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As some of you may know I have this new active crossover.
Does everything better than the previous one and I'm globally extremely happy about it.
However, since day one I found the treble to be overly sharp, sibilants are too pronounced.I have it one and half week now and I'm not home a lot to listen music; can I hope this will go away with burn-in? I've experienced burn in many times but it was more like a roller-coaster with some good days and some very bad days; this here seems to change veeeery slowly (if there's any change at all). I did hear the midrange getting purer and smoother and the stereo image getting wider and more stable but the treble stays sharp.
Could it be that the many large (in size) metallized polypro film caps are the only components still burning in and that it takes much more time than the rest?
There's not much voltage going through the device while listening as it's a line level crossover.
Edits: 02/03/20Follow Ups:
Tell me your using the cheap Solens.
"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." George Orwell-1984
Hopefully if it doesn't resolve itself there will be a fairly easy solution since you know generally where the problem is likely coming from. Maybe you would need to change caps, dampen caps, use a larger gauge of wire?? Exaggerated sibilance is one of my least favorite things in the whole wide world. It must be attenuated at all cost. Unfortunately sibilance is part of life and it can't be eliminated completely. Best of luck with this pressing issue.
"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." George Orwell-1984
I may be imagining things - or hearing what I want to hear - but it seems to be less sibilant today?
Yesterday night I turned the amps and active subs off and treated the crossover circuits with a "shower" of "burn in sound" playlists I found on Youtube (well, those are just a succession of frequency sweeps, dynamic low frequencies, pink noise... arranged in a handy playlist by some Japanese audiophile, and available for free on Youtube), with the preamp volume at 3/4 of its course; then I turned it off for the night (which I don't usually do) and turned it on again this morning. I feel if I do this every day (on top of my usual, low volume listening) I might accelerate things. Fingers crossed - if it's not just in my head....
as I said earlier I'm a fervent believer of the burn-in phenomenon, having recapped / upgraded many of my electronics and heard a major improvement every time with some hours on it; but in those cases it was obvious, as the fresh caps were pretty much unlistenable out of the box, with weird phenomenons such as shut-in midrange and rough high frequencies, or "dull in the afternoon, bright in the evening" sound then nasal the morning after then dull again etc... but here it sounds good but overly sibilant, which makes me wonder if there's more burn-in needed or if that sibilant sound is going to stay.
The worse case of "bad fresh caps sound" was with Elna silmics, which sound dull and bloated as long as burn in isn't complete, to the point of having me wondering if I had accidentally damaged something, when a certain number of Silmics had been placed in the circuit.I almost never buy brand new electronics, with the notable exception of my new DAC which sounded nasal, metallic and very bass shy for about 4 weeks before the sound became good (which happened in a very sudden fashion, like you are doing something else while listening music and suddenly it all pops into place and you stop what you were busy doing with an incredule look on your face); brand new, the DAC was so disappointing I was reluctantly thinking of getting rid of it...
I also heard it with some op-amps, specially with LM4562 which in my experience sound thin and sharp until they finally mellow down at around 100hours of use (I wonder why it's almost always 100hours, it's very weird, makes one feel delusional and brings arguments to the "burn-in is a myth" crowd)
Hell, I believe I can even hear a fresh solder joint "mellowing in" after a couple hours; when freshly made there's always something strange happening to the sound... but I've often wondered if it was not just in my head - even tho other people seem to hear that as well.
Edits: 02/04/20
Well this is an active crossover, the caps are "metalized polypropylene film caps with 2% tolerance". They are tightly populating the board, and finding caps that are the right value, tolerance and size might prove difficult; besides, this is a brand new crossover with a factory warranty, I'd rather not start tweaking it right now ;-)
Please provide a link to the product, KanedaK.
Here under the link.My crossover is getting there; I've had a major change yesterday after some more hours intense burn-in (blasting the circuit with much higher signal voltage than what I normally do when listening, amps turned off): midrange detail is coming upfront, treble is now composed and more natural, less piercing - the whole presentation got at the same time more open and less bright; soundstage got finally wider than the speakers and phasey effects in recordings finally can do the "hey I'm here behind your left shoulder" trick that never fails to impress the "bluetooth speaker generation".
I really had two major stages of burn-in that I could hear: I'm wild guessing: at first the electrolytic caps (there aren't so many and they are all the same) then, I suppose, the films caps... meanwhile all the rest (op-amps etc) was gradually settling in.
It's probably still burnin-in since it hasn't been so many hours yet, but yesterday it was FINALLY enjoyable to really just listen music and not just wonder about the sound. A big step has passed.As a disclaimer regarding the product page: the last review is mine. I wrote it after the first burning stage was complete - after spending a couple days wondering why my 49$ AliExpress crossover sounded better than the 10x more expensive K231, and I was so happy and relieved that I had to write a review THEN. Besides, Mark from Sublime Acoustics had done a great job to deliver the crossover with less waiting time than initially announced and was very professional from the beginning and I wanted to sincerely promote his product. Everything I said there is true - but after some more days I still found that many recordings were still overly bright and the whole presentation lacked liquidity and "relaxness", hence my post here; I'm happy to say the sound keeps changing in the right direction and I don't have to regret having written a very good review.
Edits: 02/06/20
I'm very pleased to know you found the right product for your wants/needs, KanedaK.
If you ever wish to use the balanced jacks, I highly recommend the Oyaide Neo P285T TRS 1/4" 6.3mm stereo plug. It's the finest I've heard, and can accommodate up to an 8mm maximum cable OD.
See link:
Thanks Duster. My preamp has only unbalanced outputs but if / when I upgrade (Schiit Freya? :-) ) I will consider using the balanced connection instead
Interestingly, I find this crossover to be more immune to RFI now that it has burned-in some, than when fresh out of the box. I seem to hear less of it. I have absolutely no explanation for that.
I understand what you are talking about, I've only had this type of situation one time with some tubes....roller coaster ups and downs.
Based on my single previous experience I would say give it some time, if you can...
The troubling part is you really don't know where the sound will settle into.
Good luck
Dynobots Audio - Music is the Bridge Between Heaven and Earth
Dynobots GitHub - Music to Your Ears
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