Classical speakers that do violins well??

Have to chime in for VA speakers. One of the reasons for buying my Bach Grands was their reproduction of mids - strings, vocals, horns - the best in their price range IMO. Add to that amazing soundstaging and musicality with great detail for a warmish speaker.

Hi Bob, well. . . size is not everything. . . old Ludwig was physically a runt, yet. . .
The Beethoven Baby Grands have no right to sound as good as they do. If you are patient you should be able to source them for under $2K on Audiogon.

Yeah, that Stereophile Test CD is great. Every audiophile should get one and listen to it all the way through.

I love my B Babies. I paid full retail and don't regret it at all because I got great service from my dealer and they're incredible.

If you've got time to wait, save a little more and a good deal will show up on A-gon eventually. I wanted the Strausses originally but finally got the B Babies when it was apparent that I'd be in a sixth floor apartment until sometime in 2009. When I move to a larger place I may just add a REL subwoofer.

Dave

You won't be able to beat Magnepan MG1.6's for classical!

02-05-08: Audiojan said:
"You won't be able to beat Magnepan MG1.6's for classical!"

I beg to differ. ;-)

Dave

I think my soundlab m2's do quite well; driven by tubes they have a very good synergy.

Since we're talking about microphones, does anyone have a copy of the first Stereophile test CD? On it, J. Gordon Holt reads one of his articles through a series of changing mics. It's only a slight exaggeration to say that he sounds like a different person on different mics. The differences are really ear-opening

You can buy Mic and A to D converter test CD's here

Since pros know a bit about audio reproduction, researching what pros use is a viable alternative to making your own tests in a room with a microphone and a cymbal (unless you are prepared to test hundreds of consumer speakers I am not sure if this approach could be very productive - and what if a speaker does a cymbal well but many other things badly?).

There are pro audio forums such as Gearlutz where they discuss gear. Of course, they have individual differing opinions and a large number of pro speaker models are all considered acceptable (with of course a few very odd individual choices thrown in too!)...however there is often a general consensus on what sounds really good.

I ordered the mic sampler CD. That looks like a great resource. I'll review it after I've had time to play with it.

Dave

MrTennis' experiment would not work, unless it were conducted in an anechoic chamber, or with very close very directional microphones (which would not pick up all of the sound being rediated from all over an instrument). The reason is that the room acoustics would be doubled the second time around. The recording would have the instrument sound + the room acoustics' affect on that sound. When you played it back, you would have the instrument sound + the room acoustic sound on the recording + the room acoustic affect on both of those sounds.

02-08-08: Honest1 said:
"MrTennis' experiment would not work, unless it were conducted in an anechoic chamber, or with very close very directional microphones (which would not pick up all of the sound being rediated from all over an instrument). The reason is that the room acoustics would be doubled the second time around. The recording would have the instrument sound + the room acoustics' affect on that sound. When you played it back, you would have the instrument sound + the room acoustic sound on the recording + the room acoustic affect on both of those sounds."

I've re-read his post and I think that he's talking about recording an acoustic instrument live, not as played through the system. I quite often record my trumpet in my living room and then play it back through the 2-channel system to listen to my tone, articulations, resonance and presentation from the other side of the horn and there are no such issues. (BTW, my Vienna Acoustic Beethoven Baby Grands pass this test with flying colors).

I think that you may have been thinking of having an acoustic instrument play through a mic and then through the 2-channel speakers and then record that. I've never tried it, but I DO think you're right that it'd sound like mud, with the first reflections amplified at least and maybe doubled. It's interesting to think about, but I don't think that's what Mrtennis was suggesting.

Dave

No, I don't think so.

hi dcstep:

you are correct. one records an instrument in one's listening room using a microphone and any recording device, such as open reel, dat, cd recorder, etc. .

the tape or cd then is an input to the stereo system.

i would say that there would be a significant difference between the sound of the instrument and what you hear coming out of your speakers.

02-08-08: Mrtennis said:

"i would say that there would be a significant difference between the sound of the instrument and what you hear coming out of your speakers."

I think you'd be pleasantly surprised.

My living room is large and has a lot of well padded furniture and a thick carpet. When I record trumpet in the middle of the room with the mic about 3-feet away I get a very pure trumpet sound with a touch of room ring. It comes through the 2-channel system very nicely, with accurate timbre, huge dynamics and enough realism to make the dog howl.

Dave

Honest1,

You give but one example why you should leave recording to professionals and keep amateurs away.

You are completely correct that a recording using a microphone will record NOT just the acoutic instrument itself but ALSO the reverberation response due to the room. The biggest effect will be ceiling or floor (esp if floor is hardwood). Audio engineers play with microphone heights and surfaces to modify this reverb effect. Studios even buy large expensive panels for vocalists to sing next to and add interesting effects (these are called "microphone plates").

To record ONLY the instrument you would need to use an anechoic chamber...just as you describe. Only then would the playback be closest to the instrument sound - but even then......there are still other issues that are not worth going into here.

Back to speakers.

As a classical music listener and former choral singer IMO large scale classical is hard to do well on a budget, especially massed string.

I would also say that the front end, pre and amps + are also critically important to your string sound. LP is less problematic.

That said, I've been this speaker search route a couple times, been a Maggie owner, and I frankly have very few speakers I like in this price rnage that I think do justice to orchestral music and string tone - chamber or otherwise. I don't honestly care for a lot of popular speakers.

My suggestion would be to go used - more bang for the buck. Then match your amp(s) to your speakers.

I left Maggies for Alons (now Nola). My Alon Vs Mk IIIs had a lot of what I liked about my Maggies - airy, open, unboxy, coherency, imaging - plus they had some virtues the Maggies didn't - bass and dynamics, resolution, ease of placement. They also had a huge soundstage that didn't require one to sit with one's head in a vise.

So I Like Alon/Nola speakers, the designer voices them with classical music and they're probably a little hard to find used but they are huge bang for the buck. Alon Vs, Nolas...great speakers that are neutral but not colorless, and are very (VERY) slightly forgiving. The down side is you want to triwire them and get them away from the walls. If you do that, then you just point them straight ahead. No messing with toe-in.

I saw a lone voice up there suggesting Shahinians - GREAT idea. If you could find a pair of Shahinian Obelisks used they would be wonderful. Richard Shahinian designs them for classical music. 'Nuff said. They also have a very open presentation (notice a theme here?)

Along a similar line, Ohm Walsh has some speaker models that might do well for you. The have (again) a very open spacious presentation, but excellent for classical.

I personally like Audio Physic speakers better than SF or VAs. Used Virgos would be an excellent choice.

I also like the suggestion for used Vandersteen 3a Sigs - these speakers do many things well and nothing bad, like get hard in the tresble and annoy you on massed strings.

VAs are very sweet, but if you have your heart set on them I suggest you go as high up the model line as you can, especially if you listen to much symphonic music.

Yes, Shadorne understands what I meant. That the effect of the room will be doubled when you play a recording of the room in the room.
Having said that, I don't doubt that in a good large, dead, neutral room, Dave is getting surprisingly good results. If the room is contributing very little to the sound, then doubling that effect shouldn't be objectionable. He is also recording farily close to the instrument, which is pretty directional, that is, the sound comes straight out the bell, not from all over the trumpet body.
Are you using any processing (compression, eq), Dave, beyond perhaps a bit of peak limiting? I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is probably a major key to his success, compared to commercial recordings (see other recent thread on compression).
I also believe MrTennis' assessmetn that his recording of a cymbal came up way short. He picked one of the most difficult to reproduce instruments (imo, based on listening to commercial recordings). Cymbals radiate in all directions, so it would be difficult to get a recording that captures all of the cymbal's sound without picking up a lot of the room's interaction with the sound. They have a lot of complex high frequency content, and very fast transients. I don't know MrTennis system, but he has often posted that he likes dull, boring sound (I believe these were his words), so I can see why he would have trouble reproducing cymbals on his rig. Perhaps an instrument that he has geared his rig toward excelling at reproducing would have produced better results.

02-08-08: Honest1 said:
"...
Having said that, I don't doubt that in a good large, dead, neutral room, Dave is getting surprisingly good results. If the room is contributing very little to the sound, then doubling that effect shouldn't be objectionable. He is also recording farily close to the instrument, which is pretty directional, that is, the sound comes straight out the bell, not from all over the trumpet body.
Are you using any processing (compression, eq), Dave, beyond perhaps a bit of peak limiting? I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is probably a major key to his success, compared to commercial recordings (see other recent thread on compression)... "

Correct, I use no compression or processing. I'm using 1-bit DSD at 5.6MHz, so I've got 130dB of dynamic range to play with. Thus there's no need to worry about overload (a very common problem with recording trumpet and trombone). My mic is out in the middle of the fairly dead room with high ceilings, thick carpet and overstuffed chairs and couches, so the main reflection I get is from the ceiling. I'm six feet tall and my speakers stand just under forty-inches and fire the opposite way into the room than from where I record. Hence doubling resonant frequencies is just not a problem.

The problems you mention would probably be most aggravated with a bass instrument, particularly an amplified bass. If you set it up in the same end of the room as the speakers and had the cab relatively near the speakers, then on playback you'd probably hear serious doubling. OTOH, I think that most treble string instruments and soprano brass and woodwinds are not going to present much problem, except in a very reflective room.

Dave

Cymbals have a lot of room reverb effect. I agree they would be very difficult. I suggest MrTennis try the Shefield Labs Drum Track to test for realism. Why mess with making your own recordings when Doug Sax has already made a good one (without the usual compression on drums that let you know that it is not real). Note that you will need extremely high peak SPL capability in order to reproduce the dynamics on this recording. The surprise of uncompressed drums is that they do not sound louder.....they sound softer! Yes you get way more peak SPL's but the transients (from stick impact) are so brief that it does not register as loud.

"...The surprise of uncompressed drums is that they do not sound louder.....they sound softer!"

I find this to be true of symphonic music as well. I never find myself wishing the music were louder, even though you can usually hear any shuffling around or other quiet sounds by people near you. The transient peaks of instruments (I'm particularly thinking pizzicato violins, as well as percussion)is loud enough to catch your attention and be exciting. To get this same excitement at home out of a compressed recording, you have to turn the volume of the rest of the music up more than is natural.

you can't use a recording without a reference, if you want to assess the "accuracy" of a stereo system.

i still maintain that the difference between real and recording would be obvious to an experienced listener.

dave, would you be up for a wager ?

if you lived near by, i would identify the source, namely either your trumept playing or a recording of your trumpet played through your stereo system.

i would bet $100 that i could tell the difference.
i have two advantages, namely the dispersion pattern of the trumpet, vs the dispersion of the sound emanating from the speakers and the difference in spl, between the recording and your playing the trumpet.

i still maintain that one would want to find a speaker which minimizes errors in reproducing timbre. regardless of the instrument, certain driver technologies are more likely to be effective in this regard. cones are not the answer. i would look for a ;light and fast driver, such as a ribbon and electrostat. in fact, i am looking for a speaker myself.
i started my search yesterday with an audition of the analysis audio omega. i do not plan to audition cone designs, but may consider a hybrid, namely the piega tc 70x, which has a ribbon mid and tweeter and 2 8 inch drivers. the cones are crossed over at 200 hz.
i am a little concerned about coherence, but i am willing to listen, noetheless.

I never said that you couldn't detect the difference between a live instrument and a recorded instrument. I'd get that right 100% of the time in most rooms. The room cues are just too numerous. However, speakers can easily get the timbre right and you don't need an A-B comparison to judge that. I think this is where we started, talking about timbre and not room acoustics:

02-04-08: Mrtennis said:
"in order to do a definitive test of a speaker's ability to reproduce timbre accurately, it is necessary to record an instrument in one's living room and compare the recording to a musician's presentation of the same music."

Maybe it's because I'm a musician, but my aural memory is sufficient to know a clarinet when I hear it. The timbre is intact in my room, even if the clarinet was recorded in an isolation booth.

Of course my musician's perspective may be distorted from the average audiophile's perspective. I'll grant that. I've heard live clarinet literally thousands of times, up close and far away, through mics and acoustic, with soft reeds and hard reeds, etc., etc. I suppose that many audiophiles haven't really heard live clarinet, or only from the orchestra seats a few hundred times, or less. That's a lot of difference in exposure.

That's just thinking about clarinet. On trumpet I've heard world class players from 3-feet and 300-feet, playing every possible combination of trumpet type. Excluding hearing myself, I've heard live trumpet ten of thousands of times.

Somewhere up the thread I think I suggested to ask a musician over to listen for timbre. I still think that's a realistic option and much easier than your proposed test. Given the difficulty of recording an acoustic instrument in a space where we also have a system set up, it's just an impractical test of a system.

Still, this is an interesting discussion and I appreciate your view.

Dave

as much as a musician has exposure to an instrument, either playing it or listening to another musician playing, aural memory is the issue. it is not reliable.

so, you need a reference. a memory is not a reference. it is a collection of experiences stored in the brain.
i would not rely on someone's memory as to what an instrument sounds like. i would prefer to hear the instrument.

if the instrument is not available, preference and opinion takes over.

Well, I disagree. I've heard no evidence that my aural memory is not reliable.

Based on your premise, almost no one could judge the accuracy of their system.

Comparing non-musician's aural memory to mine is like a casual driver comparing his driving skills to a regional champion racer. I'm constantly listening and adjusting to sounds, timbre and pitch. I only do it a few hours per day, so that's nothing compared to a pro that puts in 8+ hours per day on his or her instrument.

Still, practice, repetition and performance hone skills that most people never develop. Even if you father is Michael Jordan, you'll never be a great basketball player without hours and hours of practice, week after week, month after month.

Listening to music enough CAN get a non-musician to a high level at judging a system's timbral accuracy.

We all need a reference and I agree that starting with a live acoustic instrument is one of the best ways to start, but at some point you learn enough that you don't need the instrument present to "know" the reference.

Dave

...and all I did was ask for a few speaker recommendations!

-Bob (OP)

Yes, well, your thread got hijacked!

Good luck - do lots of auditinoing.

A used active speaker probably is the best solution with as big woofer as you could buy.

...and all I did was ask for a few speaker recommendations!

-Bob (OP)

Faithful reproduction => go active speakers like Ajahu suggests - preferably a pro studio model.

OP here, with just another word of thanks.

In traveling over the weekend I had a chance to audition a few of your suggestions: The Vienna Mozart Grands and Focal Chorus 826V and 806V. Setup was not ideal (Magnolia and a Tweeeter affiliate, respectively), but I was quite impressed by all of them. They seemed to have good potential for performing well in a more carefully set-up environment. In terms of string timbre, I think I preferred the Focals just a bit, but it was close.

Unfortunately, word has come from my accountant that Uncle Sam will take up much of what I was planning to spend! So I may have to wait a while. In the meantime, my current speakers will serve well.

In fact, I didn't feel any of the speakers I auditioned were worlds better than my modest NHT SuperTwos. Scoff if you will, but these speakers perform quite well on the music I enjoy. I have been unable to unseat them from my listening room with the likes of Maggie 2.6/Rs, Spendor 3/1Ps, and a few B&W Matrix models. Each of these had their advantages, but from top to bottom, none pleased me quite as well as the NHTs. While I think the Viennas or Focals would probably outperform them in my listening room, I was reassured that the difference is probably not night and day. What I'm hoping for is a bit smoother rendition of highs (i.e., violins) and a bit better definition in the bass region.

Again, thanks so much for all your suggestions, and I wish I were in a position to audition more of your recommendations.
-Bob

Way to go. Get some leads and then listen for yourself, that's the way it's done.

Dave

Like the Martin Logan CLS. With the right room, equipment and so on, it's in my opinion one of the best Jazz & Classical speakers you can get. The bass is light by most standards but people are use to a lot of bass. Face it an acoustic bass will NOT shake the room. The CLS has bass you can hear but do not feel, it's hard to explain but it don't pressurize the room like my other speakers do.

The CLS can be bright in the wrong room with the wrong equipment. Also they are very hard to drive correctly. You need a large tube amp or a solid state amp that is stable into 2ohms.

The CLS can be had for under $1000 to about $2500 depending on what series, I II or IIz. I have the CLS IIZ Limited Edition.

Just my opinion.

hi krellm7:

if you like the iiz, you will like their newest speaker, the clx, arriving in august, to sell between $7000 and $9000. it will be more dynamic and play deeper than your speaker. call the company to get some information.

Yea I have been waiting to hear them. They sure went up in price! The original CLS was about $2000 or $3000 a pair back in the day, My Limited Edition ones were $6000. but hey ML need to make money too right? Hopefully they sound as good as they say.

To be honest, my CLS are sitting in a spare bedroom with covers over them. I use the B&W Matrix 800's as my main speakers right now, but i love to pull out the CLS every once in a while. However when I move i think I will keep the CLS, they are much smaller than the 800's & lets face it, what speaker in the world looks that cool?