Annoying Sibilance Problem

I had that problem before..and in my expereience, there are so many things can contribute to that sibilance problem. Here are the few things you can do:
1. Check anti-skating: if the sibilance occurs on the left channel, try to reduce anti-skating and vice-versa.

2. If the sibilance occurs on both channel, increase the VTF to the manufacture's max recommendation. If it's still there, maybe the disc you are playing exceeds the cartridge's ability to resolve the signal from the groove.

3. Get a cartridge that is more resolving or track better/ or match better with your tonearm (fine line contact with very very small stylus tip like Audio Technica, Lyra..etc tracks very well)

4. Could be the defective disks. As Dgordonl said..many female vocal recording issued by Classic records exhibit this problem. All but extremely fine line contact stylus cannot track this cleanly no matter how good your setup/alignment is.

5. Also recheck your alignment . This could help reduce it.

Good luck.

I think there is no absolute answer to this problem. The only way to get around it is to try different options and see what works well. The reason why i said this is that I have a few jazz/female vocal discs that exhibit this problem, and it took me months trying to fix it, including re-alignment, changing tone arms, cartridges, turntable, preamp, amp...after consulting with various reputable dealers, users, reviewers, and each of them gave different answers, and different solutions work for different situations.

Regarding Ugabevo's experience, I do encounter it recently as well. My Audio Technica AT33PTG cartridge has a extremely small stylus tip, and with its high compliance, when mated with a low mass arm (SME 3009), it tracks extremely well. Never exhibits a trace of sibilance distortion when playing those problematic discs, but it does show that on those problem-causing passages, the sibilance is heavily emphasized (maybe due to pressing or recording..i dont know).

On the other hand, a Stanton 681 EEE MKIII with a japanese Shibata aftermarket stylus (bought from LP gear) has a much larger tip, a bit less compliance, when mated with a medium mass arm (rega 250B with techno weight & Pete Riggle VTF adjuster) also track those discs ALMOST as clean, but it is a little less smooth or resolving.

My Lyra Helikon has a tip size somewhere in between the AT and the Stanton. On my Phantom is very detailed, but it CAN have a hint of distorted sibilance once in a while.

I did try different combinations of these cartridges and tone arms, but these combos works best together.

So there you see, perhaps with different stylus tip masses, shapes, different cartridges ride different portions of the groove, hence behave differently , and compatibility with tonearms also effect how a cartridge performs.

If you try all these options, i am sure you will at least find one solution that works. But keep in mind that there are so many aspects that can effect analog performance so you might not cover them all at the same time..--> Dont drive yourself crazy!! Just look at it as a challenge ..hehehe..(at least now i look at it that way).

After all these problem, I still prefer listening to LPs though.