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Been using the following equipment:
Topping D50 -> JDS Atom
However, some IEMS (cca c10/kz zs5) have sharp, spiky 'ch/th/s' in the high pitch? vocal.
Not sure why they sounded like that.
Are those background noise due to their sensitivity? (~123dB and above)
How to fix this?
No DAC and amp would ever cure that unless it’s broken (over 1% THD and terrible impedance matching)
Your IEMs just have those nature and you would need to EQ the peaks to eliminate them. Check out Crinacle database for EQ plots so you can specifically target the sibilance. They’re usually at 6-10 KHz peaks. My CA Andromeda never has this sibilance issue since the peaks are smoothed out at those 6-10 KHz ranges without EQing
I just listened to all three of them. No they're definitely not sibilant (aka emphasized lower treble) sounding to my Yamaha HS7 speakers and CA Andromeda IEM without using EQ (I never use EQ with the HS7 and Andromeda since they're tuned perfect to my subjective preferences). All of the "sss" are reproduced in a way that it's not emphasized whatsoever. Easiest way is to de-ess since KZ IEMs (except for ZS3) are known to be sibilant in the lower treble region (where all the ch and sssss are localized)
High volume is a possibility, but comparing FR graph of the KZ ZS5 to my CA Andromeda show emphasized frequencies at 2-3K which results to sibilance and that 8K spikes is that makes that "sss" sound like knife on your ears. EQ down the 8K and the 2-3K by a couple of dB to eliminate the sibilance issue
lower the volume digitally before it is sent to the DAC (say -6dB or -10dB) if you still hear it then it could be the recording (when most recordings do not sound sibilant)
an another test is connect the Atom to your phone or the phone output directly to the speaker amp and see if it still happens and with which recordings.
That's a given. The question is if the sibilant tracks sound "offensive" to my subjective ears then absolutely no. Even the loud K-pop music I listen to never sounded "offensive" with a relatively flat frequency response speakers such as the Yamaha HS7 despite their sibilant nature.