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

Showing 1 response by plato

Elizabeth makes some very good points and doing the things she suggested should all help.

Other considerations are that there is a very good possibility that the sibilance does exist in the recordings themselves and your system is simply showing you what is on those recordings. Also, different cables do sound different and some cables and certain combinations of cables (say interconnects/speaker cables or speaker cables/power cords) can sound more or less sibilant than others.

So being the somewhat frugal beast that I am, I would try different interconnects and/or speaker cables first (especially if I had them on hand). And if you don't have a good AC power conditioner in the system, I would get one... not only for better sound, but for protection against spikes and power surges.

Frank