Sibilance what, why, any cures? - Page 4

I've never liked the sound of any apple product I've ever heard that didn't have some other soundcard than what came stock with them. That includes most of thier PMP's. There is one possible exception that I haven't heard & that is one of thier cheapest PMP's. I say possibly that one due to the full D.C.coupling of the output but I've not had the opertunity to hear it for myself but I've heard it is the absulute best sounding PMP that apple makes but has very limited storage for songs.

Edited by germanium - 7/17/12 at 5:16pm

I bet you're trying to use headphones with mismatched impedence. The line out on all Apple products is perfect, but the headphone jacks are all designed for small cans. If you try to plug big home cans into them without a cmoy or something, it won't sound good.

I've owned every generation of ipod, as well as the shuffle and the iphone. Ipad too. They all sound the same. It's the same for all my Macs. Apple sound quality is very consistent. It's identical to most standalone CD players. The only thing Apple doesn't do as well as others is encoding MP3s. LAME is better than iTunes. But that's OK because AAC is better than LAME.
Edited by bigshot - 7/17/12 at 5:18pm

Going beyond 20KHz does not cause sibilance problems but poor low level resolution does as the peaky portion of the SSSS lacks support from the lower level lower frequency wind noise that would provide a liitle body to the SSSS sound. This body would be less than you would get with a SHSHSHSH sound but if the SHSHSH sound sound like the SSSS sound then you have a real lack support in the frequencies below 6KHz at the lower levels. Boosting those frquencies may not really help you without otherwise improving the lower level dynamics as the higher level sound may end up being too much higher in that range. It is possible to improve dynamics thoughout the mid & upper frequencies without increasing harshness to the silibants. I have done this so I know whereof I speak. My X-Fi titanium HD had very harsh silibants but now are smooth without loosing any detail in fact I improved detail throughout the frequency spectrum. The peaky element of SSS is still there but it is well supported & such sounds far more natural. On my X-Fi Ti HD SSSS & SHSHSH didn't sound any different stock & now it does once modified.

Instead of boosting the frequencies below 6kHz, why not just cut 6kHz and above? Subtractive equalization always works better than additive.

This may be true however I like my music lively, Very lively with bells & cymbals that sound well, like bells & cymbals which have lots of energy up there. Why give up some portion of the spectrum to get smoothness when I can have it all & still have smoothness? Granted cutting those frequencies may help with some tinny sounding headphones that I have heard in the past but this EQ setting you bring up won't get the results I get with my mods with my speakers & earphones I have. It doesn't raise the actuall resolution any like my mods do.

 

I do agree though that subtractive EQ works better though than boosting EQ. I'm not boosting or cutting anything, the soundcard still measures flat even with my mods but sounds so much better than stock. Dynamics are incredible . Well recorded horns sound like you are there in the studio with them. That is quite an acomplishment considering some years ago I never heard a speaker that wasn't a horn speaker that could make you believe that you were in the presense of the actual horn instrument. Direct radiator speaker didn't seem to cut it. My current speakers are direct radiator type & they actually do cut it, very well infact, With my mods of coarse, not before.

If you aren't altering the frequency response you aren't boosting any frequencies.

You're right that the problem is around 6kHz, and regardless if you boost below that or cut from there up, the result is exactly the same. The only difference is the gain.

But it's much easier and more accurate to just set up a narrow EQ notch filter cutting the gain of the frequencies between 5 and 8kHz by 2 or 3 dB. A little finessing from that starting point will do the trick better than playing around with a soldering iron and randomly screwing with a design that was intended to work fine without it..

Personally, I haven't had any problems with sibilance since the late 70s and old kit amps. I don't know where people are finding all this funky equipment that requires jerry rigging. Is it garage sale stuff? Because I could recommend a bunch of modern receivers that cost very little and don't have gross imbalances like this.

If it's the speakers, and not the amp introducing the sibelance, they're probably blown.

If you have to crack the case and start altering the guts, the patient probably isn't worth saving.
Edited by bigshot - 7/17/12 at 11:39pm

Cracking the case so to speak is what got me the sound I wanted though I don't recommend it for everybody as you can damage much more than just the soundcard if you make a mistake. I do actually have some experience I know what generally works to get the sound I want.

 

I always look to get what I want without giving up anything & that is actually possable. Just like when Bob Carver set out to make an efficient woofer that could be small yet play loud & low without drawing a lot of power. He was successfull in spades. His woofer + amp design could do all of that & actually use less power than  A woofer with 4X the surface area & a mind boggling 10X the size  of his cabinate and get just as loud & low. According Hoffmans law it could not be done but Carver did it. The known science said it couldn't be done  yet with a better understanding of the physics he made a woofer that complied with the laws of physics yet defied the "known" physics that has been accepted for the last 50-60 years.

 

The lessen is that just because something is accepted as fact doesn't make it always so. Science if it is true science anyway will always come up with new ways to realize the way things work & come up with new explanations as to why the new way works better. It is possable to change sound quite dramatically without changing frequency response or distortion. You can improve resolution without changing these specs. You can improve sibilance without losing frequency response or distortion. You can improve dynamics without losing anything.

My Sunfire HRS12 sub is small, but it has a massive amp... 1000 watts. It isn't magic, it's just good R&D and design. I find the same thing in my Macs. The Mac mini I use to run my media server runs 24/7 streaming music all over the house. It also runs my ten foot 1080p projection system. Everything worked perfectly right out of the box... ITunes, Quicktime, DVD player... The only thing it doesn't do is play Blurays, and I got a $50 external optical drive for it, and now it can do that. If I had to take a soldering iron to apiece of equipment to make it sound good, I'd chuck it and get something that's designed and manufactured properly. But that's just me. I had a couple of decades in the analogue era where everything had to be babied to run at its peak. I'm not up for that any more. I want stuff that just works. That frees me up to make adjustments to the response and room... More productive use of my time and energy.

Besides, I don't like voiding warranties. It's nice to just make an exchange at the Apple store if my comp breaks down.

The sunfire sub needs a powerfull amp to overcome  the backelectromotive force generated by the huge magnet & the many turns of wire of the voice coil as they pass through the gap. To get to 110db at 25 Hz it only requires just over 200 watts to achieve making it more efficient than the 15 inch woofer that he was comparing it to which drew over 240watts.This is for the 10" version with the passive radiator & a 2700 watt amp..A portion of that difference is admitedly the efficiency of the amp but much of it is also the design of the woofer itself. The 12" version may take a little more peak watts due to not having the assistance of the passive radiator but my bet is if you measure the input power at your full tilt boogy  you will not see over 250 watts actual power usage. Maybe if you try to push it below 20Hz by much you will see more but that is not in most musical situations. Max power draw for the HRS12 is actually listed as 600 watts draw from the wall if that is any indication.

Edited by germanium - 7/18/12 at 6:41pm

That's still mighty hefty in my book!

The powerfull amp is what makes it possible to make a small high efficiency woofer. Only a small portion of that amps current capability is ever used. It it there just to create the nessessary voltage to overcome the back electromotive force.

I know that, but you were talking about how Bob Carver created such great low power subs. They're great but they're not low power. He used the same physics as everyone else. He just made it work a bit better in a smaller cabinet.

It is a great low power sub. It draws less power for a given output than many larger subs.Actually much less than standard calculations according to the old designs would have drawn That is why it doesn't melt it's voicecoils down in spite of the powerfull amp driving it. If you built a sub with such a powerfull amp without the powerfull magnet assemly it would destroy the voice coil in short order before getting much output. He built a high output sub with a powerfull amp that doesn't destroy itself due to heat in spite of the powerfull amp, An amp definately capable of such even with the heavy duty voice coils found in his subs.Why? because the subs draw much less current than the voltage across the voice coil suggests according to standard calculations going by the old "known" physics of how speakers work. A sub built using the old calculations would have melted down long before you go sufficient output from such a small cabinate.

 

No I never said he actually circumvented the actuall laws of physics but he did successfully reinterpret them in a way that allowed him to do what was previously thought to be undoable.