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Sibilance Problem on Digitized LPs

I'm fairly new at all this and am having a problem with excessive sibilance with recorded LPs. Currently not using any sort of DAC either in recording or playback (Is this the whole problem???). I'm using Audacity on a Mac running Leopard to record from a stock Music Hall MMF-5 turntable hooked into a BBE FJB-200 X phono preamp via a long run (25') of left/right RCA cable adapted down to the Mac's audio in pin connector via a Monster Cable RCA-into-stereo-pin-connector cable. These recordings are exported from Audacity into Itunes as either WAV files or AACs and both have the excessive sibilance. I've played around a lot with the level of the recordings but the sibilance problem persists. None of this is present on CDs I've ripped to Itunes with the rare inexplicable exception. Does anyone have any ideas as to how I might remedy this? Thanks.
lg1
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joelv's avatar
joelv
102 posts
 
Is the sibilance present when you're listening to an LP? Or is this sibilance appearing only after the music is recorded?

I agree that it just sounds like mistracking. Good cartridge alignment and proper tracking force and VTA will alleviate most sibilance problems. The quality of the stylus could also be an issue - is it a new stylus/cartridge?

If you're only experiencing the sibilance after bouncing from Audacity, make sure you aren't using any kind of "mastering" Eq or "maximizing".

Hope that helps!

-Joel
lg1 OP
49 posts
 
The cartridge is the stock Goldring one that came with the MMF-5. Don't know the exact model # offhand (1012??) but it's only about 18 months into rather light usage and the LPs played directly thru my amp sound great....no sibilance troubles until they're digitized. One of the prime examples has been on Frank Zappa's "Studio Tan" where the vocalized "S's" border on having a very hard "ch" sound. I've looked in Audacity preferences and can't find anything as "mastering" or "maximizing" although, aside from those verbatim terms, I really wouldn't know what I was looking for. Lots of numbers though! One setting about the third or fourth tab over (Audacity>preferences) looked a little "default bare minimum" to my uneducated eye but, then again, there are so many numbers - sampling rates, etc, etc, that are Swahili to me. There's a tab at the top of the Mac when Audacity is on about 3 or 4 to the right of "Audacity" that has a dropdown menu of what looks to be EQ type settings but they're all greyed out and nothing looks like it was ever chosen/activated.............
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