My battle with sibilance.


At the minimum sibilance is annoying to me. Its only present on a small percentage of my records. However today I wanted to see if I could improve it. The song in question is Men at Work's "Down Under". The cartridge is an Ortofon Cadenza Bronze retipped by Soundsmith. I went through a lot of the protocols for abating annoying sibilance.
1.My anti skate was not optimally set so I thought and I adjusted to less using a dead spot on a test record. I know some people don't agree with this. I tried Soundsmiths method but until I see a video I won't understand it.
2. I adjusted my VTA to at least 20 degrees. I realized it was off. It was set at 12-15 degrees. I know the Shibata stylus is sensitive to VTA.
3. I checked the VTF and it was set at the manufacturers suggestion at 2.5 grams. Which is dead in the middle of 2.3 to 2.7. I adjusted to 2.62. A lot of people think the higher range is optimum.
3. I made sure my stylus was absolutely clean.
Guess what? After all this, the sibilance was less but still there. As a check I listened to the song in streaming and it was in the recording!!! However not as bad as my record before my TT adjustments. So I'm happy now my TT might sound better on other recordings. Anyway I hope my fellow members here have had some success on sibilance and maybe some will benefit from what I did.

128x128blueranger
I have a song that does this to me. Don’t Come Around Here No More. When Stevie Nicks says don’t it’s a very clicky sounding D. I can hear it on other systems, but mine seems to accentuate it. It’s hard to ignore.
I fought with a similar issue on the Willie and Waylon album; side 2, especially the first track, always had a sibilance issue.  I bought 2-3 copies over the years thinking it was just that copy, but it wasn't.  As I improved my stereo, I went back to that track to see if it improved.  Eventually, I updated my cartridge and I discovered that the sibilance issue was only on Willie's vocals and couldn't be fixed.  It's still a little annoying, but less so since I know it's not me or my system.
Schiit Loki+ has an EQ point at 4kH. They are a clever lot at Schiit!  I keep one in my tape loop for use only when needed. 
baclagg,

No sibilance from Stevie Nicks on “Don’t Come Around Here No More”. Nicks does not sing on that song.