Can sibilance be eliminated?

Great question. The thing bothering me now is whether or not being a stereo nut has made me sensitive to normal speech sibilance that most sane people never pay attention to.
Other thing, it seems like percieved sibilance peaks and wanes with things like sinus allergies and headcolds. But maybe I am nuts. Good luck. I have decided to live with it for now and enjoy the good side of detail in playback, maybe one day I'll attack it with more tubes and dollars.

I think the original question has to do with too much sibilance & although there are some very poorly recorded tracks that accentuate sibilance, I find it's not usually an issue with the recording.

I've found that some silver cables are a little on the bright side which may accentuate the sibilance which can be the cause of some concern.

Yes, sibilance can be eliminated.

Absolutely NO, it is NOT the price you pay with high detail digital playback. It's the price you pay with poor digital playback.

The problem is that most CDPs are still relatively poor performers, even many of the high-priced models. The Meitner blows away many other high priced digital pieces not just because it's great, but because many of the pieces it replaces or compared to are relatively poor.

Why do you think that we have more CDP modders than anything else? Most stock CDPs just won't cut it in a system where the rest of the equipment is at a high level. The result is a high sibilance, fatiguing and unsatisfying system where the user then makes the mistake of blaming the recording because some recordings can expose sibilance worse than others. Even worse, you find many people addressing the problem going down the cable or other equipment swapping road to nowhere.

Yes, you can diminish some sibilance through power conditioning and maybe a tad through vibration control, but, generally, nothing compares to the amount of sibilance generated through most digital playback. The funny thing is that most people (including myself) accepted it and/or don't realize it, until you hear truly great digital playback.

My advice is don't accept sibilance as a natural product of digital. The bad thing is that it's going to cost you and will be tough to find either through mods or stock equipment. However, in the long run, it will save you much more time, money and aggravation.

In my experience, cables also play a crucial role in sibilance control

Most of the time, natural sibilance is not really a problem and I understand that it is part of the way we make speech. But I think the problem is that most digital playback would add a layer of electronics which results in a sound that is shapeless, formless, noise-like, to the "s" or "shhh" sound especially with female voice since I guess it has a more high-frequency contents(the area where most digital playback has problem) than male voice.