Hi from new member, and help needed :)

Julian, yes your right im smitten
also i think what Robbo said about sorting mains makes a lot of sense, its an improvement that will carry on to whatever i upgrade next

bottleneck, most appreciated

timpy, i agree fully with your post. Ill let you know how my first attempt stands up. On order -- 1.5mm2 3 core YIYCY sheilded cable, wattgate 320 and mk tuffplug

 

Robbo,
Youre right, i need to sort the mains.
I played around last night with some self adhesive copper foil tape. I got an old cheapo iec lead and wrapped the foil all the way along it. Then i soldered a fly lead onto the foil at the plug and connected it to earth in the plug.
W0W was all i could say, i wont harp on about the individual changes, suffice to say that for something that took me 20minutes to bash together it made a noticeable and good change. So what will a decent cable do .
Some of the sibilence still persists but it has been tamed somewhat.

Even Mrs penance noticed the difference. BOY did she smile

So i will now work on sorting the whole mains thing.
Thanks to Robbo and all who pushed for that idea.

As an aside, we have an RFI lab where i work. In talking to one of the tech's in the lab i was told that both copper foil and mesh have merrits.
Foil is good for intercepting high frequency RFI and mesh/braid for low. (i may have that the wrong way round, but i think the point is there).

 

Blimey Chris, you don't hang about

-- Ian

 

(At the risk of re-igniting the fire)

The FFRC comparison Robbo mentioned (now in the thread consiged to the kindergarten) was at mine, running between the NuVista M3 and Wilson Audio 5.1 speakers - and as he said neither WM nor Timpy were present.

The FFRC was (according to the guy who loaned it to me) actually constructed out of particularly high-quality cables (not available in the UK), but did come a definite third in the comparison. Not sure how much that version would cost, but probably less than the UBYTE-2s and certainly less than the Isoldas. In comparison to the others there was less bass (not a bad thing in that configuration) but a rather hard and coarse treble - which may have something to do with your problem. In another comparison the UBYTEs came out similar to Robbos Kimber 8TC (although lost out to the 8TC/4TC bi-wire combo). It's not a cheap cable to make - 6 lengths of heatshrink per stereo pair really jacks the price up - with £30 for gold-plated spade terminations (possibly not a brilliant idea) they cost about £120 for a 5.5m single-wire stereo pair (and a lot of huffing and puffing getting the heatshrink on).

One of the biggest problems I see with DIY vs shop cables is that you can't get the materials on demo and return them if you don't like the finished product.

 

For some info about a cheap DIY mains filter take a look here:

http://www.worldaudiodesign.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1072

which is a thread leading to a two stage design with spike protection here:

http://www.triode-systems.com/circuits/DIY_mains_filter_dual.png

IMHO aftermarket mains cables (or DIY shielding cables) may well have an effect on mains quality - they will reduce/change the amount of RFI pickup.....but my thoughts are that it would be better to filter it out as much as possible as close as possible to the unit you are trying to shield. RS/Maplins sell filtered IEC sockets/in line IEC filters etc for a few quid each.

The parts for the filter above will be £10 - £15 from maplins. I built one to supply CD,DAC, Tuner & Amp, in an evening, and it made a significant improvement. Well worth a try if you can solder and are happy to play with mains voltages.....just don't blame me if you set fire to your carpet or blow something up!!....

 

just a point of info. regarding the sibilance, it isn't necessarily one thing to blame...all it is is a frequency at which sibilants in speech...ie esses, get exaggerated a little, it could be just a combination of the components interacting at that particular frequency. It can also be inherent in recordings esp. those with heavy reverb...george michaels jesus to a child for eg.
Then again, one component could well be the culprit...you have to do some swapping around to isolate the cause...
Its a tougie to cure though...even my valves do it from time to time...