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The Problem of reproducing large scale Orchestral music
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Among the many mysteries of the hobby is that full and weighty foundational bass has the appearance of affecting the entire frequency spectrum. At SWAF I noticed that I preferred the full four tower YG XV to single column YGs, and I preferred the MBL 101 X-Treme Mk. II* to the 101E Mk. II, mainly because I preferred the lower center of gravity I heard with the flagships, which, to my ears, made more natural the upper midrange and treble.
* I conducted my first long-form interview with Jeremy Bryan. Release forthcoming.
Hmmm. The rooms + systems in my top tier, including, of course, Mike's system, do a pretty darn good job on scale and dynamics, accounting for the fact that the listening rooms are a small fraction of the size of Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Ron, properly integrated high-quality subwoofers can help speakers of more moderate size understand the weight and add the foundation you reference that many systems are missing. I, too, heard the big YG setup and could listen into their potential on that accord despite a very tough room. Mike's system, including his four x two 15" subwoofer towers, certainly can!
Looking forward to having time to experiment with a few Shockwave subwoofers at Chez Resnick!
Totally! Listen to the opener of 4/8/85, at the Spectrum - Midnight Hour -> Big Boss Man -> Walking the Dog. Healy (such a nice guy!) was really playing with delay/echo/reverb at that show. The vocals and Jerry’s guitar were moving all over the place! It sounded so full. A great example of how the arrangement could be played as an extra element. Sometimes when he got it right it was amazing.
Absolutely! Dan could work wonders in the venues he knew like the back of his hand! The Spectrum is an excellent example. Unfortunately, I missed Spring ‘85 tour and the show you referenced may have been the best one.
If you know the boy’s history, as well as we do, then you realize no other band ever did as much to advance live sound. It’s not even close! Many of the greatest audio minds from ‘65-‘95 were involved in the amazing advancements. Very few people know and appreciate the cost of The Wall of Sound compared to Jerry’s compensation in the 70’s. Garcia was a true hippie!
Yes, far from the real thing. But there is no expectation for 'the real thing'. Reproduction is not recreation.
Evaluating a stereo system using large scale orchestral music is done in the context of recognizing what is being evaluated, namely a stereo system. Scale becomes relative to that. Of course other music should be used. But nothing else includes the accumulation of challenges for reproduction presented by large scale acoustic orchestral music. Ideal or not.
I disagree based primarily on two things:
1) Nearly all the classical recordings I have heard are compromised in terms of dynamics and what could be captured on the recording. I have one exception to this, which is a recording made with a single stereo ribbon microphone with minimal compression (only a couple of dB) and no eq. No commercial recordings are made this way. Do these recordings have wider dynamic ranges than a lot of studio pop or jazz? Yes, but you can also clearly hear when the compression is applied and how many of them get congested on the peaks.
2) Even very large panels and horns cannot really capture the dynamics of a real orchestra, this is assuming the recording even allows for this. So, in effect you will mostly get a poor facsimile one way or the other.
Does that mean I don't use any large scale classical music for evaluation? No, I am not saying that. The one recording I mentioned above is a good example of one that I do use because I know the providence and how it was produced and that it is probably the least compressed recording i know of. It is also recorded in a position that would be a normal seating position (mid-front hall center). In fact I heard a live performance of the piece recorded (Prokofiev Romeo & Juliet) in Tonhalle Zurich, sitting in row 10, which was a similar distance from the stage as the recording was made (about 6 meters). It was pretty uncanny how similar it sounded even though the orchestra and hall were different. It told me that this recording is probably one of the very few that is pretty true to a real live performance type sound.
Nearly all the systems I have tried this recording on cannot do it well at live concert levels. My own system does it well up to a point and then can't get the rest of the way to live levels convincingly.
I tend, therefore, to focus on getting smaller ensembles, and things like solo piano, correct as they are already challenging enough for a system to do quasi-realistically. My system can reproduce a really good piano recording at live levels with spooky accuracy. That tells me that it is fundamentally doing the right things even if it is ultimately limited at the extremes of dynamics.
My own recordings of solo violin are particularly telling. They were played on a Stradivarius by my ex and captured on a single condenser microphone on a TEAC R2R that had been refurbished. The dynamics of the instrument are so extreme that it was difficult to capture the full dynamic range of that single instrument within the dynamic bandwidth of the tape without using a compressor. You can hear that dynamic punch on the playback even though the room acoustics made the sound very dry. So, while not a beautiful recording, it captures the full dynamic range of the tape it is recorded on. It is a surprisingly challenging test recordings I have.
The recordings themselves don't allow for it...let alone the systems.
I can share some personal experience from recording massed strings.
1. Recording strings is actually not that difficult. It is really about three things: mic placement, mic quality, and using hirez formats.
2. At the live to two track or Chesky sessions we did, the tone of violins is not well captured at 16/44 but at 24/88 or higher it’s quite good. DSD is the best based on my own sessions comparing 24/192 or 24/176 versus DSD on a split mic feed at a live event.
3. Simple mic placement seems to my ears anyway to work best. For large scale, three mics setup like the Mercury Living Presence is hard to beat. Smaller ensembles are best done in ORTF tree about 6-8 feet in the air and 7-8 feet in front of the performers.
4. AEA ribbon microphones and AKG C24 and 414 BULS mics work very well. Neumann are okay and Shure are terrible ime. Earthworks and other omnis are overrated imho.
5. Most ADCs are good now at capturing strings. The mixing boards vary widely in quality though and can have an impact. Never and SSL are excellent.
If you have good conditions for 1-5, the playback of strings should be natural.
1. Recording strings is actually not that difficult. It is really about three things: mic placement, mic quality, and using hirez formats.
2. At the live to two track or Chesky sessions we did, the tone of violins is not well captured at 16/44 but at 24/88 or higher it’s quite good. DSD is the best based on my own sessions comparing 24/192 or 24/176 versus DSD on a split mic feed at a live event.
3. Simple mic placement seems to my ears anyway to work best. For large scale, three mics setup like the Mercury Living Presence is hard to beat. Smaller ensembles are best done in ORTF tree about 6-8 feet in the air and 7-8 feet in front of the performers.
4. AEA ribbon microphones and AKG C24 and 414 BULS mics work very well. Neumann are okay and Shure are terrible ime. Earthworks and other omnis are overrated imho.
5. Most ADCs are good now at capturing strings. The mixing boards vary widely in quality though and can have an impact. Never and SSL are excellent.
If you have good conditions for 1-5, the playback of strings should be natural.
Listening to Shostakovich 9, Nelson’s/Boston, I’m thinking my setup is perhaps further along than I‘ve been thinking. The bass sounds tuneful and complete with plenty of whallop. It’s an excellent recording.
No doubt it can get better. I did follow JR’s advice to move two of my RPG Diffractal Quadradic Diffusers (worth every $ just for the name) from first reflection to behind the listening position and I like it so far.
Great music! One of my primary music memories involves Shostakovich, but has nothing to do with HiFi or SQ: driving too fast through the dark backwoods of West Virginia with a cassette of late quartets. The shifting engine was like a fifth member, but it was as gripping a music experience as I’ve ever had.
I remain amazed what LF information contains and how subs further define the spatial characteristics in quality playback.
I can gauge relative dynamics pppp to ffff, a change from p to f, and dynamic range, even though not at concert hall volume.
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