I’m super sensitive to high pitch glare, and have chased and I think defeated it my system. Room treatment was very important, heavy curtains covering windows behind the listening position, defusers, and absorbers. Next was a tube pre-amp, with Telefunken tubes. Cardas cables. And probably like six DACS. All of this with the same speakers. Biggest influence in this issue was the pre-amp and DAC. Same amps throughout my tweaking.
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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That's because someone your age is suffering from a mild form of hyperacusis, "a hearing disorder in which every day sounds, including high-frequency noises that are perceived as unbearably loud or painful." We all pretty much develop this as we age. One more practical solution is to not listen at the headbanging levels you did when you were younger. I must qualify that I copied and edited what's in quotes, from a Copilot search but the description is accurate enough. |
@w123ale I went through a nearly identical scenario with the exception of the room treatment. I think my tube preamp was the biggest issue, but I also upgraded dacs which I believe helped as well. |
My test for sibilance, scratchiness and shrill is Sarah McCoy’s album "Blood Siren." Sarah bends and thrashes notes all over the place and has a speech impediment to boot. A well behaved and resolving amp handles all of these hurdles. Of all my amps so far the Galion TS120 SE gets the mostest without insulting the earbrain. Sarah's song writing is fabulous. |
I doubt it is the Magnepans, but the Magnepans WILL highlight what comes before them, so the culprit is likely 1) the recording, or 2), another piece of equipment with a tendency to glare. Can you swap out any of the equipment for other equipment to see if the problem remains (another amp, other cables)? |
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