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

I sometimes get a harsh glare or slightly raspy sound on female vocal lines when they sing loud, high pitched notes.  It’s hard to explain the sound exactly, but if you’ve ever experienced it, you’ll know what I’m speaking of.  Two examples are Norah Jones, Don’t Know Why at 1:57 with line  “You’ll be ON my mind”.   The other is Michael Bluble’s Quando, Quando, Quando featuring Nelly Furtardo.  Her line “I can’t wait a moment more, Tell me quando, quando, quando” at 1:53 is another good example.  This happens at moderate to fairly loud volume levels. 

Trying to determine if it’s coming from the midrange section or quasi ribbon tweeter, I’ve disconnected the speaker jumpers from one while keeping the other jumped and found it occurs in both the midrange and the tweeters.  I’ve also swapped out two other DACs and have bypassed the preamp by going directly to the amp from the DACS, but it makes no difference.  It doesn’t sound like clipping distortion or typical speaker breakup.  I’ve even inserted 1 ohm resistors on the Magnepans  and while it reduces it a bit, it’s still there.  I can also hear it to a somewhat lesser degree on my old Theil 1.5s and KEF KS50s at fairly loud, but not crazy volume levels.  Both of those speakers are driven with 400 watt @ 4 Ohms and a 300 watt @ 4 Ohms amps respectively.  I can’t imagine that I’m clipping the amps.

Does anyone else have this occur on their systems?  Any ideas on what’s going on here?

My system is Magnepan 3.7x speakers, PS Audio Airlens, Stellar Gold DAC, PMG Signature preamp & BHK 250 amp, streaming Tidal. 

stevehardy1
stevehardy1 OP
120 posts
 

I avoid using silver cables in my system completely. After years of trial and error I never got any iteration of my system to sound natural with silver in the mix, even if it’s just silver plated copper. 

+1 @audphile1, I have tried to make pure silver and silver plated work in my system, except for digital cables, I have banned it. Copper sounds right to my ears.

Pure Silver interconnects can sometimes be on the bright side, with silver coated copper even more so.  The DH Labs Revelations are open and neutral with no perceived brightness.  Since the time I started this post, I have substituted Audio Envy OCC copper and Blue Jeans  copper interconnects for the DH Labs and they had no effect on the glare. 

Last night I inserted some Mills .91 ohm resistors for the tweeters and .75 ohm resistors for the mids and that has reduced the glare considerably.  

slaw's avatar
slaw
26,422 posts
 

From my experience high quality silver will sound better on higher quality components.

toddalin's avatar
toddalin
658 posts
 

@faustuss has a point and there are certain "fuzz tone/distortion pedals" that just don’t digitize "nicely" and if these are playing, even in the background, they can add a "hash" to the overall sound that seems to manifest itself elsewhere.

 

BTW, I use 5% silver solder in my crossovers, but the speaker wire is pure copper.

deep_333
2,420 posts
 

Many females just sound that way in real life. Your audio and cable changing ritual can't fix it if that's how she sounds. It may also explain why divorce rates are so high.

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

parkergetdean
1,032 posts
 

if a high note IS produced, there isn't and cannot be any masking going on. This is breaking my brain. It is like saying that you can mask a person's height by putting him next to a taller person or covering him with a blanket. He will be the same height. Those very high frequencies will have to be sent to the speakers and the speakers have to produce the waves. If I hear the sound, it is not masked, period.

I tested so many amps with so many tracks, I am not deaf or stupid not to note when the note is produced vs it is not. Doubting multiple times what I know and hear, with decades of experience, is basically a personal attack on my abilities and knowledge. 

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