Pinning or better yet holding your ears back and in reduces sibilance. No joke, try it. Hwy61 is also right on IMO. Having attempted a career as a professional musician I have heard a lot of SSSSS words in live performances that were due to both the artists lack of control and mike etiquette as well as the equipment. To reduce all of the SSSSS sounds would be to not have an acurate portrayal of the source material, again IMO. If the ear trick works it would stand to reason that Joe's recommendation of room treatment would have a "major" impact on sibilance as well (it sure does on everything else). I only wish I were willing to work more with our listening room, though my wife did just give me a nice shroud to hang over a rather large painting that hangs behind the speakers, which makes a big improvement in the mid and HF's. I guess that I am fortunate in that I have never had a problem with this (I also feel that sibilance on occassion is normal) in any of my vinyl based systems and do not experience a problem with it in my current digital system (I also use silver IC's most of the time). Anyway Elizabeth, I am happy that you were able to control it by upgrading your gear, plus you really seem to like the new player. I will be adding a new DAC to my old CAL player shortly, who knows maybe I will get me some of that sibilance along with some added detail.
smoothing those sibilants...
I appreciate the feedback on the interconnect post I made a few days ago, and here is my next question: If I am attempting to smooth out the sound of a "low-end-of-the-high-end" system, reducing grain while retaining detail (and looking for a warmer more "classic tube sound"), where is my energy/$$$ best spent? Would it be the digital source itself, the interconnects, the input tubes, the speaker cables, or the speakers? Or something else? (System info can be seen under the post entitled "need interconnect advice", and there are some new interconnects on the way.)