Quote:
Originally Posted by gundam91
OK, I tried this setup last Saturday at the big Saratoga (aka San Francisco Bay Area meet) with my Ety 4S hooked up to an SR-71 + several different mini-to-mini cables + iPod (lossless format). I only listened to two songs from Diana Krall's Love Scenes CD, and in both cases, her voice was way in the foreground and her band sounded so distant away that I could barely hear them.
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Over the weekend I listened to this album with Etys and SR-71, and I don't hear what you heard. Her band sounded very present to me, not at all distant.
Specifically my setup was LAME APS MP3->iPod 4G/60 photo -> SiK RAM Din -> SR-71 -> 4P-4S converter -> ER-4P (tri-flange). So not exactly the same as yours, but I think close enough that I should have been able to hear the issue you were describing, if it were inherent to the equipment.
Here are my conjectures:
1. Time for a filter change? I find the need for new filters creeps up gradually, until one day I think, "this really ought to sound better than it does." Then I change them and lo, it does sound better.
2. Tired batteries in the SR-71 you were using? The bass player's pretty prominent in that recording, and if the batteries were almost gone, he might have been the first to suffer.
3. Poor seal? I list this last because it seems by now you would know a good seal from a poor one. But perhaps it is a possibility. FWIW: to my ears Diana Krall's voice - at least on this recording - is strangely separable into two parts, a melody component which is smooth in timbre, and a words component that is much harsher in timbre and has lots of higher-frequency elements. If a poor seal robs the bass and midrange, it's possible to think Diana still sounds "right" because the part of her voice that carries the words is in the upper frequencies and therefore last to go, and the words remain remarkably intelligible.