Hi,
I am curious about this from the amplifier angle. I am finding discussion on sibilance problems in the speakers forums, and I wanted to ask about this here.
I have a pair of speakers, two-way, with vifa 8" woofer and 1" tweeter, and have had since 2000. The number of amplifiers that I can hook up to these without excess sibilance/tin in high vocals and symbols and the like seems like half. Half do and half don't.
I was wondering if it might be possible to track down what it could be. I am listening to a tripath that has fantastic resolution, but has this going on with this speaker.
I know my brother's old heathkit amp doesn't do this with this speaker, nor did my old denon pma2000r. I had some of this with an Odyssey Stratos, a Marantz 7002 AVR, and I am having this with a tk2050-based amp. Not with a Proceed. Not more than the standard "clinical sounding" line with Bryston (close). I don't recall more than a tad of this with the Rotel RB-1090, or the NAD C-370.
TIA,
Mark
I am curious about this from the amplifier angle. I am finding discussion on sibilance problems in the speakers forums, and I wanted to ask about this here.
I have a pair of speakers, two-way, with vifa 8" woofer and 1" tweeter, and have had since 2000. The number of amplifiers that I can hook up to these without excess sibilance/tin in high vocals and symbols and the like seems like half. Half do and half don't.
I was wondering if it might be possible to track down what it could be. I am listening to a tripath that has fantastic resolution, but has this going on with this speaker.
I know my brother's old heathkit amp doesn't do this with this speaker, nor did my old denon pma2000r. I had some of this with an Odyssey Stratos, a Marantz 7002 AVR, and I am having this with a tk2050-based amp. Not with a Proceed. Not more than the standard "clinical sounding" line with Bryston (close). I don't recall more than a tad of this with the Rotel RB-1090, or the NAD C-370.
TIA,
Mark
There many discusions about this.
Whether it is a harmonic distortions or a frequency compensation issue I wouldn't be able to tell you.
But it is my opinion that it is this issue that gives one a false since of the amplifier being more acurate or not.
Especialy class d ones.
There are many here that are much much more experienced with that design.
I am not,but, I am also interested in what others have to say about this issue as well.
Good luck. jer
p.s. What I don't undertand is if the technology is so prefect then why is everbody being compelled to have too modify that very same amplifier!
Whether it is a harmonic distortions or a frequency compensation issue I wouldn't be able to tell you.
But it is my opinion that it is this issue that gives one a false since of the amplifier being more acurate or not.
Especialy class d ones.
There are many here that are much much more experienced with that design.
I am not,but, I am also interested in what others have to say about this issue as well.
Good luck. jer
p.s. What I don't undertand is if the technology is so prefect then why is everbody being compelled to have too modify that very same amplifier!
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One of the pro amp designers on here discussed a test of amps on here: a 15khz + 19 khz intermodulation test. This is up in the range where sibulance occurs. This is not a published spec on any amp I have seen, but would be very interesting to me. Amps that don't respond this high in frequency obviously would not fail this test, but they would fail a flat frequency response test. The published IM distortion measurements, where available, involve I believe mixing 1 khz and some other frequency. Intermodulation distortion involves the production of sum and difference frequencies of the two test frequencies, divided by the actual frequencies it is supposed to generate.
None of my current amps have this sibulance. Music that has energy in these frequency ranges include top octave piano (elite brands) cymbals, trangles, other percussion with significant high frequency components. My favorite amp test record, Peter Nero "Yound and Warm and Wonderful" has a top octave piano solo on one cut. Very instructive to compare this to an actual Steinway piano. My St70 is currently good at that portion, but has some honkiness (Harmonic distortion) in the mid piano octaves, that is the middle frequencies. This correlates to the 1% HD spec of the magazine tests of the amp.
None of my current amps have this sibulance. Music that has energy in these frequency ranges include top octave piano (elite brands) cymbals, trangles, other percussion with significant high frequency components. My favorite amp test record, Peter Nero "Yound and Warm and Wonderful" has a top octave piano solo on one cut. Very instructive to compare this to an actual Steinway piano. My St70 is currently good at that portion, but has some honkiness (Harmonic distortion) in the mid piano octaves, that is the middle frequencies. This correlates to the 1% HD spec of the magazine tests of the amp.
I don't particular have any extensive experience with class d amplifiers persay.
But this this effect is very prominet in cd's ,cd players and sound cards as alot of them use the same form of conversion, pulse width modulation.
One example is queens "Tie your mother down" comes out like (ssssstdie your mohzssser stown" the analog album does not sound like that at all,
I have heard very few 16 bit cd players duplicate this correctly.
I am very critical and choosey when it comes to sound as I have been in the (and have a)recording studio aspect for a number of years.
I once tried an expreiment to eq it out and dump it to analog tape.
This smoothed it out quite nicely but I could not get rid of the sibilance as it was part of the orginal signal.
This is where the 24bit format with a higher sample rate execels.
So this leads me to my next question: what is the source of the material that you are trying to compare analog or digital?
This would be a very good test.
Exclueding dynamic range and SNR from the result of course.
As the amp may very well be working correctly but over emphasizing some of the nuances from the source and/or source material.
I hope that helps. jer
But this this effect is very prominet in cd's ,cd players and sound cards as alot of them use the same form of conversion, pulse width modulation.
One example is queens "Tie your mother down" comes out like (ssssstdie your mohzssser stown" the analog album does not sound like that at all,
I have heard very few 16 bit cd players duplicate this correctly.
I am very critical and choosey when it comes to sound as I have been in the (and have a)recording studio aspect for a number of years.
I once tried an expreiment to eq it out and dump it to analog tape.
This smoothed it out quite nicely but I could not get rid of the sibilance as it was part of the orginal signal.
This is where the 24bit format with a higher sample rate execels.
So this leads me to my next question: what is the source of the material that you are trying to compare analog or digital?
This would be a very good test.
Exclueding dynamic range and SNR from the result of course.
As the amp may very well be working correctly but over emphasizing some of the nuances from the source and/or source material.
I hope that helps. jer
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A friend helped me look at the parts in the x/o and measure them. We measured one 2.2 mH coil in series on the low pass, and another across the tweeter. With a 4-ohm resistor and a 6.8 uH cap in series on the tweeter, and a 8.2 uF cap across the woofer.
The Vifa drivers are:
Woofer: P21WO39-08 8" poly cone, 40mm Ø voice coil
Tweeter: D27TG45-06 1" textile dome - bulged faceplate - chambered
I also found my old sine wave tests 20-20K, and the bump was more-so from 5 Khz up to nearly 10 KHz (not 7 KHz, sorry).
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Pity I only have Queen on LP, not CD. Would be interesting to see if my 15000 hz roll off ears can hear what you do. I used to be very annoyed by the howling in television sales departments, before I went to ROTC camp in 1969. Then the problem was taken care of. My SP2-XT speakers roll off at 17000 hz anyway, not a problem to me.
What is the name of the Queen song? I only have the album with the concentric circles on the cover. "Fat b***** girls" is the cut I bought it for. I prefer silly to over-blown (bavarian rhapsody). (I thought they must like looking at girls until someone filled me in. I never saw the videos of how they dressed until 2008, either)
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I love all of their stuff even "Bicycle".
The song is "Tie your mother down" .
I understand, the high end of my hearing is very bad aswell right around 15khz in one ear and about 16.25khz in the other not to mention balance as well seems to be a problem.
I do some times find myself boosting the 12khz on the mixer by about 2db quite a bit.
I'm not sure if it is me or the poor quality of stuff I find on you tube as you really have to search in order to find anything decent.
Plus don't have any higher quality tweeters or ESL's hooked up at the moment.
This makes a BIG difference in what you perceive.
But defintely heard it still on my mini ESL's when I had them running last summer, again using you tube.
But I can still decipher timber changes very well and that is what is most important.
The cd in particular was the "new (terribly) remasterd version " with all their greatest hits.
With a black label If I remember correctly.
It came out in the early 90's when Freddy died.
I noticed it the first time I heard it because I was trying to learn the words so that i could perform it with my guitar and I could not figure out exactly what he was saying.
So, instead I went and bought the music book.
He was the only artist that did bother me the way he was, because his voice,talent and performance was soooo great.
I regret not getting a chance to see them live and in person. jer
The song is "Tie your mother down" .
I understand, the high end of my hearing is very bad aswell right around 15khz in one ear and about 16.25khz in the other not to mention balance as well seems to be a problem.
I do some times find myself boosting the 12khz on the mixer by about 2db quite a bit.
I'm not sure if it is me or the poor quality of stuff I find on you tube as you really have to search in order to find anything decent.
Plus don't have any higher quality tweeters or ESL's hooked up at the moment.
This makes a BIG difference in what you perceive.
But defintely heard it still on my mini ESL's when I had them running last summer, again using you tube.
But I can still decipher timber changes very well and that is what is most important.
The cd in particular was the "new (terribly) remasterd version " with all their greatest hits.
With a black label If I remember correctly.
It came out in the early 90's when Freddy died.
I noticed it the first time I heard it because I was trying to learn the words so that i could perform it with my guitar and I could not figure out exactly what he was saying.
So, instead I went and bought the music book.
He was the only artist that did bother me the way he was, because his voice,talent and performance was soooo great.
I regret not getting a chance to see them live and in person. jer
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They used to combat sibilance with a device called a de-sssr.
It is nothing more than a frequency controled compressor.
Our dbx compessor had a control input were you would plug it into the output of a filter or graphic equilizer unit and it would only effect the frequencies set by the equilizer.
We never had to use this function on any of are recordings.
But I did have a friend whom had an orginal dbx de-sssr and showed me how it worked one day and infact it worked pretty good . jer
It is nothing more than a frequency controled compressor.
Our dbx compessor had a control input were you would plug it into the output of a filter or graphic equilizer unit and it would only effect the frequencies set by the equilizer.
We never had to use this function on any of are recordings.
But I did have a friend whom had an orginal dbx de-sssr and showed me how it worked one day and infact it worked pretty good . jer
That sounds like my part of the range - between 5 and 10 KHz. So I have a bump there. Like someone here said, each amp has its own presentation. The only deal here being that I think what I am getting in the high treble is not simply a louder version of its original self, but as if it is added information.
I was wondering if perhaps parasitic forces with the speaker (that aren't being handled) could be involved.
Going back to digital, such as CD, this is making sense to me. Digital gets worse as the frequency goes up. I think these are some of the highest frequencies we are concerned about. Technically, CD should be its worst at these frequencies. I believe there will be a lot of phase error...
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I don't know but I suspect that sibilance is an artefact that results from a frequency reponse that varies between a constant sinewave test signal and one that has transients in the signal.
The transients are effectively a HF content that is higher than the fundamentals. If the replay chain exaggerates the gain of these HF components compared to the fundamentals then I believe we hear sibilance as well as other "enhanced detail" that does not exist in the recording.
Square wave testing shows this transient gain inaccuracy. And the way filtered square waves are processed changes with the reactive load hung on the end of a poorly designed amplifier. There's the problem.
Feed a filtered squarewave through a resistively loaded amplifier and set up the stability compensation.
Now change to a complex impedance load and the square wave output is not the same as the input, unless the designer has designed his amplifier to be resistant to (tolerant of) varying impedances.
That is also the source of the unfounded rumour that cables have their own sound ! No, cables present a complex and varying impedance to the source equipment and the source equipment, when not properly designed, changes the way it processes the signal.
The transients are effectively a HF content that is higher than the fundamentals. If the replay chain exaggerates the gain of these HF components compared to the fundamentals then I believe we hear sibilance as well as other "enhanced detail" that does not exist in the recording.
Square wave testing shows this transient gain inaccuracy. And the way filtered square waves are processed changes with the reactive load hung on the end of a poorly designed amplifier. There's the problem.
Feed a filtered squarewave through a resistively loaded amplifier and set up the stability compensation.
Now change to a complex impedance load and the square wave output is not the same as the input, unless the designer has designed his amplifier to be resistant to (tolerant of) varying impedances.
That is also the source of the unfounded rumour that cables have their own sound ! No, cables present a complex and varying impedance to the source equipment and the source equipment, when not properly designed, changes the way it processes the signal.
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A link to a brief on the world of compressors:
How to use Audio Compressors
Since my CD sound is coming from a computer, I think I should look into software for compressing from 5 KHz to 10 Khz. I think that sounds really interesting. Of course, this looks a bit involved in learning about - there are a lot of compressors. I haven't used a PC as anything fancy - I've used it as a disc player.
How to use Audio Compressors
Since my CD sound is coming from a computer, I think I should look into software for compressing from 5 KHz to 10 Khz. I think that sounds really interesting. Of course, this looks a bit involved in learning about - there are a lot of compressors. I haven't used a PC as anything fancy - I've used it as a disc player.
Andrew,
I will say you are operating over my head, and thank you. Can I ask.. When you say "transients", are you confining that to higher frequencies? (Or as produced during a varying load?)
When you refer to not handling varying resistance, in the case of chip amps... Would you be including what the chips can miss, or just what is missed from what people do with them? I'm curious if in your experience there are chip amps that cause this, or in any case if this just comes down to what people do with them. Will an amplifier's design be inherently prone to handling or not handling these varying impedances with HF info, or is it what someone does with the basic design?
TIA -
Mark
I will say you are operating over my head, and thank you. Can I ask.. When you say "transients", are you confining that to higher frequencies? (Or as produced during a varying load?)
When you refer to not handling varying resistance, in the case of chip amps... Would you be including what the chips can miss, or just what is missed from what people do with them? I'm curious if in your experience there are chip amps that cause this, or in any case if this just comes down to what people do with them. Will an amplifier's design be inherently prone to handling or not handling these varying impedances with HF info, or is it what someone does with the basic design?
TIA -
Mark
Can you give more information on your comp. CPU, sound card, format used for music (mp3 etc), media player....
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