal dome tweeters. But it is still possible.

I found that cables do affect sibilance. You can not get rid of it completely, but you can change its signature and make it less annoying. I found that with Acoustic Zen Silver Ref II interconnects and Satori Shotgun speaker cables, the level of sibilance in my system was high and it was annoying becuase it had this artificial feel to it. I changed the cables to Purist Audio 20th Anniversary Aqueous and the sibilance sounds much more natural. The system still reproduces sibilance because it is on the recording. But how it reproduces it is a totally different matter. It is much more tollerable now and does not feel like a razor blade on your ear drum.

But essentially, when you bring your system to a certain level of resolution, there is no getting rid of faults in the recordings. It just doesn't work that way.

Some recordings with excess sibilance that I can think of is "Hell Freezes Over" by Eagles, "All for You" by Diana Krall. Louis Armstrong sounds sibilant on most of the recordings. Some of the Sinatra remasters.

Just realize that if it's on the recording, you will hear it.

Good luck!

SSSSSSSSIBILENCE!!!!!!!!!

Pepe