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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
toddalin's avatar
toddalin
658 posts
 

"if a high note IS produced, there isn’t and cannot be any masking going on."

Not quite so easy.  What if that note/portion of the band, reproduced just a bit quieter so as not to stand out as much?  Even a couple tenths of a dB could be notable.

The volume of the frequency response associated with an amplifier’s power depends on the impedance and this varies across that of a speaker. This could be on the order of a few dB.  The lower the amplifier’s output impedance, the less variation there will be in volume across the band.

If you read the speaker review testing in Stereophile Magazine, you will see that they test at fixed resistances, but also a simulated speaker load.  While the static resistance loads are flat over their frequency range, the simulated speaker can be all over the place.  The lower the output impedance of the amplifier the flatter this curve will be regardless of speaker load.  Perhaps this one amplifier’s output impedance interacts with the speakers impedance giving a dip right where you want/need it (symbiosis).

 

stevehardy1 OP
120 posts
 

Doubting multiple times what I know and hear, with decades of experience, is basically a personal attack on my abilities and knowledge. 

So far, this has been great post, with lots of insightful comments and friendly sharing of ideas and theories.  How cool is it, that so many audiophiles have taken the time to help me (a total stranger) troubleshoot this issue?  Let’s try and keep this positive, instead of going down the rabbit hole, which happens all too often on Audiogon.  Play nice everybody!  

stevehardy1 OP
120 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.

Wow!  If I had only put a 2 Ohm resistor in her mouth, maybe we'd still be together! 

sls883
1,053 posts
 

I played the Nora Jones clip and I don't hear any glare or raspy sounds much like your experience with headphones. And I'm using silver cables by Black Cat. 

deep_333
2,420 posts
 

Along the same note, here is a gifted female vocalist...her name is Lisa Gerrard...a friend of mine...

https://youtu.be/ccj58UZoBQs?si=hRQDcm5lX2tsTbqs

Y'all lads need some better taste in music man....An audiophile recording (Norah J Jjejejeje..) is not equal to a talented musician.

@parkergetdean  wrote

"nice" sexist comment @deep_333 

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