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Treble harshness - interconnects as culprits?

Hi,

I have good quality speakers, highest quality integrated amp,a high quality transparent/ very responsive dac attached to a sonos (via coax) which connects to my music library on a nas.

The system is very transparent and overall great ... Except:

I have recently observed some sibilance and high frequency/ treble harshness on mainly live female vocal recordings like 1960 Edith Piaf, but also on more recent recordings. Even at very low amp volume levels.

The only components of poor quality are my speaker cables and my radioshack analog RCA interconnects between dac and amp (only RCA input). Could the interconnect cause this? Or do I have bigger system compatibility issues?

Thanks!!

mizuno
jaybo
4,478 posts
 
move the speakers around.
mizuno OP
59 posts
 
Hi,

The dac is a w4s dac1 with upgraded caps ( same as dac2) and the amp is the lfd ncse.

I indeed seem to mostly experience the harshness on older live recordings, rarely on more recent ones.

First with the dac break in the harshness arose , and little by little it seems to become less prOnounced. Am about 150h in the process.
facten
2,784 posts
 
Not sure if you're answering your own question or not with the comment you made above about the DAC breaking in "harshness arose .... seems to become less." - might want to contact W4S and see what they say about the breakin experience and possibly how their DAC "reacts" with the source you are feeding it with.
Do think, if nothing else, that you are short changing yourself in what music your are probably "not hearing or isn't being revealed" using the radioshack ICs and whatever comparable SCs you are using, as well as the quality of the cable between the "source" and the DAC.
jedinite24's avatar
jedinite24
1,503 posts
 
Hi Mizuno

I kind of agree with Facten's statement.

"Do think, if nothing else, that you are short changing yourself in what music your are probably "not hearing or isn't being revealed" using the radioshack ICs and whatever comparable SCs you are using, as well as the quality of the cable between the "source" and the DAC"

I know the biggest change in sound I've heard other than moving speakers around and changing to quality components was changing stock ICs better quality ICs. I got good results when I swapped out the thin stock ICs that came with my cable box that I was using from my preamp to amp to MAC UltraSilver + ICs. I didn't spend an insane amount of $ on these ICs. I'm sure if you even went from the stock ICs to something from Blue Jeans Cable or Monoprice you would hear an improvement.
nlitworld
59 posts
 
I have to agree that there could be a few different things going on with the system, but that the IC really don't help. I have some Blue Jeans cables and I just did a demo with Hapa Breathe C cables, and holy crap was I impressed. Definitely spendy for my budget ($4-500) but they gave so much more detail in every range of the spectrum, and with absolutely zero harshness or glare. And that's saying something since I run Klipsch. If you're going to splurge on some new kit, they're worth checking out for sure.
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