Beresford sibilance

[Mr Neds]

Noticed recently that my SEG/ Dorado seems to emphasise sibilants on certain recordings. Anyone else find this?

[StanleyB]

Is it a modded SEG, and what firmware revision are you running? What's the source? Examples of the recordings?

[Mr Neds]

Hi Stan. Many thanks for replying in person! This thread seems to have been very quiet of late. My SEG is unmodded, with the version 30 chip, running from a Mk.1 Dorado. I can't name recordings off the top of my head- by specific, I really meant not all. I'm feeding a TEAC HD501 cd player into it, using the coax connection. I've tried the different clock settings, but no change there. Any advice gratefully recieved. Hope you're well, by the way
Cheers
Neds

[StanleyB]

If you can email me the name of some of the albums, and the track number where you noticed the issue, I can check if I got those recordings. I can then try to see if I get the same result.

[TAD12]

just received a D3, to upgrade from a D1.

After just a few hours listening,

less sibilance and harsh sounds with certain cd's. Will advise further on this point after more extended listening.

Also using my MacBook Pro to playback at 96khz, wow, completely different soundstage, more depth and height.

More deep bass with control, had to turn down the subwoofer output levels a notch. (Dual subs. REL's)

I use a Cyrus CD8SE CD player with SEG dac. Obviously, sibilance is a combination of overall component integration and recording equipment.

If sibilance is there in the recording, the better the replay equipment, surely, the greater the effect of sibilance in the sound produced.

I'm going to try some live recorded cd's to see if the improvement is across the board.

[Mr Neds]

Hi Stan. Trying to backtrack in my mind now for the guilty albums. One is definitely Cafe Blue, by Patricia Barber, which is fairly new to me, but apparently a hi fi show staple. Seems to become less sibilant about halfway through?

[StanleyB]

Hi Stan. Trying to backtrack in my mind now for the guilty albums. One is definitely Cafe Blue, by Patricia Barber, which is fairly new to me, but apparently a hi fi show staple. Seems to become less sibilant about halfway through?

I happen to have that album in various format, and also in mp3, FLAC 44.1kHz, FLAC 192kHz ripped for vinyl, and WAV 32 bit 192kHz.
I had a listen to the CD through the headphone socket on my CD player, and to the other formats through the SEG and a TEAC DAC that I got. On all of them I can hear that the recording itself has sibilance at various stages. With or without a DAC in the signal chain.

[Mr Neds]

Thanks for taking the time,Stan. I think it’s easy to forget that sibilance is far from eradicated in modern recordings. I picked this up in the digital chain, as most of my vinyl is older recordings, which seem to suffer from it less?
Cheers
Neds

[StanleyB]

The problem is that the sibilance is also present on the vinyl album in this case. Having had a close listen to it I am inclined to believe that Patricia Barber had the mike too close to her mouth at times.