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Hear sibilance on Krall, Famous Blue, D. Fagen?

Hi, Folks,
I have made some changes to my system that I am overall very happy with, but I'm noticing some "sibilance" or harshness to certain voices and I'm wondering if I'm simply hearing some things I hadn't heard before because my system's more resolving, or if there's a synergy problem that has given me a tipped up "presence region." So I want to know if you hear these things too:

1) Jennifer Warnes on Famous Blue Raincoat, first track, "First We Take Manhattan:" I'm hearing an edge to her vocals... sounds like some sort of processing.

2) Morph The Cat: Title track; Donald's massed voices on the verses. How do those (highly processed) vocals sound to you? Breathy? Harsh?

3) Diana Krall, "Let's Face The Music and Dance" from "When I Look In Your Eyes." Very closely miked, but do you hear harshness in some sibilant consonants?

Trying to figure out if this is the recording or my system! Thanks in advance!
rebbi
jea48
2,944 posts
 

All is well until she gets to the word "soon [we'll be without the moon…]." The letter "S" in the word "soon" is very strident.
09-04-15: Rebbi
She sings the phase twice in the song. Neither passage of the words "soooon, we'll be without the moon", sounds hard or harsh to me.

I think you need to listen to the rest of the CD a few times and stop concentrating so much on track #1. You also probably need to put more hours on the new speakers.

You never did say what you are using for a digital cable from the transport to the dac, and the length of the cable.
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ptss
1,649 posts
 
Hello Rebbi. I noticed mention of a cheater plug. Perhaps you can go a step more. Try reversing the ac plugs orientation on your cd player. If your system is becoming more refined it becomes possible to notice faults previously masked. If reversing the orientation of the ac plug improves this CD it means all CD's will now sound better. The other thing I would check on is the phase. Reverse the phase if you have a switch on your preamp or cd player. If no swith then simply reverse the red and black power cables to your speakers. Unfortunately recordings are mixed as to phase and being sensitive to it I wouldn't be without a phase reverse switch such as I have on my Spectral preamp. Good luck and please advise. Pete
rebbi OP
1,319 posts
 
Hi, Brownsfan,
The Kit 1 does use a 5U4G rectifier as standard, but my rectifier tube and the 300B's were backordered when my kit shipped, and when the tubes came Brian Smith was nice enough to substitute a 274 B tube as a substitute, which does sound better than the stock 5U4G (which I've also had a chance to try). It doesn't mean, though, that a better 5U4G wouldn't help. Thanks for the tip.
rebbi OP
1,319 posts
 
Jea,
I had two Signal Cable power cords and found a way to thread them backwards into the cabinet and connect them to both the DAC and the CD player I'm using as a transport. I believe that the system sounds better - more solid bass, especially, and "cleaner" overall - but the harshness is still there.
I'm beginning to think the speakers need more break in, but we'll see and I'll try some of the other suggestions here and report back.
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