Well there is sibilance and then there is SIBILANCE...that is how I read it.
The Devil is in the Detail
- Thread starter dcathro
- Start date
Agree that recordings should sound quite different from each other...doesn't mean it is an accurate sound but at least resolving of recording variance.
The dutch importer from Halcro said it sunday and i fully agree
The human voice is the first and foremost test of an audio system.
its something everybody knows .
Whether the sibilance sounds natural is something anybody can determine very quickly .
Its also something you can immediately hear when you hear WADAX digital and good tape
The human voice is the first and foremost test of an audio system.
its something everybody knows .
Whether the sibilance sounds natural is something anybody can determine very quickly .
Its also something you can immediately hear when you hear WADAX digital and good tape
irrespective of whether it is on the recording or not? That data point does not make a difference to you?
Or any good modern digital. It's not that hard really. We are not in the 80s anymore.
Brad, I think you need more data points and experimentation to determine the answer to that question. I remember when a couple people were going around telling everyone the new Colibrí‘s “Have way too much sibilance“. Then having encountered samples that were well set up, those prior claims were retracted. This is just the way it is.
Sorry you are again discussing system points. Dcathro’s post had one key point you are ignoring. There is a recording artefact that one system is hiding and another one isn’t. I do not see any parallels of this and your vdh analogy
One recording, two systems. It is not enough information to reach any conclusions. I would take a different recording of a human voice and play it on the same two systems and then you might begin to grasp whether it is a recording issue or a system issue. Or you could take that same recording and played on the third system. If that original recording sounds different on three different systems, I will start looking at the systems, and then individual components in the system.
I brought up the cartridge example because imagine that cartridge being in one of the two original systems and not the other one. Those who think that Colibrí‘s have a lot of sibilance would look at that first, not the recording.
i’m sure most of us here have opinions about the way some gear has specific sonic signatures. We read your opinions about that all the time.
It is not a specific system he is asking analysis of, his post is to be interpreted as do you prefer systems that show unwanted details or not? In isolation of an example I would say “not”, but not when he gave the example that the unwanted sound is clearly on the recording and the pleasant system is masking it.
having owned 10 Colibri's over 20 years, with system evolution, some were more a bother than others with being splashy sounding sometimes. they all tended to make any tendency toward sibilance more an issue compared to other cartridges. but they did not create sibilance where it did not exist. personally i could live with it in balance, if otherwise i preferred it's performance. but many can't handle that occasional extra degree of highs.
obviously i don't now own any Colibri's, for whatever reasons.
when faced with performance artifacts of any product, to me it's what is the trade-off in judging the product? the important thing is getting a handle on what is gear or set-up artifact, and what is real musical content. that takes some work.
OK but what's a unwanted detail???? Recording in NYC you have subways and HVAC as examples that can and will be captured as well as chair squeaks rustling sheet music and coughs. That is all part of the experience as is sibilance potentially.
This seems like a no where to go here.
Designing equipment that is detail oriented as a detriment to musical enjoyment??? How do you do that??? Having a hard time wrapping my head around the premise.
It can be done with speakers by selectively tweaking the frequency response to enhance areas where details occur. That is a speaker voicing issue. Are companies deliberately doing that with electronics as well??
That kind of voicing becomes obvious.
Imaging is more speaker design and selection.
Rob
His example says there is sibilante on both systems but just occasionally on one that is rich and full.
sibilance is a recording artifact to do with the mic and how it handles peaks and proximity. it's distortion. sometimes it's very slight and the recording/mastering process makes it worse. so it's in the media to a degree. it's not what you hear in real life from a voice. sure, a voice can make a sound like sibilance, but it's only like it, not really the same.
sometimes a mute trumpet will cause a recording to have distortion, or maybe the mastering makes it worse. similar to sibilance.
so ambient detail in a recording is not related to sibilance in my way of thinking. more like a head bump in the bass. just an artifact, and we have to listen around it.
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With Audacity you can analyze recordings to see whether it is really the recording or simply a different tuning of the speaker in the range of 2-8khz.
A sink from 2-4dB, also known as English tuning, e.g. BBC monitors, Harbeth, is usually popular there. This effectively suppresses sibilance.
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Thanks Mike,
The sibilance is, as you say, in the recording as a product of the microphone and recording setup.
Now, how noticeable (annoying) it may be can be system dependent due to masking/unmasking. This has to do with both the frequency response and the dynamic energy output throughout the spectrum.
As you rightly say, to get a system right, you have to use a wide range of recordings.
Hello Mike
OK point taken but if it's in the recording, distortion or not just because it may be a form of recording distortion doesn't undo it once there.
If you have a good pair of linear speakers how do you not reproduce it???
We are talking about systems somehow exaggerating detail no???
A speaker with a peak in that range would exaggerate it and could be voiced to do so.
But again how you tell if it is being exaggerated have not heard the original in real time???
Just seems to be very circular to me.
WRT different speakers I have Be drivers in my Array 1400's and I also own a pair of Revel Performa F-206's. As good as the Revels are the Be drivers obviously are the winner WRT high frequency detail.
I don't find the Be drivers to sound unnatural or to have excessive detail. They are both enjoyable systems in their own right.
Rob
Yes, it can be both a recording issue and/or a system issue.
Some recordings can have too much sibilance, and some systems can accentuate it/others mask it.
ideally one should have neither accentuating nor masking system. Then find a good recording.
if you don’t have the ideal, which is often the case as one is part of a journey, one just lives around the compromises..
