Orchestra in a small room - Is it possible?

abdodson

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My system has recently developed to a place where I can begin to see the real appeal of reproduced orchestral music. Until this point, the limitations of my system had frankly left it uninteresting. But my system is barely capable of making it appealing. Is it possible to create a system that can do enjoyable orchestra reproduction in a small room?

(For those interested. My room is a thoroughly treated 10 x 13. System is: Custom server > Lampizator TRP > Bel Canto SET40i > Rosso Fiorentino Fiesole)
 

Kal Rubinson

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Is it possible to create a system that can do enjoyable orchestra reproduction in a small room?
Near-field listening may help but, IMHO, it is only possible with multichannel. Neither the "they are here" nor the "you are there" paradigms can be successfully achieved in a small room.
 

treitz3

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Absolutely. Now will it sound just like you are there in person? All you have to do is ask yourself if any performance you hear sounds exactly as if you are there in person and you will know the answer. All we can hope for is the best approximation of a reproduction but yes, it is possible to create a system that can do enjoyable orchestra reproduction in a small room. Mine is 13x15' FWIW and I haven't heard anyone complain yet. It's usually compliments on the sound(s) of the performance.

I certainly do not complain, unless it's a less than stellar recording. A good example...."Time Warp" easily goes beyond the limitations of the walls and ceilings. It certainly does not sound as if I am in a small room.

In fact, there are many albums where you can tell rather good exactly what type and size venue you are in (in the recording).

Tom
 
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abdodson

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Absolutely. Now will it sound just like you are there in person? All you have to do is ask yourself if any performance you hear sounds exactly as if you are there in person and you will know the answer. All we can hope for is the best approximation of a reproduction but yes, it is possible to create a system that can do enjoyable orchestra reproduction in a small room. Mine is 13x15' FWIW and I haven't heard anyone complain yet. It's usually compliments on the sound(s) of the performance.

I certainly do not complain, unless it's a less than stellar recording. A good example...."Time Warp" easily goes beyond the limitations of the walls and ceilings. It certainly does not sound as if I am in a small room.

In fact, there are many albums where you can tell rather good exactly what type and size venue you are in (in the recording).

Tom
That is encouraging to hear. I have no expectation to ever get the illusion I am sitting in a concert hall. But I do want the experience to be enjoyable and without cringes at crescendo. The two most glaring limitations at present are garbling of complex passages and a digital glare with certain dense upper midrange passages. Interestingly, it was a recently purchased inexpensive CD transport that lifted the veil (beyond the capabilities of my server) enough to inspire the potential journey to build something that could possibly do it much better.

Any advise on the strategy? Is it the 845 based SET amp that is falling apart first? Is it the size or implementation of the two way speakers? Is it the inexpensive Audiolab cd transport? The newfound potential has me highly motivated to move the ball forward.
 

treitz3

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Hi, abdodson. That is a question that would require a deep dive into your system and is a *potential* rabbit hole for you. It took me about 14 passionate years and a lot of custom designed work/mods to get me to where I am at, with an insane amount of gear coming and going to get to where I am currently at. This, after a lifetime of being in the hobby just casually going through gear to learn things, gain appreciation for certain things, etc.

For instance....Just building my custom crossover units and redoing the speakers was a long, 3 and a half year project from start to finish. The crossover unit housing literally started from 2 sheets of 4'x8' aircraft aluminum and turned into a one of a kind, custom crossover unit that is bigger than many sub woofers out there. X2. Enough about that. I just got tired of buying things that didn't offer me what I wanted, so I went out and built what I wanted. I'm glad I did because I never want to go through that again but it was worth every moment and every penny spent. You will probably not go that route. Not many people do.

Getting rid of the congestion of instruments during busy passages and producing each individual instrument (or series of instruments) as their own during even the most demanding of busy passages is a challenge in and of itself. The digital glare can be an easy one, depending on your budget.

I honestly don't know where I would start if I were you, as everything IMO, affects everything. If I were you and based upon my experience, I would probably start at power and sources first. With that said, it would help everyone reading this thread if you could list your gear from the power outlet to the speakers. We would need to know EVERYTHING about the system's path to the end result. Then we would need to know your budget.

Tom
 

abdodson

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Tom,

Your post at least helps me to orient myself as to what sort of effort will be required. This knowledge is a step in the right direction for me. My system is as follows. Don't feel obligated to dig into it. But any advise from someone with such long experience could save some miles on the journey.

Wireworld Spaceport out of standard outlet. Everything is plugged into this. Had a dedicated line installed in a previous set up. But just moved to my new room a few months back with no dedicated power.

Server is a custom AMD Based, fanless setup running a version of Linux called Euphony. Powered by Keces P8 Linear Power Supply. Running a Sablon 2020 USB cable into a Lampizator TRP.

**But the Audiolab 6000 Cd transport I just bought for $450 blows the server out of the water. That's honestly what has me excited and already looking at a significant upgrade to the transport already.

I run the Audiolab transport into a Lampizator TRP with a Nordost Silver Shadow Digital Cable.

The Lampizator TRP is running unbalanced through Triode Wire Labs RCA interconnects into a Bel Canto SETi, which is an 845 based single ended integrated that can be had used for about $2500. It has about $1,000 worth of upgraded tubes in it.

The Bel Canto is connected to a pair of Rosso Fiorentino Fiesole stand mount speakers via a set of Clear Day Double Shotgun cables.

Both the Lampizator and Bel Canto have upgraded power cords in the $300 range.

Budget is a funny thing in this hobby. It tends to expand exponentially the deeper down the rabbit whole we go. Let's say I am willing to spend $3000 on an upgrade immediately and another $10k strategically over the course of the rest of the year. I would have no expectation that that gets me to a "destination." I believe that will be quite a journey. Just want to take some significant strides in the right direction.

I am also considering that the best way to spend $10k is on a vinyl setup.
 
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stehno

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My system has recently developed to a place where I can begin to see the real appeal of reproduced orchestral music. Until this point, the limitations of my system had frankly left it uninteresting. But my system is barely capable of making it appealing. Is it possible to create a system that can do enjoyable orchestra reproduction in a small room?

(For those interested. My room is a thoroughly treated 10 x 13. System is: Custom server > Lampizator TRP > Bel Canto SET40i > Rosso Fiorentino Fiesole)


Nope. Can't be done. Especially with 2-channel. And I certainly wouldn't trust anybody who said it could be done. They'll probably just redirect you to a Floyd Toole video.

BTW, my system is 2-channel and my room dimensions are not all that much different than yours.
 
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Blackmorec

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Yes, its entirely possible to get highly engaging and hugely entertaining orchestral sound in a small room. In fact a small room may be even better than a large room but there are several BUTs that are required to qualify this statement.

Firstly, the big orchestral soundstage is created in your head, not in the room, BUT your head needs a very pure, accurate signal with all the minor phase and signal amplitude differentials in tact. The more clues that are missing, the less well your brain is able to build an impression of the venue. To get a full 3 dimensional impression of listening to music in a concert hall, you need to be able to hear all the hall‘s reverberations with the right timing, the right frequency spectrum, the right phase shifts and the right relative amplitudes. When all the above are received correctly by each ear, your brain puts all the clues together and creates in your conscious mind music played in a large concert hall.
When music is played in a venue there are lots of fixed relationships that need to be almost perfect to create the desired impression of a concert hall. Firstly, the time taken for a reflection to reach a wall and bounce back to the listener is directly proportional to the size of the venue/distance travelled. A longer reflection time denotes a larger hall, a shorter time a smaller hall. As the sound is travelling, its energy is dispersing, so over a given time, the amplitude of the signal drops by an amount directly correlated to the distance. Your brain uses both time and amplitude of the reflections to assign venue characteristics. Amplitude and phase differentials between the two ears provides directional information. The frequency spectrum of the reflections is also used by the brain. Time affects amplitude and amplitude affects perceived frequency spectrum so the spectrum of the reflections also must be correct in order for the brain to construct a convincing venue. .
So what goes wrong with the above. Firstly, networks and other sources lose and mask information, so in order to get the complete picture, the network, digital sources or phono chain must be good enough to preserve as much unsullied information as possible. The more accurate, pure and complete the information, the better the impression of music played in a venue. Then there’s the listening room. Recordings are equalised with a narrow range of listening room reverberation time RT in mind ( the time it takes for frequencies to decay by a certain fixed amount). If the room rt is too short or too long, the music will not sound as intended, with certain frequencies having either too low or too high an amplitude relative to other frequencies. This will either make the music dry and brittle or murky, muddy and clouded. When the music’s spacial attributes are lost, instruments become undifferentiated and those undifferentiated parts of the signal are added to other parts of the music and heard as noise, typically digital harshness, boomy bass and so on.
Then there are specific reflections reaching your ears. In small rooms the reflections arrive at your ears very soon after the primary wave and your brain sums the two...primary wave and reflection. This can cause certain frequency anomalies depending on the polar response of your speakers. Worse is a large room, where reflections arrive later than the primary wave and are heard as a separate room reverberation. This reverberation tends to mask fine detail from the recording and causes listener confusion as you are essentially hearing the reverberations from 2 rooms...the listening room and the recording venue.
So ideally, to get close to perfect sound, a small room with well adjusted RT, ideally by diffusion, speaker placement well away from walls and speaker design that allows drivers to integrate sufficiently well in the space between driver and listener are all required. In larger rooms, the same RT adjustment is required and late reflections must be minimised. Standing waves or room nodes must also be minimised.

Ultimately, the goal is to deliver all the information on a recording as accurately as possible to your 2 ears, while minimising the sonic character of the listening room, mostly by adjusting the RT to the same value the music has been equalised for, while minimising late arriving reflections and dealing with standing waves. When you get it all right, you will hear and enjoy music in any venue in which it is recorded, from small studio to large cathedral or concert hall while electronic music, with an engineer-created soundscape should sound spectacular. Real sonic fireworks.
Lead an expert blindfold into a small listening room and if the set-up is correct they should hear no sonic clue regarding the listening room and receive only information about the recording venue...in other words they should only hear a concert hall, a cathedral, a large chamber, a studio or even open air, depending on what’s actually on the recording.
 
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SCAudiophile

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Respectfully to all who have posted on this, I am with @Blackmorec and @treitz3 here that yes, it is possible in a smaller room (mine is currently 14'x17', with openings on 2 sides, down from much larger rooms in past houses) with a 2-channel system of sufficient synergy and quality (note that doesn't necessarily mean highest price) to render an immersive and compelling recreation of a large symphony orchestra at the hall, soloist, sectional and overall ensemble level, and for that matter, pipe organ recordings (the most complex instrument on the planet to render properly IMHO) too in the beautiful spaces they inhabit to which the the organ itself is actually designed into the space so it too becomes part of the total playback experience. As an aside, anyone who's ever heard the Newberry Organ at Yale in Woolsey Hall (the hall designed and maintained specifically down to fabric in the seats as part of the overall instrument's sonic rendering) or the Cavaille-Coll organ at St. Sulpice in Paris and so many other fine examples to know what I'm talking about.

Of all the music I love from a very large collection across a wide selection of genres, a few thousand large scale symphonic and pipe organ recordings have been the recordings whose playback I've used in terms of the ultimate test of rendering quality of my system above all others with regards to judging realism of the musical playback experience and recreation of the venue. Jazz of all types is of course near and dear to my preferences as well and a close second in the analysis.

The premise that you cannot do it in a 'smaller' room is IMHO flawed as it blurs many details. For example, if your speakers and system don't recreate a multi-dimensional venue in a smaller room by giving you wide and deep soundstaging and in-room wrap-around (the listener) sound stage and accurately creating the sonic queues of the space in a small to medium sized room in all four (4) dimensions (X, Y, Z and time) chances are (again IMHO) that won't happen just because you have a slightly bigger or much bigger room with that system and those speakers. Sure you'll get 'more' but a larger room is not the panacea in and of itself that it's made out to be with all due respect to posters who have asserted that.

The premise also that you might be able to do it, but only with multi-channel, is also blurring many details. I read that type of high-level 'expert advice' many years ago and took it to heart, unfortunately not being experienced enough at the time to see the flaws in the statement. With respect to the latter, multi-channel alone does NOT necessarily get you there in and off itself; after a couple hundred thousand dollars in chasing that particular dragon I can attest to that; most multi-channel recordings of symphonic and pipe organ do not have comprehensive attention paid (again IMHO) to the surround and back-surround channels; they DO contain some level of info in the mids and higher frequencies but they are not 'full frequency spectrum' surround recordings. Further, even if my point of view on these recordings is incorrect, unless you chase your multi-channel experience with the same level of attention to detail w.r.t. amplification, cabling, use of full range speakers that render the full bass octaves recreation (or speakers with stereo subs on all surround channel pairs) you really aren't going to get the full recreation of the event that way either assuming multi-channel is the only way to get there and the recordings give you full surround information in the mix.

I don't believe much of this hobby cum obsession can be summed up by all those 'one-liner truths' that we are so often confronted with as
It's much more involved than that. Chasing those one-liner 'truths' can also be very costly...
 
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SCAudiophile

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For anyone interested and unfamiliar with the Newberry Organ at Yale and Woolsey Hall and how they are mated as a single instrument together, this site is a fascinating read:




All aspects of the hall's acoustics and overall impact on the rendering of this fine instrument are under careful guidance right down to
the original seats, fabrics and key aspects of the hall, the original 1915 turbines, 1928 original combination action controllers, etc......
 

Kal Rubinson

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Further, even if my point of view on these recordings is incorrect, unless you chase your multi-channel experience with the same level of attention to detail w.r.t. amplification, cabling, use of full range speakers that render the full bass octaves recreation (or speakers with stereo subs on all surround channel pairs) you really aren't going to get the full recreation of the event that way either assuming multi-channel is the only way to get there and the recordings give you full surround information in the mix.
Of course.
 

treitz3

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abdodson said:
<Snip> Is it possible to create a system that can do enjoyable orchestra reproduction in a small room? <Snip>

I find it absolutely funny that this cannot be possible in a small room. If only those who have responded that it is not possible have heard a great system in a small room at levels between soft and performance levels...have actually heard a great orchestral performance in a small room.

I say this not to argue. I say this not to say that you are incorrect in your assumption. I say this because I know what I know and to "not be trusted" is laughable at best. When you know, you know.

This, to me is akin to hearing your first power cord.....

You don't know what you don't know until you know what you didn't know before. I'll just leave it at that.

Tom
 
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abdodson

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I find it absolutely funny that this cannot be possible in a small room. If only those who have responded that it is not possible have heard a great system in a small room at levels between soft and performance levels...have actually heard a great orchestral performance in a small room.

I say this not to argue. I say this not to say that you are incorrect in your assumption. I say this because I know what I know and to "not be trusted" is laughable at best. When you know, you know.

This, to me is akin to hearing your first power cord.....

You don't know what you don't know until you know what you didn't know before. I'll just leave it at that.

Tom
Well, I am going to try...
 

Don C

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My system has recently developed to a place where I can begin to see the real appeal of reproduced orchestral music. Until this point, the limitations of my system had frankly left it uninteresting. But my system is barely capable of making it appealing. Is it possible to create a system that can do enjoyable orchestra reproduction in a small room?

(For those interested. My room is a thoroughly treated 10 x 13. System is: Custom server > Lampizator TRP > Bel Canto SET40i > Rosso Fiorentino Fiesole)
Absolutely not possible!

How do you get a 50 foot wide orchestra in a small room??
 

Blackmorec

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Absolutely not possible!

How do you get a 50 foot wide orchestra in a small room??
Absolutely not possible!

How do you get a 50 foot wide orchestra in a small room??
I’m sure you’re joking, but just in case you’re not......In audio, distance is portrayed through amplitude phase and time differentials. Stereo is an illusion, so all we do is to create the illusion of a 50 foot wide orchestra by playing music with the correct amplitudes, phase and time differentials. As long as room reflections aren’t doing too much damage, and the hi-fi gear is accurate, its quite straightforward these days to create the illusion of a 50 foot orchestra in a small room. The soundstage you hear isn’t real.....its created in your head when your brain interprets the amplitude and time differences contained in the stereo recording as distance and space, so the sounds coming from the 2 loudspeakers and impinging on your ears has the same differential patterns as the sounds hitting your ears from an orchestra in a concert hall. The soundstage is already in the signal coming out of the loudspeakers and is not made by the loudspeakers themselves, which are just pistonic sources of sound wave energy. The better the loudspeakers are, the more accurately they produce the musical signal that your brain uses to create the mental illusion of a sound stage. Of course loudspeakers are just transducers, so the soundstage-rich signal has to be correctly produced by the preceding chain coming from and including the source.
 
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Blackmorec

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It can also be done in two channel with YG Sonja XV speakers and a Boulder 3060, 15x20 room.
With kit like that and a really clean, accurate source you should also have no problem in creating the concert hall for it to play in.
 

Simon Moon

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Absolutely not possible!

How do you get a 50 foot wide orchestra in a small room??

A more realistic goal, is to transport the listener to the original performance, not transport the musicians to one's room.

I wouldn't even want to transport musicians to my room, even a soloist.

I would rather imagine myself at Disney Hall, then to imagine the LA Phil in my room.
 
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