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PSB Image T6 fuzzy sound

Hello,

I just got a pair of PSB Image T6’s. I am noticing that on source material containing female vocals (Norah Jones, Feist), the high frequencies are accompanied by a fuzzy, “staticy” muddled sound. Sadly it makes the recordings pretty hard to listen to. I do not recall hearing such coloration at the store where I demo’d them (I unfortunately did not listen to the same material at the store… I plan to head back there with my discs in hand when time permits). After initially thinking I got a defective pair, I played the same material on my surrounds which are PSB Image T5’s. Interestingly enough, I heard the same coloration. Given the similarity in the sound between the two sets of speakers, I am wondering if its one of my other components. Before I go down that path and shop for and swap out cables and amps, I wanted to get some idea from those out there who have listened to these speakers. Is this fuzzy, “staticy” muddled sound a characteristic of the latest incarnation of the PSB Image line? More importantly, is there anything I can do to clear up those highs?

Thanks
Kevin

Additional Associated Equipment and Room Information:

20’ X 20’ with a 20 ft pitched ceiling at the center.
Arcam AVR 200 as Pre/Power amp
Oppo BPD 103 as CD player
Acoustic Research 6ft interconnects
10’ pair of 11 guage IXOS speaker cables.
krazeeyk

Showing 1 response by binkleyc

binkleyc
9 posts
 
Wow, that album is just recorded badly. The producer added a lot more air in the 10-14k range to the vocals. It is very distracting. It's a hiss to me, not fuzz though. They mixed it for earbuds. If you listen through your standard Apple white crap you will not notice it, I suspect, but you can still kinda hear those frequencies are attenuated.

Also, my speakers seem to be pretty fast and the notes in her vocal with much greater volume nearly hit me in the head. Hard to listen to at a decent normal volume. Compression, used judiciously, is sometimes highly necessary for making vocals palatable on stereos! And it's possible to automate compression just the way you would ride a vocal with a fader. That's a different issue though.

Probably turning down the output on the Oppo is helping because it might be causing actual clipping in the AVR, making it more of a fuzz than a hiss (pure distortion).
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