The Problem of reproducing large scale Orchestral music
- Thread starter wil
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Agreed. Garcia could fill a theater with sound and use the acoustics of the theater. So could the Dead in large hockey rinks in the late 1980s. I would love to be able to reproduce that fullness and sense of space. Some sort of delay and rear field speakers would likely be needed.
But I have come pretty close with an unlikely combo. Harbeth 40.3 XDs driven by an Accuphase E-800 (soon to be swapped out for an Accuphase C2900/A-80/DH-68 combo) with a pair of Rythmik E15HP2 subs streaming from an Esoteric N-01XD. Room is 14’x28’x8’. Very full, load and non-fatiguing. Had been running a McIntosh C2700, Mc3500 MkII, Focal Scalia combo before and it just didn’t do live JGB justice, although on paper you would think it should have been perfect.
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Yep, you would think the McIntosh gear would be great for JGB. Nestorovic was the key engineer on the Mc3500, so I tried pairing Nestorovic speakers (I own three pair )with an excellent condition ‘67 Mc240. I had the pleasure of speaking with Mile Nestorovic on a couple lengthy phone calls (the man was an audio genius!) but I couldn’t understand most of what he was teaching me, due to his very thick Eastern European accent.
Much thanks for telling me your current setup, which does JGB justice!
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I recall one tour, in the late 80’s, when Healy used delayed rear field speakers at inside venues. He could not get the timing right and, IIRC, never tried again. Dan was using them for weirdness (only certain sounds) in a surround mode. I specifically recall them at my beloved Hampton Coliseum. I had the grate pleasure of seeing 16 of the 18 (missed the two in ‘85) GD Hampton Coliseum shows in the 80’s. The last was the best and my GD Hampton experience ended perfectly with Attics of My Life!
I agree it is an excellent series. One of the things I lost going all analog.
I discovered Dimitri Kitajenko (Kitayenko Kitaenko?) from The Moscow Sessions. This was Sheffield Labs and Amercian conductor Lawrence Leighton Smith trip to record with The Moscow Philharmonic direct to disk. Issued as a 3 LP box set in 1987 (TLP-1000). Roughly half the performances were conducted by Kitayenko (American composers) and half by Smith (Russian composers). It was heralded as a Summit by the Moscow press and represented a kind of musical detente in the Cold War -- the first time an American company recorded in Moscow, perhaps all of Russia. Kitayenko's conducting of Copland's 'Appalachian Spring Suite' may be the best I've heard. Leighton-Smith's Shostakovich 'Festive Overture' is a real plate spinner. There is a CD set purportedly with different mastering.
This is a very interesting effect;
In my case, connecting a pair of Murata supertweeters to the main system brought about better (perceived) clarity in the bass!
IMO, large scale orchestral recordings are not an ideal reference for assessing a stereo system. Beyond the points mentioned above, most orchestral recordings are rather compressed during peaks (on purpose by the engineer) compared to a small scale ensemble where you can find recordings with more realistic dyanmic range compared to the real thing. Another point is that there is no system on earth that can accurately reproduce music of this scale...so it will sound inherently unrealistic when reproduced at home. You might get tonality and resolution right but scale and dynamics (assuming the recording isn't badly hampered) will be far from the real thing.There is an excellent thread from 2020 on Audiogon (link below) delving into the difficulty massed violins present to the recording process, to audio systems and to audiophile ears. The thread is populated by several professional violinists and is notably devoid of ego-flexing. Highly recommend!
Beyond massed violins, the discussion also applies to choral, opera, energetic brass bands ... you get the idea.
A good rendition of large scale orchestra or opera, in the complex cacophony of loud and higher frequency passages, is, in my opinion, the holy grail buried in snow at the summit of Mt. Audio. My experience, beyond my listening room, is that live venues can also suffer from the same difficulties.
The challenge can come from a complex of sources:
-- multiple violins, all with slightly different sound signatures conjoining to produce a complex of harmonics that is difficult for mics and the ears to resolve.
-- poor recording technique - multi-mics poorly positioned for best violin sound
-- frequency ranges that present reproduction stress to speakers at their crossovers between mid and tweeter
-- Room issues
My personal experience is that this is only a problem in particularly high volume, high frequency strident passages (that if heard live would peak over 100db). More "reasonable" massed strings sound silky smooth. I've also found that some male Tenors sometimes have a particular glare. I wonder if that could be a crossover issue. Or is it just because their powerful voices overwhelm the poor microphones? And choral music at higher octaves and volumes is maybe the most difficult of all. I also think some people's hearing can be particularly sensitive to high frequencies at high volume.
I've been thinking about this more lately as I've been on a deep dive into Mahler's symphonies. And, Gustav, despite giving us hours of sublime beauty, loves to let loose with some rare but sadistic passages of high octave strings, winds (particularly flutes and piccolos) and horns all crescendoing together at ecstatic SPL's.
Interested to hear other's experiences and ideas
Audiogon Discussion Forum
why do massed violins have this sort of gritty sandpapery reverberation in classical orchestral recordings?even in some sections of a piece, when the vi...forum.audiogon.com
I’m listening to the DGG Nelsons Boston. I believe they are all live recordings.
I can not disagree with you re using orchestral recordings as an 'ideal' reference for assessment BUT that is what I listen to ~ 95% of the time so it is the most useful reference for myself.
agree that large orchestral are not the only recordings that one uses for set-up and judging system performance, but they are an essential tool none the less. proof of concept broadly in a general sense. but if you do listen to lots of large orchestral all the time, how it does will either encourage you to continue, or slow that down too, depending. i also found along my room tuning pathway that getting the soundstage right large scale orchestral was very useful......even though many recordings are somewhat constructs. you are still trying to optimize each recording. not just for one singularly; but many as a group don't lie.
finer tuning points, such as how i figured whether my room window's would be filled in with inserts, or uncovered, and whether the inserts had cloth surface treatments or not, required large scale recordings with lots of details to be able to assess clearly. were the musical threads complete and cohesive, or loose and unorganized? was the soundstage continuous side to side or did it have similar holes/gaps from one recording to the next? if that realism was in the recording, i want to hear it. and success with this paid unexpected subtle dividends on all music. sure this kind of stuff is deep into the weeds and nothing i came to early in the process. it was in the final stretch of things after i had made lots of progress on larger issues clouding the picture. the clouds lift and you are presented with opportunities.
you don't know, what you don't know, until you try stuff. and sometimes another issue is covering some other issue.
i do use smaller scale classical music more so, and also big band is useful since more likely simply mic'd. my last summer's project of cleaning and sorting 1800 classical pressings had many of early music pressings very simply recorded smaller combo and choral works mixed into the large orchestral. ideally the system can navigate them all. if it is right for the small stuff, but the larger stuff is not quite right, that is not acceptable. maybe the tone and realism on some recordings is working, but things fall apart when it's going hard and thick, then there is work to do......even if your musical tastes don't focus on it.
there is a time to get the details right, and a time to sit back and let the music flow connect. both should be working. they compliment each other.
longer term system development needs to include acoustically recorded large orchestral as part of the picture. or other large scale acoustically recorded music you like of some sort.
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While you need to use small scale too, the fact that you are saying large scale is not ideal and is not possible to be reproduced is not correct - you need a system and recordings that can play both, and it is quite possible. The fact that your system cannot and you have not been able to hear such systems because you do not have the right audition music to do so is a different point. Good systems can play everything from solo to chamber to concertos to large orchestra.
I see your point and you are correct, large symphonic recordings are usually manipulated for stereo reproduction. But even so it is is important to listen to how systems react to such "tricks" - they can sound subjectively realistic, although surely not physically.
IMO we can get large scale at home - let us say the feeling of a soundstage with width larger than 15 meters with a 50 square meters room.
Surely realism is a subjective term where each of us can have a different opinion.
Using large scale orchestral music to demo would be sticky. Getting an orchestra to sound correct takes exacting setup. So, one is really auditioning the setup skill of the owner of the system. This is true of other genre's too but there is so much going on in an orchestra.
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