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My battle with sibilance.

At the minimum sibilance is annoying to me. Its only present on a small percentage of my records. However today I wanted to see if I could improve it. The song in question is Men at Work's "Down Under". The cartridge is an Ortofon Cadenza Bronze retipped by Soundsmith. I went through a lot of the protocols for abating annoying sibilance.
1.My anti skate was not optimally set so I thought and I adjusted to less using a dead spot on a test record. I know some people don't agree with this. I tried Soundsmiths method but until I see a video I won't understand it.
2. I adjusted my VTA to at least 20 degrees. I realized it was off. It was set at 12-15 degrees. I know the Shibata stylus is sensitive to VTA.
3. I checked the VTF and it was set at the manufacturers suggestion at 2.5 grams. Which is dead in the middle of 2.3 to 2.7. I adjusted to 2.62. A lot of people think the higher range is optimum.
3. I made sure my stylus was absolutely clean.
Guess what? After all this, the sibilance was less but still there. As a check I listened to the song in streaming and it was in the recording!!! However not as bad as my record before my TT adjustments. So I'm happy now my TT might sound better on other recordings. Anyway I hope my fellow members here have had some success on sibilance and maybe some will benefit from what I did.

blueranger

Showing 2 responses by jdjohn

jdjohn's avatar
jdjohn
39 posts
 
Assuming that song is being played off their "Business as Usual" album (not greatest hits, etc.), "Down Under" looks to be track #3, right in the middle of the album, which might not be helping.

Normally, sibilance is noticed more on the inner tracks with IGD in full form.  But middle tracks can also be a problem since they are smack-dab between the null points, where tracking distortion is raised.
jdjohn's avatar
jdjohn
39 posts
 
Sorry to resurrect this thread, but tonight I am reminded of a particularly difficult album to track...without sibilance.

Norah Jones, "Not Too Late"

From the very first song, there is a lot of 'sss' to navigate.  This could be attributed to a 'hot' recording, but if you can get a phono cartridge dialed-in, it can sound wonderful.  For me, it required a combination of high-quality, low-mass cantilever/stylus, along with very exact cartridge alignment (including VTA and azimuth) in order to get a satisfactory result with this album.
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