I don't have sibilance problems, are my speakers dull?


Another poster asked for help dealing with sibilant performances.

It got me to thinking, the one thing I have not had a problem with in like forever is sibilance. Maybe this is because I don’t seek to make my system "revealing" which to me often just means bright.

I’m now kind of curious, exactly what kind of gear and recordings bring this problem out?

Best,

E
erik_squires
I saw that thread too, assuming it’s the recent one about Men at Work’s “Down Under”.  I have the vinyl and have played it on the Cadenza Bronze cartridge and never noticed any sibilance, which I relate to a distorted “s” sound.  I brought it out and gave it a spin on my current Goldring 1042.  The cymbals are very prominent and Dry, no body at all.  The singer “s” sounds are slightly elevated but not distorted or distracting.   Some would call that sibilant.  It’s definitely in the recording/mixing.
A lot of the early pressing CD’s had the issue.
They simply took the original master for the LP and dropped it onto the CD format.

The end result was a lot of sibilance and extremely dry sounding, bright recordings.

Later re-masters of the original analog recordings, specifically mixed for digital format (CD) eliminated much of the issue.

If your system and speakers are fairly accurate, it won’t be hard to test/prove out.

As for your speakers, they should pretty much be reproducing what they're fed. 




What volume? A song that sounds great at 95 db might sound sibilant at 105 db. Most speakers can handle normal volumes but the closer you get to ‘The Who live” concert levels the. More important room treatments and component matching become.