Do You Ever Get Glare/Raspy Sound on High Pitched Female Vocal Lines?

OP . . .  Any ideas on what’s going on here?

Most likely culprit = dirty power.   Link here. 

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After checking some examples mentioned above, I don’t hear any distortion on my revealing system.  Many years ago, I thought that Eva Cassidy’s Live at Blues Alley was poorly recorded. Not anymore.  Fixed it with clean power.  Digital playback requires much TLC at each stage in the chain. 

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Dirty power comes from 3 primary causes: 

(1) the utility company 

(2) assorted appliances shared on the household circuitry: HVAC, computers, fluorescent lighting, dimmer switches, washer/dryer, refrigerator, etc. 

(3) the stereo components themselves - especially the digital ones - digital components regurgitate noise back into the system circuitry - which affects the SQ of the other components.  

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If things improve slightly with the resistors on the Maggies and disappear with headphones, I would suspect the BHK amplifier has a component or two that needs to be replaced. My first guess is that the bias has drifted and may need to be adjusted to spec (easiest to fix). Other things I would check would be the compensation caps, current source resistors and feedback loop passives. Anything that causes the bias to shift lower can distort the signal at specific frequencies.

@stevehardy1 

this issue is most likely caused by speakers positioned too far apart from each other and how that placement interacts with your room acoustics. This was the reason in my system. It impacted vocals and instruments that have major presence in that particular frequency range…saxophone, trumpet, piano.

Moving speakers closer together resolved it. Try a distance of 7ft measured center to center of speaker. Then work your way up with gradual changes spreading them further apart until you hit good balance of image precision and soundstage width  

It’s important to toe the speakers in just enough to minimize side wall reflection. Ideally treat the first reflection points. 
 

Other culprits I’ve seen contribute to this issue are cables and tubes. And of course equipment. 

@stevehardy1 

You’re gonna drive yourself crazy. I know being I just went through the same situation, even with the same songs. It started with Nora Jones and slowly went to anything in that freq range. 
I went through (4) Streamers, replaced my DAC, had my speakers checked by the manufacture, swapped out my COAXIAL & Interconnect cables from Silver to Copper, everything you could imagine with my system. Then the issue started to arise just listening to the TV through the sound bar, I’m asking everyone in the room if it sounds raspy, everyone’s looking at me like I’m nuts. This went on for weeks till I finally decided to swallow my pride and get my ears checked.

Yep, turned out it was me, my ears from the years of enjoying this hobby to it’s fullest, as well as yard equipment, the occasional concert, etc.. Apparently some of the small hairs in my inner ear canal were starting to show signs of damage and were acting up when I’d hear frequencies starting around 800 hz to about 1.5khz.

If I were you I’d do two things, First, give your ears a break for a week to two, means back away from listening, may help.

Second, get your ears checked, you may be surprised what they come up with.

I now have a R2R DAC as well as hearing aids I can EQ through the included app and music has never sounded better.

Pay attention to the signs esp, if it progresses . If you been into this hobby for a long time, it’s probably not just your system   

+1 @erik_squires 

It seems to me that it’s most likely a room interaction - either an excitation or reflection. You could explore this by moving some sofa cushions first behind the Maggie’s and then on the side walls in front of the plane of the speakers to see if it mutes the irritant frequencies. 

Good luck and let us know how it goes.