>>A reduction in dB in this range does not make a recording less sibilant. It only makes the range more quiet thus providing the illusion that the sibilance has been decreased. The ssss of sibilance remains in the recording now overshadowed by more prominent SPL from the surrounding frequencies.
Agree 100%. I was trying to say that some speakers provide the illusion of more or less sibilance by virtue of frequency response variations in the "few KHz" region, not that the sibilance goes away.
Personally I don't buy into this "one speaker is more sibilant than another" but I do believe that a speaker with a bump in that range is going to show more of the recording's inherant sibilance (probably a function of miking as you say) than another speaker with a response dip in the same range.
Agree that 3 KHz is not a "magic frequency" for sibilance, just that the 2-4 KHz range is more of an issue than (say) the 5-10 KHz range, the 10-20 KHz range or the 1-2 KHz range.
Below a certain frequency you get spluttering not sibilance
