Only with the Norah Jones recording and i believe it is a recording error.
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.
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Just for fun I just listened to that recording of Dianna Krall (Quboz) . I did not find it harsh or digital at all. I think it is the equipment. Mine is musical / natural oriented. I had a Lina in my system for a while and it is much more on the polite, European flavored. So, on that kind of note, it is not as forgiving. |
@stevehardy1 I think your conclusion "My hunch is that the new pre is so revealing that it exposes every wart" has a lot of merit. I upgraded my VAC signature 200's to the VAC 300 Mk II amps. There was A LOT more information and clarity that wasn't present with the 200's-mostly good but some bad. I had the exact same experience with the Norah Jones album. Nothing else changed. My room is dedicated and has a fair amount of acoustic treatment. I talked with the folks at VAC and their response was that I was hearing an "honest" representation of the recorded material. Power conditioning can help tame that upper end. If you aren't using a conditioner, perhaps your dealer will let you demo a PS Audio conditioner. For sure if you have silver cables, I would switch to copper. In the past all of my upgrades were only positive. I know now that with more revealing upper end equipment, honesty isn't always nice. |
I think she achieved her notoriety on her own merits. Come Away with Me was new and fresh in a music world full of moribund. I have the original CD release which is a beautiful recording and nearly flawless. Those having issues with the sound quality of their systems should look to their own inability to get it right rather than disparage an extremely talented artist! |
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