Help! My system developed sibilance

Posted by: silklee on 19 November 2003

Out of a sudden I noticed sibilance on my system, both on CD and vinyl.

So what have I done to my system recently?

I replaced my P25 with a LP12 thus rearranged the whole rack, pARTicular. Mana is on the right of the pARTicular with nothing on it.

It used to be (top to bottom)
p25
CD5
Hicap on the left, ERA gold Phono and power supply on the right
202
200

Now, its, from top of the rack downwards
CD5
202
geddon on the left, ERA gold (my phono) on the right
ERA Gold power supply on the left, hicap on the right
202
The reason why the ERA gold is on the right on the geddon is because the mana table is on the right of the Particular and the tonearm cable cannot reach the ERA gold if it is on the other side.

All my equipment runs from the same power point, cant separate them. NAPSC is on the left of everything lying on the floor. Didn’t touch it for a long time.

Of course, the other thing that i did was replaced my P25 with the lp12 and added a geddon to the family in the process.

The other thing I have done is bought the "old english furniture polish" and gave my SBL and LP12 a good waxing. It cant be because of this, can it?

Or is it just part of the process of the 202 200 running in (about six month) cos I noticed that the sound kept changing since I got it. 1 month ago, I thought my system sounded overly warm, but now, sibilant.

Any suggestions of any particular reason of what could have gone wrong?

Posted on: 20 November 2003 by garyi

Its getting cold, everyone is useing more electric.

For god sake do not fall for the run in crap, it should be on song in around four hours, anyone saying different is simply getting used to the sound.

And certainly after a few months no one would be qualified to say there was a sound differece, they just would not know no matter how much they declare it so on a hifi forum.

Posted on: 20 November 2003 by garyi

now now my count is reasonably low on the others, and I have been doing this since 01, you young wipper snapper

Posted on: 20 November 2003 by garyi

Ah shit, just looked at your profile, doh!

Posted on: 20 November 2003 by garyi

In fairness most of my posts are short and pointless like this one.

Posted on: 21 November 2003 by Martin Payne

quote:
Originally posted by silklee:
Out of a sudden I noticed sibilance on my system, both on CD and vinyl.

So what have I done to my system recently?

I replaced my P25 with a LP12 thus rearranged the whole rack

Silk,

unfortunately, I found exactly this problem with my system when an LP12 is too close.

My solution was to use a Stageline instead of the internal boards, and use the combined length of SNAIC and arm leads to give me as much spacing as possible.

Presumably you could do the same with your ERA.

quote:
Mana is on the right of the pARTicular with nothing on it.

I presume this is a ferrous effect, and that the Mana may also contribute. Was your P25 on Mana?

quote:
Now, its, from top of the rack downwards
CD5
202
geddon on the left, ERA gold (my phono) on the right
ERA Gold power supply on the left, hicap on the right
202

Try to get the HiCap/Armageddon/Era PS well away from the CD5 & 202. Could you arrange with an empty level between the two?

quote:
The other thing I have done is bought the "old english furniture polish" and gave my SBL and LP12 a good waxing. It cant be because of this, can it?

Yes!

The SBL bass/mid box has thin aluminium pads on the bottom, and the spikes from the bottom box should just touch these without piercing. Also, the bass/mid box is sealed to the bottom box with foam & silicone.

Unless you were extremely gentle then you have probably broken the spikes through the pads and dug them into the wood.

You may well need to get a gasket kit and do a rebuild on the speakers. FWIW, this gave a big boost to my DBLs (the second time, when I did it right!)

cheers, Martin

E-mail:- MartinPayne (at) Dial.Pipex.com. Put "Naim" in the title.

Posted on: 21 November 2003 by joe90

If your CD player sounds sibilant, I would think the amp and speakers are too revealing for your CD player.
Get a CDX2.

Joe90

Posted on: 22 November 2003 by silklee

Martin,

Rather difficult to move my LP12 further from the rest of the system. My room is pretty small. What i can do is 'try' to move the ERA to the right of the geddon.

I didnt like the P25 on the mana. I much prefer it on the pARTicular thus my mana was empty before I got the LP12. Maybe i will try moving the lp12 away and see whether that makes any difference.

I also only have 5 tiers of my rack thus i cant put an empty level between the CD5, 202 and the rest.

I have been extremely careful when doing the waxing so i hope i have not damaged the pads.

Joe,
That would be a nice but costly solution.