Looking at your system and the comments, I assume that the sibilance was not an issue with the Wells and Moon setup? The Aqua is a pretty nice unit, I would be surprised that it is the source of the problem. Possibly it is making it more apparent, and the Hegel DAC smooths it over a bit. Playing Devil's Advocate, have you tried replacing the source (Jay's) with something else to see if the problem persists? I also thought to suggest bypassing the Hegel preamp, but looking at the back side it does not look like that can be done with this integrated.
How to proceed?
Removing my Aqua La Voce dac from my system has eliminated fatigue and reduced but not fully eliminated sibilance. Running my Jay’s CDT2MKIII into my Hegel H390’s onboard dac is definitely a more relaxed presentation but tonally leaner than I prefer. Some have suggested I swap out the Hegel, but first I’d like to try another dac.
What I’m unclear about is how to go about choosing another dac that will not duplicate the same drawbacks I’ve experienced with the Aqua. Are there details in the design or specs that can guide me in this regard? I'm unsure how to proceed.
I checked out your system page to get an idea of your room- beautiful house! Your options for speaker placement don’t seem to be working in your favor though. The open doorway behind your left speaker and the right speaker almost in a corner are enough to cause issue. Not sure how WAF plays into your situation but have you considered rotating your monitors 90 clockwise? Just as an experiment have you tried placing light acoustic materials around the various surfaces in your listening room just see what effects it may have? |
I vaguely recalled a similar comment and looked back a few years to try and locate when folks were comparing the S2 vs. S3 versions of the La Voce dacs, and found members on another forum changing out caps in the S2 in an attempt to tame some of that with Jupiter Beez Wax caps and such. Not sure how it turned out. Maybe something there worth following up on to learn more.
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How old is your Aqua? Chances are it won’t change too much but most times I’ve found DACs do change after 400-500 hours run time (though in my case they usually got a bit more detailed). But if it’s new you may want to run it constantly for a few days just to see if anything changes. If I recall correctly I think in one review of the La Voce the reviewer found it a bit strident on the top end compared to some other DACs. I know you said you didn’t want brand recommendations but you may want to look at Mojo audio DACs based on what you said about the Hegel vs the Aqua DAC. They have nice organic tone but are not rough on top at all, and mine sounded best when run from a good transport. |
AZ Absolute Copper are warm. But don’t forget with higher resolution components like your Jays cdt and Aqua DAC + H390 that may be a welcome change. I ruled your speakers out - there’s nothing there that will give you that sibilance. |
Thanks for your suggestions. I have used The Cable Co. in the past and felt very positive about them but my last experience was so negative, I'm not sure I'd want to go back. I had A. Zen Silver Reference and they worked great in my previous system but were too bright once I acquired the Hegel and Jay's. So I tried the Absolute Copper but they were extremely dark sounding, top to bottom. I'd be very happy if my problem could be solved via cables.
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@stuartk my understanding is you have tried different cables between dac and amp and that didn’t solve the issue. Those were DH Labs cables. I was using Acoustic Zen Absolute Copper XLR between the Bricasti M3 DAC and XP22 pre, as well as between the XP22 and X260.8 monos. So the moral of the story is - you still have not done due diligence with the cables. |
This is a key indicator to me. Since the new integrated and new transport was introduced, the issues you describe started to occur. Also, re-check your path of any new "silver" based cables (power, interconnect) you introduced around the same time. If you have stock power cables lying around, try all together at once. btw, I own the new Border Patrol SE-I dac, while I agree its smooth and non fatiguing, if I may suggest, I don’t think the dac change alone is going to resolve all of your noted issues. I kind of suspect its a combination of things going on now. Imo, as a test, I’d borrow/swap the amp and transport and [all] cables back out with stock ones all at once. Then go in reverse putting new pieces back in play one-by-one to see if it surfaces again. Worth trying to help understand if you can narrow down a specific culprit (or combination of things) from there. Best of Luck.
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Take a look at my virtual system page and you will see it is not at all optimal for audio. There is a wall of glass on one side, a tiled hearth, glass topped coffee table, etc. WAF disallows any panels. Nevertheless, my previous system (same speakers + dac, with Wells Audio Majestic integrated and Simaudio transport) was not at all fatiguing and there was not a trace of sibilance. The bass was poorly defined/controlled, which eventually drove me nuts and was the primary motivation for acquiring an integrated known for bass control. The Hegel is, needless to say, far more resolving then the tubey-souding Wells and this aspect, coupled with the Jay’s, which similarly delivers more detail than the Simaudio, may be too much of a good thing. DAC is NOS. Thanks for sharing strategies you’ve found to be successful. You are astute in recognizing the ICs are also absent from the scenario with the least sibilance and no fatigue. I’ve heard good things about Zavfino. I don’t recall whether they have a return policy. Ditto Triode Labs. I know Jaguar does. One dac that interests me is Border Patrol, which is very much designed with particular attention to power implementation. I don't believe you mentioned your choice of digital cable. |
@stuartk |
Hi @stuartk As you may recall, we have the same integrated amp. Having said that, when my very expensive Sony professional CDT died a few years ago, I ended up replacing it with a Audiolab 6000CDT. An Audioquest Carbon digital to a Denafrips Pontus ll and XLR to the H390. And it sounds beautiful. I’m not familiar with your DAC, but were you running it with oversampling? Also, is your room treated with sound absorption? |
Resolution has never been a top priority. I don’t mean to be contentious but did you not read through the thread?
My IC and power cables are a mix of copper and silver-plated copper, chosen after finding all copper too dark and all silver too bright. My digital cable was described as having "a very liquid warmth that’s more gold than silver" in an Audio Bacon shoot-out among eleven contenders. I’m not opposed to trying a different cable but I’d be surprised if swapping out a cable would have the same impact that results from removing the Aqua DAC from the system. The same coax BNC is used in both scenarios. When it connects transport to integrated’s internal DAC, fatigue disappears and sibilance is noticeably less exaggerated.
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If all of your components and cables were chosen for their reputation of being highly detailed the presentation can lean too far in that direction. The leading edges of instruments and vocals are a little over emphasized and sibilance happens. A warmer cable in the mix might eliminate that and restore the balance. WireWorld and Cardas come to mind if you decide to try.The silver coated cable you're using might too much used throughout. |
Here we must ask for experienced people not for logic 😊...And i am not an audio engineer for sure... Myself i will try an other dac to begin with, any other one to see if the problem stay with me , ...Synergy is always a three partners affair mainly, dac- amp- speakers, where one is the main culprit ... But more experienced people here will advise you perhaps better ...
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If this is true, then would logic suggest swapping out only one component at the time (DAC, Amp or Transport) might not be sufficient -- that I might have to try multiple combinations of components? I ask this because you are better at logic ! ;o) RE: ferro-fluid, I’ll e-mail Silverline. Really-- a standard RCA IC ? OK...
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OK, just greenlighting by an amateur (me). I was going to recommend fine tuning with a Lokius, which I own, but I see no go. It is puzzling in that you have dome tweeters. Could your tweeters have ferrofluid? If so has it possibly dried up causing what you are hearing? If me, I would first purchase a new coax cable to rule that out before big changes. Even a cheapie something off monoprice or amazon just to rule out a cable problem. Actually, you probably could just use a standard RCA interconnect as a cable test. That's all I got. |
I already know that already...😊
I only say that the dac may not be the problem in itself but the synergy on some frequencies response never mind if it is very good on some other aspects between it and the rest of gear ...Anyway it was my case in the past... |
I wasn’t actually looking for more resolution. I’m much more a music lover who prizes emotional engagement. I was looking to correct the poorly-controlled bass I was getting in my previous system, which I found distracting and increasingly dissatisfying. Hegel amps are known for their high damping factor and the H390 has not only brought much better bass control but the speakers have come to come to life in a way that made me question whether I’d ever heard what they could do, before bringing in the Hegel. It’s possible the next acquisition might’ve been a "bridge too far" -- replacing the simaudio transport with the Jay’s. However, when I tried swapping it out for my old Jolida CDP as a transport the sibilance was actually worse. So, I dunno what to think... ;o/ |
I dont understand why the Lokius will not work in improving it ... For me then it is a problem about the speakers/room relation ...Of a bad synergy between a good dac and the rest of the gear interaction ... I dont think that buying more costlier EQ will work better than this basic good one for sibilance... In general looking for more resolution is not always the best way, sibilance may invite itself by exagerated high frequencies band coming from bad synergy or from a bad choice in some design ...I myself always asked for more musicality and more clear spatial localization acoustic qualities first, never for more resolving qualities first, because i hate fatiguing sounds ...My two systems dont lack details at all but they are never in my face ...They are there waiting for my attention ... Borrow another dac...
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I don’t know it’s the DAC for certain. What I do know is that when the Aqua DAC is in the signal chain, there’s fatigue and exaggerated sibilance. When I run my Jay’s transport direct into the Hegel’s DAC, fatigue goes away and while there is still some sibilance, it is not nearly so exaggerated. BUT, the sound is quite lean unless cranked. I may try a Border Patrol, which is affordable and could be returned if it didn't work out. On the whole, this system is way more resolving than its predecessor, so it’s possible the sibilance is coming from somewhere else and was simply not evident up to this point. It could be the room. If this is the case, probably the only course is to revert to a less-resolving system. Others have suggested the Hegel may be the culprit. I hate to give it up because I love how it brings my speakers to life. At 67, I don’t want to deal with an even heavier Coda or Pass. I had a tubey-sounding Wells Majestic that was nice but lacked control in the bass, which is why I began searching for an alternative and ended up with the Hegel. As I haven’t been active in the local audiophile community, those might be able to loan me gear "don’t know me from Adam". Paying the price for my introversion! Thanks for your interest. A Schiit Lokius didn’t help but perhaps a unit with more bands????
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I am not an expert here at all... Once said i experienced sibilance when i had bad synergy between gear pieces speakers and dac or amplifier or bad dac( which is not the case here i think) and room acoustic can only solve it in part ....Room acoustic alone dont solve synergy problem ... A bit of EQ can help a lot ... |
@stuartk You have a really nice system. That Aqua DAC seems really high quality and is R2R. I see good arguments in other threads that the DAC might be the problem. I find it hard to suspect the DAC, as it's well made and is R2R. Of course, if it's the DAC, that's a simple one for one switch. If do wonder about the Hegel and (maybe) the room acoustics. Is there anyway you can borrow another amp to try out to see if that changes anything? If you tried an amp that was definitely on the warm side, you could really know about the Hegel. Looking at your room, I see there's not much about acoustics you can do that's easy. There is a nice discussion here -- some really good posts -- which indicate that room acoustics likely won’t solve it, though there is some debate about that. Some more discussion here, mentioning EQ and toe-in, among other ideas. |
I mentioned Jay’s transport and Hegel integrated. I don’t think speakers are contributing to the problem but they are Silverline SR17.5 monitors. I've tried various scenarios, including slaving the Aqua to the Hegel's clock, which made matters worse. The one consistent result was that sibilance was worse with the Aqua in the signal chain. Yes-- I should’ve mentioned that’s the only thing that’s occured to me, so far, to try.
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