Sat front row at the symphony...

Good for you! The level of musicianship possessed by today’s conservatory (college) age musicians is fantastic. Gets better with each generation due to better and better training. Attending performances at local conservatories is one of the sleeper sources of good live music. Of course, not on the same level as the great artists, but definitely worthwhile. Moreover, budding artists need to perform in front of live audiences, so it is a big help to them.

We like to go to our local music conservatory for recitals and performances. Always a thousand times better than the best recordings on my pretty damn good system. I especially like string quartets. The way they communicate with their glances during specific dramatic passages makes the music and their players even more captivating. The best part is that it's almost always free and you support future musicians. 

**** Your analogy of pointillistic artists actually makes my case, haha. ****

Not at all. Well, not in my world and that of just about every musician I know. Detail that by your own admission “does not make much sense” is meaningless and irrelevant as concerns what matters most, the music.

We are further apart than I even thought. While we are both musicians we live in different music worlds, in every sense of the term. No point (pun intended 😊) in addressing all that you just wrote, but I will address only one more of your comments and one which I think explains a lot:

**** Your job as a pro is to please most of your paying customers, the audience, who mostly sit far away. ****

Wrong! When playing in an orchestra, my job as a musician is to honor the music; IOW, “please” the composer by way of the conductor’s direction (sorry, audience).

Anyway, while I don’t have a problem with your wish to be “right” about this it’s probably best to end this dialogue as it is feeling like a competition of sorts. Your “haha” seems very telling.

I have enjoyed our dialogue, but prefer to move on. Regards.

frogman,

Your analogy of pointillistic artists actually makes my case, haha.  The semi-random points provide lots of detail at close viewing, but they don't make much sense until you move away and then can see what the real picture is.  The distant blend is the real message, but the details are lost, assuming you have normal visual acuity of 20/20 or so.  (But I have met some teenagers who have fantastic acuity of 20/10, so at 10 feet away where the normal vision people see only the whole, the teenager still sees the details of the small points, and he might need to move 20 feet away to appreciate the real message).  

My point is that the pointillistic artistic message is the blend, but it is not a detailed message.  We all enjoy the message, but it is a mistake to consider it as a DETAIL missing from the close viewing.  It's just a different message, not a detailed message.  I enjoy blends in other sensory forms, such as the unique ice cream blends you can create at Thomas Sweet in Princeton, NJ.  My favorite blend that I choose is sweet cream ice cream with malt balls and Reece's peanut butter cups, fully blended to fine particles in their machine.  They do it better than any other place.  It's an enjoyable blend, but the enjoyment doesn't derive from appreciation of details.  In contrast, a gourmet assortment of separate dishes of various meats, vegetables is best enjoyed tasting each item individually where all the details can be perceived.  Chinese dimsum is such an assortment of 10-20 small savory items, each enjoyed as a single entity.  It would be foolish to dump all the dimsum items together in a blended soup.  Yes, you might create an interesting hodge-podge blended taste, but it is smarter to enjoy the details of each item separately.

I love to hear some atmospheric distant orchestra recordings, such as in the Tchaikovsky Suite #3 in the 1973 EMI recording with Adrian Boult and the London Phllharmonic.  In one of the variations, the oboe shines above the soft entire string section.  (Or is it the English horn?  If the details were better captured with closer miking, I would have less doubt).  The recorded ambience is gorgeous.  This is a beautiful blend, but nothing thrills me more than to play in the orchestra close to many of the instruments.  I revel in the fine tone colors of different winds.  But from far away, the ambience, although beautiful, causes tonal smearing so that most of the delicate tone colors are markedly lost.

Your job as a pro is to please most of your paying customers, the audience, who mostly sit far away.  That's why you seek advice from your colleagues about how your instrument sounds 30-150 feet away.  The mass audience wants the blend, but they don't realize how much beauty there is in the details only heard close.

I haven't had much opportunity to enjoy a band of the sax family.  I might enjoy a performance from a distance, but I wouldn't learn as much than if I heard them close where the subtle differences in tonality would be better heard.  For a relatively quiet instrument like the violin, I need to be much closer to hear more of the differences between violins.  I could appreciate that for the much larger winds with more bass content, it would be important to sit further away to fully allow the blend to develop.  Let's say that the optimum distance might be 30 feet to get the ideal combination of detail and blend.  Moving to 60 feet would get more blend but sacrifice fine detail of tonal nuance.

Have you been to Preservation Hall in New Orleans?  I was there in 2005, a few months before Hurricane Katrina.  Before going, I had visions of some big concert hall, but I laughed when I saw that it was the inside of a cave with walls of rocks.  Only 3 benches for about 20 listeners.  The hard surfaces of the rocks gave a bright, brilliant exciting sound to the brass jazz band and piano.  30 min of excitement for only $6.  Now it is about $40, still a great value.  Who needs large big name concert halls where most listeners pay big money to musically worship in these hyped temples for laid back, boring sound?  In NY, for sonic thrills I enjoy the subway for 1-2 min of close encounters with good platform musicians before the noisy trains arrive.  

Ive found some music halls in New Orleans that me and my wife and perhaps I'll  bring my mother.  I kinda doubt the shows are as thrilling as what's up north but for our first time I believe it will be nice. I think my wife will be impressed, a great Mother's Day present. 

@frogman ....+1..... the " playing " of the instruments, through the conductor's direction, is why I attend performances. I listen for the playing, through my rig, as well. My best. MrD

viber6, you like the up close perspective. That is fine, more than fine, and I am not trying to convince you otherwise. Clearly we will not agree on this point. More specifically, on which approach serves the music best. “Chacun à son goût”!  In my opinion the music, as intended by the composer, gets priority. I will close with a few final comments to address yours:

To be clear, my example of bass clarinet/cello blend is but one example of many and of all that is going on in a large scale orchestral composition. That blend IS the detail, the new compositional detail. If we are to give composition theory as used by the great composers any credence it is really not a debatable point. This orchestration technique is far more than an “interesting synthesis” and is crucial to the composition. It is precisely what the composer wants to be heard. Not the individual instruments, but the blend. This serves the composition best. Soloistic passages by individual instruments obviously do get their turn. Perhaps this analogy will help to make the point:

I am sure you are familiar with the work of the French-pointillist artists. Stand very close to a painting by Georges Seurat and one sees a tremendous amount of the detail that is all the individual and different color paint dots (not strokes) that were his signature technique. However, the images, which are the “message”:of the painting are indistinct. Then, stand back some distance and it all comes together and reveals images full of beautiful colors and textures that his work is known for. This is akin to what we are discussing here.

I have witnessed and/or participated in countless examples of an orchestral musician (myself included) “auditioning” a new instrument, or instrumental accessory. To do so in a familiar hall as opposed to one’s home is crucial. It is a very common practice to do so on stage before rehearsals or during breaks from rehearsal and a colleague or two are recruited to assist in listening and offering opinions on what they hear. Without exception the listening assistant goes out into the house to listen. Never standing close to the player and his/her new piece of gear. Reason is that what is heard from a distance is what matters most. Acoustic sounds need a certain amount of travel distance to fully develop. Often, an instrument that may sound robust or brilliant up close simply doesn’t project that sound well. Conversely, an instrument that may sound compact up close can have tremendous projection. One of those interesting mysteries of sound production. Of course, as you know, how the instrument feels to the player has to be factored in when making a determination.

Anyway, good to discuss these points with you (and others) and regards.

A mathematical definition of detail is the sum total of information at all freq.  Musically speaking, it is perception of the note fundamental with all the added harmonics, or multiples of the fundamental freq.  Since further distance has the main effect of reducing the higher freq from absorption and reverberation smearing, there is less total harmonic info, esp at higher freq.  

The one effect you validly mention is the gelling effect of the bass clarinet and cello to make a blended tone color.  While this is an interesting synthesis of the individual clarinet and cello tones to make a new blended tone, it is debatable whether we can call that "new" detail.  Suppose you have complete blending so you hear the mixture as a new color, but you can't separate the two different instruments.  You gain the blend, but lose the information as what the two components are.  Example--Grieg and other Scandinavian composers create unique tone colors from certain instrument combinations, but it bothers me if I am listening to a low resolution audio system or distant live sound and I cannot identify the individual instruments that make up the blended tone.  Wine analogy--I am not a connoisseur, so while I might enjoy the overall taste, I cannot perceive or I have never had the training to appreciate the many individual tastes.  If I got a wine tasting education, I would enjoy more aspects of the wine than I am presently able to.  So the wine connoisseur perceives more details of the individual flavors, and is analogous to the front row listener.  My taste perceptions are analogous to the distant listener, only able to perceive the blend.  

Good musicians can blend well enough so that even up close, the perception is a good blend.  Further away, there is more blend, but at a severe price of much less individual detail.  This effect mainly concerns HF detail, since HF are quantitatively lost much more at distance than lower freq detail.  Since you play midrange and lower freq dominated instruments, I see why you are less concerned with HF detail than I.  I don't ignore low freq and midrange detail, either.  The fact is that all instruments have significant wideband freq energy.  The string bass has a uniquely wide freq range from deep bass to the HF from bow scraping and strong plucking of the string when it slaps the fingerboard.  I get much more of the total wide freq range string bass sound (more detail) by listening close vs further away.

At Tarisio/Sotheby/Christie auctions, I have listened to good violinists comparing different violins.  Even from 5 feet away, there may not be much difference that I hear.  But then I compare these violins under my ear when I play them.  The differences are magnified by orders of magnitude.  I hear shortcomings under my ear that I totally missed from only a few feet away.  That's due to the tremendous increase in detail up very close.  However, close listening doesn't just reveal more flaws.  It can reveal more power and beauty.  In a string quartet, I once played with another violinist who had a Nicolo Gagliano.  I liked what I heard in her playing.  When she let me try her instrument, I was shocked and bowled over by its power and multicolored beauty under my ear.  More details PLUS more beauty.

viber6, you have to define “detail”.  This has been pointed out previously.  Sure, one hear a certain type of “detail” up close.  We can debate the importance of some of that up close detail.  To a great extent it becomes a personal preference based on a variety of things; not the least of which is how one listens to music and even how each of our individual hearing apparatus hears.  However, and importantly, one also loses important musical detail up close that can only be heard from a reasonable distance.  

It is telling to come back to the original poster who started this thread, mikeydee.  From the front row of Heinz Hall, he still was mesmerized by the acoustics and dynamics.  So the front row offered so much, not just the details of the front violin section and piano.  The raw excitement of the 1st row is unmatched further back.

If there are extraneous noises, I easily ignore them, just as I ignore the HF hiss on Odyssey reissues of Columbia (now Sony) records.  Part of the HF hiss is due to the EQ which boosts HF content of all the info on the recording.  Yes, this is often overdone and unnatural, but intelligent EQ brings out much more detail which is worth a little sacrifice of the original blend.  Musicians also make valid emphases of various details.  An example is a voicing a piano chord where boosting an upper note of a triad brings out more brilliance.  A piano such as Steinway generally has more crispness than a Baldwin, Bosendorfer or Yamaha.  They are all natural pianos, and individual pianists prefer one over the other.  Vladimir Horowitz tweaked his own Steinway piano for brilliance, and he actually went through the hassle of moving his piano from his apartment in NY to the concert hall for every concert.

It is not true that there is the same detail revealed at further distance vs close.  The laws of physics are against this claim.  Increased HF absorption with distance, more reverberation with distance, causing tonal smearing and loss of clarity.  Someone may like the distant sound, but facts are facts.

Interesting points about the Sibelius violin concerto.  The opening minute or two is very soft and dreamy for the orchestra, with the soloist a little louder so it is still dominant.  Orchestra and soloist are playing together in the appropriate balance.  Even later when playing together louder, the soloist is spotlighted over the generally softer fabric of the orchestra.  The popular violin concertos of Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky show more of the protagonist duels between the loud orchestra and the silent violin, and the soloist dominating over the very soft orchestra.  Thus, the popular concertos are more showoff pieces for the soloist, while the Sibelius has better balance.

Even for the soft, atmospheric opening of the Sibelius, while the balcony offers the ultimate in balance, its markedly reduced HF content vs close seats reduces the actual atmospheric and spatial appreciation.  Audiophiles call this "air".  In your home audio, you can try adding super tweeters to your main speaker to demonstrate and enjoy this.  I use the Enigmacoustics Sopranino in parallel with my main Audiostatic 240 speaker.  Another method which I find essential is careful HF boost with my Rane ME60 EQ, which I use in place of a preamp.  Boost the extreme HF only, so the midrange tonality is little affected.  This is particularly valuable with recordings done with a distant perspective, which I transform into a closer perspective.  What do I gain and lose by doing this?  Truthfully, the midrange tonality IS affected, but in a positive way by revealing the upper midrange/HF bite of the cello, trumpet, etc.  The purist will say that I am distorting the natural tonality.  But I regard the muddy veiling of distant sounds as the equivalent of the natural bland taste of aging fruit.  Everyone has tasted the more intense flavor of fresh corn vs bland weeks old corn.  It takes judicious practice to gain the benefits of revealing the full freq detail of any natural instrument while minimizing the changes in midrange tonality.  I consider my methods taking 10 steps forward and 1 step backward.

For learning the benefits of close seating without spending much money, find concerts with good music students, such as youth orchestras or semi-pro events.  Get a ticket on the main floor.  Start in row 15-20, the approximate equivalent in freq balance to the front balcony.  For the next piece, move to row 10, then row 5, etc.  For most listeners, row 5 offers the best of everything--full freq detail, balance, spatiality, ensemble.  Row 1 offers me THE best detail, although other areas are sacrificed.

There have been a few posters in this thread that have commented on the parallels between the dilemmas of concert hall perspective and the dilemmas in our home systems (analytical versus general perspective)..  A shout out to them for making this observation.  I used to have a DAC, the Mytek Manhattan, that was like an MRI machine for detail.  Ultimately I tired of the forest for the trees thing and got another DAC that gave me a mid hall perspective while not skimping on detail.

  I attended one concert in Heinz Hall, Pittsburgh probably 30 years ago.  I thought it was a great venue, although I am a bit fuzzy at this point about the details 

One of the reasons I attend concerts is because no matter how good my system gets, it will never approximate the sensations of a full orchestra in a large hall.  I especially enjoy hearing familiar works, not because I am adverse to unfamiliar music, but because I usually hear many details on the familiar works in the auditorium .  I just don’t need to be sitting in the conductor’s lap to hear and appreciate these details.  I recently heard a Mozart Piano Concerto where fingernail scrapings on the keys were clearly audible, and I could appreciate the soloist slowing down in some louder passages because of the hall resonance.  In my balcony seat there were very audible reflections from the sidewalls and the musicians were taking slight pauses to allow some of that to dissipate in order not to muddy the sound.  Now @viber6 would retort that a violin can’t be appreciated at that perspective in the same fashion as a modern piano can, and he has a point, so in an ideal situation perhaps sitting closer for VCs is advisable.  That is difficult because when one purchases a concert series you get the same seats all the time, but for one offs it is more feasible..

  Except….there are certain VCs where the Orchestra has at least as important a role.  For me the Sibelius VC isn’t just a vehicle for a hot shot soloist, it is basically a Symphony with a high level Violin Obligatto. I would prefer my regular balcony seat for those Sibelian brass explosions whereas @viber6 would want to be front row to fully appreciate the soloist.  And if you change your perspective every time depending on the work, then as a listener, what is your baseline?  It is a musical equivalent of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, in that by calibrating where our fannies sit to hear the music, we have distorted our critical facilities for true perception.  No, I ‘ll stick to the balcony perspective whenever possible 

You may like the sound in the balcony and from your speakers, but this is a bit of an apples/oranges comparison.  Depending on the music, Telarc recordings employ a mix of close mikes and distant hall mikes to capture hall ambience.  Some recordings use several spaced omni mikes at the front of the stage.  The omnis reveal more hall ambience and less specificity of instrument placement than cardioid mikes.  The net perspective of the Telarc is about row 10, which is much closer than balcony perspective.  This correlates with my experience auditioning large stat panels such as Martin Logan, SoundLab.  Bass is powerful from the large panel area, but the large panel area radiates sound in a multitude of directions which causes high freq time smear and rolloff due to different time arrivals from all points on the panel.  

Even a balcony lover like mahler123 found that a recent concert of a Shostakovich violin concerto showed less detail in the balcony than his experience at home with an old recording of Oistrakh with Mitropoulos conducting the NYP.  If you want to judge the overall accuracy of your audio system, experiment with rows 5-15 and compare to the Telarc recording, or sit much closer near the stage for Mercury Living Presence recordings, or my favorite 1967 Turnabout LP of Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances with Donald Johanos conducting the Dallas Symphony.  A great companion Turnabout LP from 1967 is Copland, Fanfare for the Common Man, and Rodeo.  Very dynamic in your face Fanfare with brass and percussion, which I like better than a much more laid back audiophile recording of Fanfare on either Telarc or Reference Recordings (I forgot which).  Some pieces are appropriate for laid back recordings, like subtle Debussy, but Fanfare deserves more immediacy.

For accuracy, the original Quad 57 electrostatic is tops, although it is deficient in bass and loud dynamics. 

I find that Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh has some strange reflections. I prefer Synod Hall in Oakland. I decided to do a comparison once. I got a balcony seat at Synod Hall in the middle and leaned out and listened very carefully. Then I went home and put on a Telarc vinyl LP of similar music and listened carefully. The sound was the same ! I closed my eyes and I was back at Synod Hall. I opened my eyes and found speakers instead of musicians. I own full range electrostatic speakers. The bass is incredible with power and authority. You would swear I have subwoofers but I don't.

I've been enjoying all of this discourse about concert hall seating. No so much different from user preferences in home audio I think. Some folks want infinite  detail (they call it transparency I think) and folks who go to concerts like the big blend not so much an audiophiles 'transparency'. At home I'm hearing music I know pretty well and often I listen to it in a subdued fashion as I read or otherwise occupy myself. When I go to a concert I want to be involved! I want dynamics. I want the impact I can get in isle 8 dead center (for example). If I want to learn the music I do it at home, but in a live concert I don't want to even think about anything that might be important to an audiophile. But that's just me. :-)

+1 @frogman 

  especially the comments about highlighting the soloist in recordings, and the excellent comment about the doubling of instruments to form a unison line.

Also, do you know the 1967 Turnabout LP of the Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances, Dallas Symphony conducted by Donald Johanos?  The 3rd movement highlight is the crackling brass fanfare near the end, culminating in cymbal and tympani crashes.  This was done with close miking on a shallow stage.  All other recordings have a distant, reverberant perspective which dilutes and confuses the impact from excessive ambience.  Boring garbage sonically.

frogman,

Ah, now I understand you better.  Your references are bass clarinet, saxes which are middle and lower midrange/midbass instruments, as opposed to the violin, which is midrange/HF.  Lower freq instruments gel at greater distance, and are more focused at greater distance.  But the violin has severe HF loss with distance, due to the physics of the air medium's preferential absorption of HF.  As a result, the limited SPL of the violin is severely lost at HF.  Still, the sax has HF transients which can be lost at greater distance.  I once played on a shallow stage, seated in an inner violin seat close to the French horn.  For the first time, I heard the midrange/HF tactile edges of the horn, part of its natural tone, whereas when heard from greater distance it has only a smooth, amorphous legato type sound.  James Boyk wrote an article about "life after 20 kHz" to show that even the old smoothie F horn has significant output at 9 kHz.

I appreciate that the bass clarinet and cello are separated more at close distances than from further away.  Now we get into the issues of different seating arrangements on stage.  The standard American seating is 1st and 2nd violins together on the left, cellos in front right.  I admit that onstage, playing 1st violin, I love this position where I can hear the 2nd violins playing the lower octave close to me.  But in the audience, this rear 2nd violin position severely rolls off the HF and brilliance of that section.  The composer wrote the 2nd violin part to be less brilliant than the 1st violin part, so it is a shame to further handicap the 2nds.  An exception is the Rossini string sonatas where the 1st and 2nd violin parts are almost identical, and he wanted a ping pong effect from the European seating (see below).  You probably enjoy the recessed usual 2nd violin positioning, so when the 1sts and 2nds alternate, you get an echo effect, a spatiality game from the upfront 1sts and recessed 2nds.  I just hate the obvious muddied sound of the poor 2nds compared to the 1sts.  

The European style is to have the 2nd violins in the front row on the right.  Toscanini described the 1st violins as his left shoulder and the 2nds as his right shoulder.  As a player on the stage, I dislike this arrangement the way you dislike the separation of the bass clarinet and cello.  But in the audience, it is nice to have the separation that Toscanini liked.  Still, the 2nds are handicapped because their soundboard projects to the rear of the stage, and the 1sts project front to the audience.

My most enjoyable recordings have been with small chamber groups spread out like a crescent.  Relatively close miking lets everyone shine.  Even if there is more separation which has the risk of poor blending, good musicians play together to get good blending even in this situation.  But if the stage is wide and deep, the separation impedes the ensemble.  An example was when I heard the Prelude to Act 1 of Lohengrin.  The front string section was brilliant and clear, but the two cymbal crashes at the climax were a DISASTER sonically.  The cymbals were at the rear of the deep stage.  The reverberation from the deep stage caused smearing of the HF brilliance of the cymbals.  The cymbal is the most brilliant instrument, with lots of energy up to 200 kHz, but this sounded worse than a terrible home speaker with the tweeters blown.

@viber6 , thank you for your comments.  We clearly have different perspectives on some of the issues discussed.  I feel that you take some of the points that you are making to an extreme that is not only inaccurate imo, but that clouds the issue being discussed.  It is simply not true that an orchestra is always reduced to playing pianissimo when the solo violin is playing.  Of course care is taken so as to not overpower the solo violin in the big tuttis, but in most concerti there are passages in which the orchestra can play at and the score instructs reasonably healthy levels while the solo violin plays.  With respect, I think you exaggerate the point.  One may prefer a different type of balance as a listener, but that is not necessarily “best”.  Moreover, if sitting very close it is not only the soloist that is then heard more loudly.  Everything will be louder.  On hears more separation of instrumental lines, but little blend.  Blend is important.  

I stand by my comment about the significance of the fact that there was no recording technology when these great works were composed.  Additionally, there also existed large concert halls at the time and the idea that only sitting in the first or second row can one hear the work as intended by the composer is unrealistic.  This is the problem with comparing the home high-end listening experience to the live.  We can become used to the music and its details being thrown at us, instead of being willing to aurally lean into the music as we listen.  We may prefer the balance and spot lighting that home audio provides, but this doesn’t necessarily honor the composer’s intent.  In my opinion the composer’s intent is paramount.  

****It is a legitimate tactic of the recording engineer to boost the SPL of the violin by close miking in order to get more equality between the soloist and orch, even if the natural balance is altered.****

How can altering what is natural be legitimate?  Perhaps a necessary evil and legitimate for recordings only because the immediacy of live performance is lessened by the recording process, even in the best recordings.  Then, you have the problem of the way that close miking inevitably alters timbre, not only volume.

An example that I pointed out previously.  A unison line scored for, say, bass clarinet and cello (a common orchestration technique) heard from the first row of the audience will sound like…..a bass clarinet and a cello playing the same notes twenty feet apart.  Two different tonal colors playing the same notes.  Heard from a distance, say, tenth row or even mid hall it will sound much more as intended: a single, but altogether new and different tonal color in the composer’s tonal palette.    
 

In answer to your question.  I have played clarinets (primarily bass clarinet) and saxophones professionally my entire working life.  Often in the very hall and with the orchestra where mahler123 heard the Shostakovich concerto.  “David Geffen Hall”, is the new name, btw.  I agree with his assessment of the improvement in the sound after renovation.  Not only from the audience, but on stage one hears much improved definition from the bass section.  Before, the low frequency energy was there, but little pitch definition.  Much improved clarity overall. 
 

Regards.

@brunomarcs 

There have been great concert halls for hundreds of years. Many great ones available to us were built in the 1920’s. They are great acoustically and aesthetically. 
 

I am not sure when I attended my first… probably Chicago in the 1960’s but I highly recommend it. Do not put it off. Do it soon. Find a great hall near you.

I have had the privilege of listening to live orchestra’s in great halls hundreds of times… it has been such a great experience and helped me so much in targeting what I wanted from my audio system. 

Were these great concert halls used back in the day? Did they figure out acoustics in 1700's? Or is this relatively new? I've never been to a symphony but I'll go one day. 

I grew up in Detroit.  One of my friends was a violinist who took lessons from Mishakoff in the mid seventies, and I met him a few times, as he used to lead the Youth Orchestra my buddy was in (they played the Bach Double together).  I went to Medical School in Detroit in the early eighties when they were just starting to restore it.  I didn’t get to hear the finished product until a few years ago, and while the acoustics are wonderful, it’s also visually a wonder as well.

   $700 for a balcony seat in Chicago?  We pay $100 for ours.

   Can’t agree with your comments about Vienna or Amsterdam 

frogman,

Violin concertos are carefully scored for orchestra realizing the inherent SPL limitations of a solo violin.  For the great concertos, the orch is reduced to pianissimo when the solo violin is playing.  When the violin soloist takes a break, the orchestra plays in all its loud glory.  But the violin is rarely playing when the orch is playing with full sound.  The violin and orch are kinda like respectful politicians letting the other speak while the other only listens.  When politicians are trying to yell at the same time, there is chaos.  It is a legitimate tactic of the recording engineer to boost the SPL of the violin by close miking in order to get more equality between the soloist and orch, even if the natural balance is altered.

Piano concertos live have more satisfactory balance, since the piano is a much larger, louder instrument than the violin, and often the piano joins the orchestra in the full glory of both.

What instrument(s) do you play professionally?

Mischa Mischakoff was the most esteemed concertmaster of the 20th century.  He was with the NBC Symphony under Toscanini, and I love his solos on those recordings.  When he retired, he was with the Detroit Symphony.  I visited him in Detroit in 1975.  He invited me to hear him at a small private quartet concert.  He preferred his Belgian violin to his Strad.  I declared him the greatest violinist I had heard.  But the socially minded dean of my medical school said, no, Heifetz was the greatest violinist of the 20th century.  Well, everyone sorta knows that, but to really appreciate the finer, subtle qualities of a great artist, you have to be a real connoisseur.  

The Musikverein in Vienna is considered to be the #1 hall, but kudos to you for discovering Detroit as #1.

You have a wealth of concert hall experience.  I love the mono recordings on Mercury of Rafael Kubelik + Chicago SO in Orchestra Hall (I guess renamed Symphony Center).  Have you tried a few locations there to compare the recordings with what you hear live?  Boston Symphony Hall was great in the 4th row center when I was there 2016.  I heard the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orch conducted by Benjamin Zander.  Zander is a world class conductor, so the best deal is hearing an excellent student orch at their best with a great conductor.  White fluorescent lighting was used.  The tonality was clear, cool and neutral, unlike the warm, HF rolled off quality in Carnegie.  Sensory perception overlaps with sound and vision.  I wonder if Carnegie used cool white light, whether the tone would then be cooler and less warm than it is.

In the Concertgebouw, I sat in about the 10th row center.  Muddy, syrupy warm sound.  This correlates with what I hear on recordings from European halls--distant and muddy.

Prices are insane in major famous halls with famous orchestras and soloists.  People who are willing to pay $700 for the balcony in Chicago have no idea what details they are missing vs much closer to the stage.  My strategy is to get a modestly priced seat on the main floor as close as I can get.  5 min before the start, I survey empty seats, and then 1 min before the lights dim, I dash for the empty center seats much closer.  Acoustics don't matter much to me, since I want the maximum detail of the 1st row.

 I live in Chicago and regularly attend concerts there, but we have family in Boston, New York and Detroit so we regularly attend concerts there as well.  Detroit Orchestra Hall is actually an acoustic gem and a beautiful hall, obviously not as well known as the other cities mentioned  but probably my favorite of the 4 mentioned here .  Next would be Boston, and then a bit of a drop to Chicago Symphony Center, and I would continue to rank New York last, but now much improved.  Internationally, my experience is confined to Barcelona, Vienna, the Rudolfinum in Prague, Amsterdam, and the Garbage Can—oops, the Barbican— in London.  I would love to attend concerts in Germany, and I had a trip that would have taken us to Leipzig, Hamburg, Munich and Berlin wiped out by the Pandemic

@viber6 Great post. It all rings true for this acoustic music junkie. No matter how much punishment my ears have taken through the decades.😁

mahler123,

Good observations.  The short wavelengths of high freq (HF) mean that HF are more absorbed than lower freq (LF) at greater distance.  So the tonal balance at greater distance is skewed toward LF.  At close distances, the natural HF predominance of the violin lets it sail above the orchestra, but in the balcony HF are relatively subdued, so the violin doesn't sail above.  Recordings offer a close perspective with the close miking, and thus there is more detail than from the balcony.  Despite the live naturalness in the balcony, I dislike the greatly reduced detail there.  Move to the 5th row and you will be happy with everything--the naturalness, detail, visual line of sight, sound spatiality.  In the 1st row, I get even more detail and HF, but sacrifice the visuals and spatiality.  See for yourself.  

I used to hear the Juilliard orchestra Fri nights in Alice Tully Hall.  I haven't been in the renovated Alice Tully.  Excellent professional quality student orch for free.  You can try all locations.  Try the Wed at One free concerts at Alice Tully.  Paul Hall in the J School is great for chamber music--free concerts several times a week.  There's a small hall in the J School for more student recitals.  Check the J website.

Where do you live?

One of my favorite recordings of Eine Kleine is a string quartet augmented by double bass, although I am out of town and can’t check my shelves to se who the performers were.

So I am in New York and last night heard Kavakos in the Shostakovich First VC .

we sat in the first balcony area. I had last been here before the Pandemic and the Hall renovation is a huge improvement. One can now hear the double basses that kick start the piece. In the Passacaglia the tuba has an important part and as the rest of the Orchestra peels off toward the cadenza the tuba progressively lowers the dynamics and each dimunition was clearly audible.

At that distance Kavakos doesn’t sail above the Orchestra, as does Oistrakh with the NYP and Miropolous in the inaugural recording. No question that the detail craved by viber6 is missing. The instrument was meant to fill an auditorium the size of whatever they now call this place when it evolved from the Viol. So I get the need to want to sit closer and yes, a modern Piano can project so much more in a space such as this.

I got a real chuckle out of "Mahler 123's" comment :   "Hearing the spit clog a horn player's instrument is interesting, but ultimately distracting."   Years ago, when my wife was still my girlfriend, I took a real chance when I pointed out to her that the water that accumulates in brass instruments is condensation --- not spit !  The remark has never been forgotten !  All of my trombones work that way.

    The basic law of physics that states that no two objects can occupy the same space at the same time can be expanded to encompass the dilemma in which we find ourselves as the number of performers increase in an ensemble.  No listener can be in two listening positions at the same time either.  If you are close to one performer in order to experience intimate detail of their sound you will necessarily preclude experiencing the same intimate detail from the other performers in the ensemble. It is a reality with which we must deal that increases with the size of the ensemble. Normally, we would say that we heard the "??? Orchestra" last night, not that we heard the first row of the "??? Orchestra" last night.  Another problem that must be faced is when a large ensemble is being recorded and the recording engineer chooses to use multiple microphones.   The resultant phase distortion, as sounds from different instruments hit different microphones at different times creates a blurred image of what is really going on because the process is unintentionally attempting to emulate the impossible idea of a single listener in two [or more] different places at the same time.  In a symphonic setting, a person cannot be next to the concertmaster, the first clarinetist and the tympanist at the same time except in the magic world of the recording engineer and the twist of a knob.  Experiencing a live symphony concert from a position from which all instrumentalists can be in visual contact is the best compromise and has the added benefit of minimizing the natural phase distortion that such a large ensemble presents to the listener.   Smaller ensembles are best for clarity and perception of presence.  It is just Nature's Law.

@viber6 Why do you expect to “be nearly deaf if (you) get to be 100”? Honest question and no judgment implied, but the comment made me wonder if that is tied in to your need for a lot of “detail” in your music.

You are clearly a music lover and the bottom line is that this is all that really matters. You are also a musician. I am a musician. I generally prefer to not write about that when posting on audio forums, but we disagree so much on the issues discussed that it has to be mentioned for context. I am an orchestral musician and regularly play in major symphony orchestras, Needless to say, I have also attended countless live performances, That it is “a losing battle” for a violin soloist to be heard above an orchestra is simply not true. I am intrigued by how someone with your experience could form that impression. Good violin soloists have huge sounds that easily keep the sound of a fine orchestra from overwhelming. My goodness, violin works were composed before there was any kind of electronic sound “enhancement”/manipulation or recording.  Did all those great composers waste their time?

Mahler123 is correct that violin recordings with orchestra are just about always overmiked. Unfortunately, the live reality is that the 1 violin soloist is competing with at least 20 players in a small chamber orchestra in Mozart concertos, e.g. For big concertos like Brahms, the orchestra has 100 players, so the ratio is even worse. In addition, the violin SPL is fairly soft, and winds and brass are much louder. The orchestra is told to play softer in order to let the violin soloist be heard better, but it is still a losing battle for the soloist who is vastly overpowered. I have been frustrated by how the violinist often has to play louder than he wants in order to just be heard over the orchestra. This live experience is certainly natural, but so are rotten apples that taste bad and poison mushrooms that kill you. Piano concertos with orchestra have much better live balance, since the piano has very loud natural capability, and its unique percussive character enables much better natural balance with the orchestra. The bottom line for hearing violin concertos with orchestra live, is that only the first few rows let you hear the violin soloist’s details at reasonable volume, say 60 dB. Further away, at 40-50 dB, the live violin is certainly natural, but micro details and nuances are mostly missing, compared to the 1st row.

This is one reason I gravitate towards chamber music such as string quartets where there are only 4 string players and they are easy to balance. Recordings mike all the players equally, so these better balanced recordings are a much better likeness to live reality than violin or flute concertos with orchestra.

There are many examples of small orchestra pieces that have been performed by string quartet (SQ). Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusic is very popular for orchestra, but have you heard it played live or on recordings as a string quartet? I love my Budapest SQ recording from about 1960. In the SQ, the details and individuality of each player are showcased and the ensemble has great balance--the best of everything, and not too loud, which prevents fatigue. Whereas in a string orchestra, all the players in each section are blended together so you can’t hear the true greatness of each musician.

There are perverse examples of the other way around--string quartets arranged for orchestra. Mahler did this, but all he did was multiply the string quartet with many players on each part. Leonard Bernstein was a great artist conductor who made a recording of late Beethoven quartets on DG. I like his interpretations, but there is still more sensitivity and detail heard with almost any professional quartet playing these works.

I suggest to music lovers who love sound that they pursue whatever means is needed to get more knowledge and appreciation of the music. Live unamplified sound is the most natural, but there are compromises with that. Far away balcony sound has good balance, but there is so much detail missing compared to the close seats. Very close seats have much more detail but some balance is sacrificed. The gold standard on an intellectual level is the score, which contains details that almost nobody in the hall hears. A reasonable combination of good attributes is the 5th row. I make a personal choice to emphasize the details, which gets me closest to the score, which is why I get the most thrills from performing on stage. Another poster told of his thrills hearing Gidon Kremer the violinist from the 1st row, compared to his usual more distant seat.  So enjoy those violin and other recordings that are close miked with unnatural balance.  At least you get the details with the fullest appreciation of the sensitive nuances of the soloist.

If I get to age 100, I expect to be nearly deaf. I might still be able to perceive live natural balance from a distant seat, but it will be so faint as to not matter much. At age 105 with total deafness, I will seek musical pleasure from reading scores and "hearing" it in my mind. I believe this is possible, even when the hair cells in the ear cochlea are gone. Even now, I can elicit tears from my memory of great music I know, when it is silent in the room. Beethoven "heard" his late music when he was totally deaf, and these are among his great masterpieces. I fantasize that one day we will have media that electronically stimulate the auditory cortex of the brain, so we can play a recording direct to brain and hear it that way. Maybe some offspring of the producers of direct-to-disc.

@viber6 , my friend.....as always, your personal listening experiences are yours, and that is all....yours. Your system, as good as you feel it is, would not satisfy me, the way my system satisfies me, as I look for and appreciate other important characteristics than you. I accept that we are " different ", and I understand you play violin. This is all well and good, but you continue to feel, your perspective of the " listening thing ", is the correct thing. The fact that you are admitting to everyone here, that you would rather listen to your system, than to be in an audience of a fine hall, listening to a fine performance, tells me what I have stated many times before about you on another thread ( which is no longer here ). You have allowed your " audiophile life ", to put more emphasis on the " sound of instruments ", than the performance characteristics of the " playing of the instruments ", and the many musicians I personally know, listen the way I do, and enjoy similar things as I do. I am not suggesting right or wrong here, but as you try to defend yourself, as being " right ", as being a " more experienced listener ", has not changed since we have been communicating. Your perspectives and your experiences, are just that....yours. I respect you...you know that. And I accept all this from you. But what is good for you, is exactly that..... good for you. And me ? I always state what is good for me, and understand the " me ". Music listening, whether live, or through our systems, reaches us all in different ways. I am happy to say, I know what I like, as you know what you like. Some have not reached that plateau, and are still trying to figure that out. As always, I wish you my best. Your comrade in arms....MrD.

@viber6 

regarding Szeryng, or any violinist on recordings, I find it hard to listen to many violin recordings because the soloist is overmiked, imo.  The perspective is unnatural, in that they sound so loud compared to the rest of the Orchestra

that orgasm story has not been verified, it's just clickbait

I wonder if any of the people who disagree with my preference for close musical encounters have had enough experience comparing seats at various distances.  When an event was popular, I could never get a close audience seat.  From the 10th row or so, I would suffer through the first piece, realizing that my home system of Audiostatic 240 electrostatic speakers, excellent solid state electronics, my fast, neutral Denon 305 MC cartridge on Alphason tonearm and Goldmund Studio turntable offered much more musical detail and resolution than the 10th row.  On a detailed Mercury Living Presence recording with close recorded perspective, my audio system was about as revealing as the 1st or 2nd row, although the live sound was more natural with that detail.  But the most highly rated concert hall, the Musikverein in Vienna was a sonic dog from the 25th row, nothing but a bloated echo chamber.  The solo cello sounded like a 40 foot blown up character in a street fair.  As the most famous hall in the world, with New Years Day concerts broadcast worldwide, it was always nearly sold out, so I went back 3 times to hear the same orchestra, migrating closer each time.  Of course, my best seat was the 5th row, but I couldn't get closer.  The hall had a big advantage of having a stage that wasn't elevated, so the line of sight and sound was good.  You didn't have to be a giraffe to have a height advantage.  Admittedly, the 1st row in most halls is way below the stage, so the line of sight is poor from the 1st row.  (The Carnegie Hall stage is a full 4 ft high).  So the 5th row in Vienna was pretty good.  But I would have paid good money to perform on that stage and be thrilled with that crisp sound with neutral tonality that was hinted at from the 5th row.

The most revealing and exciting ensemble experience comes from a being in a small chamber group on the stage or a good room where everyone is sitting intimately close to each other.  Close contact like this minimizes the bouncing around reverberations which smear musical detail.  OK, there are some nonmusical extraneous sounds.  But the greatly increased musical detail predominates by far, and even the nonmusical sounds are part of the total sound of the instruments.  Anybody who prefers not to hear the instrument noises by sitting further away is also throwing away much of the musical overtones, like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.    

Many years ago, I was privileged to play string quartets sitting next to an esteemed violinist.  It was a soft slow movement from a Haydn quartet.  All of a sudden, he played an accented sforzando that wasn't loud at all, but the transient impact and his detailed control blew me away.  I will remember this for many years to come. At concerts listening to other great performers from the 1st row, the impact was markedly lost in my 1st row seat.  Any further back, forget about it--POLITE BOREDOM.  

One of my favorite violinists, Henryk Szeryng, I heard in concert many years ago from about 100 feet away.  I couldn't get closer.  I'm ashamed to admit that I fell asleep from the muddy sound I heard.  What a letdown by comparison to his exciting RCA recordings with fairly close microphone placement.

@mikeydee you think you had good seats???

https://nypost.com/2023/05/01/woman-has-full-body-orgasm-during-la-philharmonic-concert/P

I’m at the show to experience the piece. Both composition and ensemble.  
Perhaps the prioritization of detail over cohesion is beneficial for smaller ensembles.  
I bet the up-close, “wow, I can hear that one small part extra clear” thing is great should one have the luxury of viewing the same show multiple times.  
If I’m going to the show once, I want that Row-5-8 thing.

If we go back to the start of the thread and read the original post by mikeydee, I believe the statement was all about the enjoyment, and the " impact " the experience made to him. We come to the argument that the best seat in the house is at the podium. I am not up at the podium. I am in the audience....and if I happen to not be in the best seat in the house, it would still be an amazing experience, acoustically. However, I am there to experience the " performance ", and relating this to home audio, many have lost this aspect of why we listen in the 1st place. Just a repeated statement ( ad nauseam ) I make many times here on the "Gon. My best, and Enjoy ! MrD.

To be clear, I should have written: “…one can hear every MUSICAL detail that there is to be heard and as seen in the score”.  As mahler123 points out there are a lot of extraneous “details” that are the result of the physical act of playing an instrument that not only do not add to the music, but can be distractions. This is part of the premise adhered to by musicians of “projecting” the sound.  

Not only is it not the case that “this level of analysis is essential to enjoying…” a musical work, this perspective misses out on the full expression of what great composers intended.

@viber6, again with respect, I still feel you miss the point. First, when I refer to listening “at a distance” I am not referring to back of the hall. Sure, every hall has some seats that are possibly too far back and not very good seating locations overall. I’m not talking about that.

You refer to detail that is apparent when following a musical score and not heard unless listening up close. I simply can’t agree with that premise. I would say that when listening from up to a mid hall perspective (and probably even somewhat further back) one can hear every detail that is there to be heard and as seen in a score. No, it will not have the separation that is heard up close, but it will be there and in a more musically honest balance. Separation is not necessarily detail. Acoustic sounds need a certain amount of travel distance to fully develop. Moreover, a certain amount of “homogenization” is precisely what great composers want. Lastly, the great composers were (are?) not particularly concerned about pleasing any particular (or all) segment of the concert going public, and certainly not audiophiles. Their main goal is to be true to their artistic vision.

Thanks for your comments, even if we disagree. And, yes, I have studied countless scores as part of my preparation for performance.

I have to say, @viber6 , that while I disagree with your perspective, I have enjoyed your comments (and those of o many others as well) as you make your case.  For me, while it is interesting to occasionally get that up close perspective, and hear all the extraneous noises that performers generate, a steady diet of such fare wears after a while.  Consider those paintings by old masters such as Rembrandt that have been subjected to analysis by XRay and CT scan.  Frequently all kind of detail is revealed that is not apparent to people looking at the picture.  Art aficionados who know these paintings well are always fascinated by these details . That doesn’t mean that this level of analysis is essential to enjoying the painting because the Artist didn’t intend for viewers to see any of it in the finished work.

  Hearing the spit clog a horn players instrument is interesting, but ultimately distracting.  I don’t need to see how the sausage gets made, I just want to enjoy my meal.  And now that I’ve mixed enough metaphors for the evening it’s off to bed

Composers (and performing musicians) both create their art for all types of listeners with different musical knowledge and different seating preferences.  Music is a business which needs to serve as many customers (listeners, performers, concert halls, etc.) as possible.  The hall needs to be filled for maximum revenue.  Even if most of the seats are unacceptable to me, someone has to sit in those seats and get some enjoyment.  The general public who sits in distant locations hears the balanced, but homogenized sound.  They are not detail oriented a-philes.  They don't analyze the sound, but are content to enjoy the music as part of a social outing.  If they are happy with that, fine.  The composer wants to please these listeners.

Composers also want to please discerning musicians and a-philes like myself. Composers carefully craft the score in great detail.  Composers are perfectionists who edit and revise their work out of pride in making a finished product.  I have studied violin seriously my entire life with 100's of coaches and played with numerous groups, so I know the importance of precision and detail in the service of better competency in performance and learning more about the composer's similar goals.  

I don't know if you have studied scores of music you know.  In my experience, distant seats have no chance of capturing more than a small fraction of the detail that is in the score, which is much better captured by a close listener.  The conductor is in an enviable position of hearing more of this detail and the best balance than anyone else on stage or in the audience.  To see the score and hear this detail from an optimum close position has increased my appreciation of the genius of the composer.  The detail oriented a-phile also puts lots of effort and money into hearing more detail which increases his appreciation of his music at home. "Wow, I never heard that detail before.  This music sounds even better."

As an aside, I'm sure that if you got new eyeglasses that enabled better vision, you appreciated more details in familiar objects.  More details enable more perception of beauty.  Isn't it nice to find a woman's eyes beautiful at 50 feet away with better visual acuity whereas with the old glasses it was a blur and not as beautiful.

With respect, I think you miss the point. The composer’s intent always wins. It has to. The composer knows that listeners will not have the conductor’s perspective. Moreover, a conductor often has the assistant conductor sitting in “the house” and will ask him/her about balance issues. The best know instinctively how it will be heard from the audience’s perspective. IOW, the conductor controls the balance of instruments as he hears it up close, but mindful of and relative to how it will be heard from a distance.

I think that we as audiophiles tend to be detail junkies. There is a lot of beauty in a more nuanced approach to seeking “detail” in our music.

frogman,

Good points for discussion on several levels.  As musicians, we strive to blend our sounds and play together.  For orchestral playing, a 1st violin section in a large orchestra has 16 violinists who are told by the conductor to suppress individuality and play as 1 violinist.  However in small chamber groups, there is a single player on each part, so the quirky individuality can be heard.  In a string quartet, sometimes the viola and cello are in exact unison, so they try to blend and play as 1 instrument.  But the viola and cello have different tonal character even when playing the same note.  It is more interesting to hear the tonal differences so that even though the same note is being played, there is more color from the overlay of differences on top of the sameness.  One of my favorite old string quartets, the Budapest, had two violinists who had very different sounds and temperaments.  The 1st violinist, Joseph Roisman, had a dark, sensitive, introverted sound and personality.  The 2nd violinist, Alexander Schneider, had a more forward sound and extroverted personality and playing style.  Schneider told a story of how an audience member said the quartet was marvelous because they sounded like 1 instrument.  But Schneider thought if that was true, it was a lousy concert.  He wanted good ensemble, but with a recognition of the differences, with each of the four players contributing his own individuality.  I agree with the Schneider view, although there are plenty of quartet groups that strive for more blended ensemble and less individuality.

For orchestral music, each composer seems to have their tonal signature to produce a unique timbre when 2 very different instruments are playing unison.  Flute combines well with violin in their similar freq range.  Bassoon may combine with French horn for that unique timbre.   I can recognize the identity of a composer by the timbre of the combination, even if I don't quickly name the particular piece.  So how does the audience listener appreciate the spectrum of separateness vs total blending?  For a distant listener, the blending predominates.  For a close listener, there is more separateness.  If the musicians are skillful, they blend well no matter how far away the listener is.

Analogy with food.  You can have 3 types of food on the same plate in separate locations, each carefully flavored.  Alternatively, you can mix them and make a tasty soup.  Both are enjoyable experiences, but it is unlikely that the mixture, well homogenized, would be as tasty as the separate foods.  Steak and salad don't mix well, but separately each would be delicious.  

The wine connoisseur enjoys the total blended taste, but he goes further and tastes the various flavors as they may appear at different times during the savory tasting.  He wants to separate the flavors and in that way get more appreciation of the fine character of the wine.  Years ago, I tried a liqeur blend called "43."  It was said that there were 43 individual components, but I could only perceive a few.  A more trained connoisseur could taste many more than I could, and I will say he could get more out of that tasting than I.

All this is my roundabout way of saying that the more distant hall sound is more blended and homogenized, and the closer seat still has some blend but more detailed colors and distinct individuality.  Someone may like the blended, homogenized sound, but it is NOT more detailed.  Rather, the details of the differences are like homogenized soup, much less identifiable.  Distant sound is the product of acoustical multipath bouncing around of various instruments in the journey from the stage to the distant location.  These are the laws of physics, like it or not.  Blending yields less information.  The conductor on the podium has it all--good blending with the maximum detail and appreciation of all the instruments.

@viber6 I couldn’t disagree more.  Yes, following a score is a great thing and, sure, sitting up close one can hear MORE of the individual details, but not necessarily more details which in a good hall are all there and in proper scale.  In fact, you lose the details which are the unique sounds of the blends of instrumental colors.  Some of the music gets lost.  Great composers think in terms of many layers of nuance of instrumental color, not simply melody.

”Pictures At An Exibition” is a wonderful work and Ravel’s orchestration is a great example of why he is considered one of the great orchestrators.  His orchestration is by far the best and most popular.  Korsacov’s not so much. The composer of the work, Rimsky-Korsakoff was himself a great orchestrator and I suppose that an argument could be made for why, in spite of how great Ravel’s version is, the piano version is the best since it is closest to the composer’s intent.  

I remember the good sounding Koss 1A electrostatic speaker.  It was a large panel stat, but it included a dynamic tweeter.  At the time, I wondered why a dynamic tweeter was used, when everyone knows that electrostatic membranes are better than dynamic drivers for low mass and control.  But that's true in the midrange only.  Dynamic bass drivers are clearly superior to electrostatic panels for dynamic power in the bass.  A full range stat panel has too many problems for time smear at HF which I discussed above.  I have the horn loaded Enigmacoustics Sopranino electrostatic tweeter which I use time aligned with my main Audiostatic speaker.  The throat of the Enigmacoustics is quite small, probably comparable in size to a dynamic tweeter but with lower mass, so I get stat delicacy with the focus missed by all large stat designs.  But I now see the wisdom of that well designed Koss 1A.

fleschler,

The most accurate and natural speaker is plasma. Totally massless, small driver the size of a tweeter, very efficient. Unfortunately, they are dangerous for ozone and other noxious gases, fire hazard from the burning flame from high voltages. Nelson Pass was hospitalized for an asthma attack after using a plasma speaker.

The next best transducer is the electrostatic principle. The lowest moving mass, total control from the membrane/stator sandwich. But all commercial stat speakers have severe flaws. To make up for the inefficiency and need to be near full range, large panels are needed. Even STRAIGHT large panels deliver smearing, due to the different distances to the listener ears from thousands of locations on the large panel. In this regard, the WORST speaker I ever heard was the Dayton Wright XG8 (10?) I heard in 1980. It was a 4 foot square panel.

The next meaningful experience was with Art Dudley when he worked for Edison Price. I heard the small Stax F81 and F83 speakers there. The F83 was a double stacked F81. I loved the midrange/HF purity of the F81 which was less than 3 feet tall. I had hoped the larger F83 would overcome the severely low 73 dB efficiency of the F81. It did, but unfortunately the 6 foot height caused severe rolloff of HF compared to the F81. I later figured out that the larger panel area, the more multipath time smearing occurs--worse time alignment. The best stat for tonal purity remains the original Quad 57 whose tweeter panel is very skinny and only about 30" tall. Later Quads are veiled by comparison, utilizing the flawed concept of time delay and much larger panels.

Putting all this together, I have a concept for the best possible stat speaker. If I were a famous audio designer, I could charge $ 1 million for this concept. But there is no market for accurate stat speakers in an a-phile market that cares more for boom boom loud dynamics and deep bass. So I reveal it here, in the hopes that some manufacturer who cares more for sonic accuracy and purity takes notice. Here goes--a large enough panel handles a wide freq range with reasonable SPL capability. But the panel is curved concave to the listener instead of convex like ML, Soundlab. The panel is a slice of a sphere whose radius of curvature is the listener distance. Say the distance is 8 feet. The slice might be 1 foot wide and 4 feet tall. The circumference of an 8 foot radius sphere is 8 x 2 pi = 26 feet. So this is like the curved edge of a 55 degree pie slice vertically, and a nearly straight 1 foot horizontally. The only listener requirement is to sit at the exact focal center of this spherical slice. That way, the direct radiation path which has the most HF extension reaches the listener from all parts of the panel with perfect time alignment. There is still a flaw from off axis parts of the panel reaching the listener with different freq balances, similar to a cardioid mike with rolled off HF off axis. This design is still better for accuracy than any large stat ever made. The smaller, the better, as in the Stat F81 and original Quad, if your music requirements are up to 80 dB. For me, I don’t want to hear junk from today’s speakers designed for loud SPL’s. I’m not impressed by 100 dB of junk when those speakers are badly veiled at 20-60 dB.

Another big problem with large panels is the bloated image, totally unnatural. A singer delivers sound from a mouth about 1-2 inches in diameter. A trumpet is like a 1 inch diameter tube whose horn flares to only a few inches, etc. So a wide range dynamic tweeter that goes down to 1 kHz can do a reasonable job for accuracy and proper image size. Dynamic tweeters are reasonably low mass and much more accurate than dynamic midrange and LF drivers. But all current panel speakers deliver bloated images. In my focused design, the image would be more true to life. The only instruments that are properly reproduced by current panel designs are large ones like pianos and pipe organs.

My Audiostatic 240 from 1980 is 2 straight panels mounted on a dummy support, so you can angle the 2 panels any way you want. The best results are from concave angling, with both panels beaming to each ear. I got the most bass, HF and SPL with this arrangement. But for best focus and purity in midrange/HF with admitted sacrifice of bass, I only use 1 panel which is 5" wide x 48" tall. Beamed right to my ear, it is the closest to my concept of a better design. On audiostatic.com, the MDi is shown for 3000 euros, although there is no opportunity to hear it before you buy, unless you travel to his suburb of Amsterdam, Netherlands.  The designer, Ben Peters is old, so I don’t know the delivery details. The panel is 11" x 44" so it looks like a smart design with the least compromises.