Musicians?

I play violin in a semi-professional orchestra. My axe is a 1927 Luigi Mozzani. I've never heard a music reproduction system capable of producing the actual timbre, depth, power and lush sound of a violin. Or, even close, for that matter. I suspect this has more to do with the recording quality than the reproduction system. For example, most high-end systems have no problem whatsoever reproducing extremely realistic acoustic guitar. My comment is from the perspective of the instrument under my ear, not positioned in the audience. Classical music seems to be the only genre that bears little resemblance to the actual sound of the instruments. Rock, jazz blues and vocals seem effortlessly convincing. I've been addicted to this hobby for 35 years and have attended RMAF every year since it began so my experience is extensive.

With the exception of a Loricraft PR-3 my current system is posted here.

My 2 channel goal is to be a part of the performance. What I refer to as “in the music”. I want to experience the event as if I’m on stage. Ah, where is that grail?

Most well known professional Musicians have crap stereos or just so so equipment.

Thanks for the responses (except for more obvious useless threadcrap from schipo).

I'm actually kind of surprised at the popularity of ribbons and electrostatics so far. There are certainly a good variety of excellent systems. I'm getting a dangerous urge to try some tubes and vinyl in my setup :).

Rballdude, I'm guessing if it were more common to mic individual instruments in an orchestra, you may be able to get what you're after. Do you find violin solo or concerto recordings lacking as well?

Hopefully more will chime in. Keep 'em coming.

Eric - have you ever heard a horn system do percussion - stunning realism - percussion on my Klipsch Cornwall's sound better than on any other speaker I have yet heard, except for even bigger horns. At least a couple of percussionists I know would agree.

Nnyc, as for your latest question, in my experience the digital recording of large ensembles where there are many more microphones (even sometimes one on every instrument, believe it or not) are usually terrible sounding. I would agree with Rballdude that this is normally the fault of the recording itself, not the system playing it back. As I have said here before, if I had a dollar for every audiophile who has heard a bad recording job but thinks that something must be wrong with his system.....

IMO the best, as far as most realistic sounding, orchestral recordings were made back in the 50's and 60's when they just stuck a couple of mikes out in the hall (or perhaps far above the orchestra as Mercury was fond of), and there was as little mixing as possible. Part of the reason for this is because then you get a much better sense of the original recording space, and it's ambient noise, and of how the music filled it. More mikes are not usually better, they usually greatly diminish this sense of space, which is very important to the realism.

I have yet to find a system (that I can afford) that reproduces drums with the visceral impact of the real thing

That is quite normal with consumer speakers. You really need to look into pro main monitors. The kind of speakers you see built into walls in this site AAA Group Ltd.. And as Learsfool mentions - you'll see horns as well as other designs but you'll most often see at least one if not two 15" woofers per channel. If you look at the client list you will see some familiar names.

These systems do not simply play louder - they are able to convey the dynamics of real instruments - something most systems cannot do.