the sound of massed violins in classical orchestral recordings

The other experience I have is that my Oppo 105D can play the HiRes music file for symphony without this massed strings sound quality issue, this probably shows the ESS 9018S DAC chip used in Oppo can decode the HiRes flac files much better, or it could be just the source of the HiRes music file is better. But since I do not have problem for all the HiRes symphony music files that I have played so I tend to believe the former one as the reason. It was just the red book CD music that I had problem with by using Oppo 105D which is sort of a known issue from the forums like this. Flac conversion from the same CD I have was worse on the massed strings sound until I found the improvements mentioned above. Using foobar2000 from my computer to feed Oppo USB port with the same flac file sounds better which also shows the issue is from Oppo DAC. Now using different DAC in my system I bypassed this weak point. But I still like Oppo 105D for HiRes music playing.

In my case, I have been facing this massed violins sound quality issue for many years. I am using Vienna Acoustics Mahlers and Beethoven Baby Grand on different setup while both of them having the similar issue. Everything else sounds great especially for jazz and vocal music. These speakers are highly regarded as one of the best for classical music or symphony but still I was struggling for the massed strings sound quality issue.
 

Now, what I went through in the last few years are the following to improve this massed strings sound quality issue:

 

1. I found plugging the power amp power core to the wall outlet directly helps but cannot eliminate the issue.

2. I changed my power amp from Citation 7.1 to Pass Labs X150.5 or XA30.5 helps but GamuT D200 is even better. But still having some massed strings sounding issue even using GamuT D200. I actually like Citation 7.1 for jazz, vocal, cello, and piano music better as it has more body of the music.

3. I was using Oppo 105D as the streamer from my NAS hard driver or as CD player but both having the same issue. CD sounds little better though but not perfect. Streaming from my computer to Oppo USB port sounds better but not perfect either.

4. I was using the fixed output from my Oppo 105D to my preamp. I have both NAD and NuForce MCP-18 preamp and they do not make much difference for this massed strings sounding issue.

5. Setting the Oppo 105D to variable output and adjusted the volume from Oppo to 50~75% range feeding to the preamp seems having significant improvement for the massed strings sounding issue. I cannot detect other sound quality degradation but doing so.

6. I did try to use Oppo 105D directly connecting to my GamuT D200 and it sounds much more airy and transparent but my ear will get fatigue within 30min so I gave up on this setup.

7. I finally went to different DAC and it seems the DAC does help to reduce this massed strings issue quite a bit. Part of this is due to I found using my Denon AVR to feed my power amp actually helped to reduce the massed strings sound quality issue but it will have other sound quality degradation.

 

Am I out of the woods yet, no, but it is much much better now and I can enjoy the classical symphony music for many hours. Before all these changes I was having trouble to listen symphony at all and I have to change the music within 10min.

The old Telarc CD orchestral recordings always sounded right to me.  Pretty much nothing else.  That shows it can be done.  Most everything else was done with multiple microphones too close to the violins and equalization.   

This is not a problem that is ubiquitous; it affects perhaps a good number of recordings, but certainly not all of them, and to varying degrees.  From which I conclude that it has to do with the various recording conditions: the space, the mikes, the recording equipment, the most-recording processing, etc.

I'm more asking a question than making an assertion.  In the string section of an orchestra how in sync are the musicians when using vibrato technique?  I imagine that there would have to be some variation between the players which would result in a chorus like effect.  Close up multi-miking would accentuate this phenomena.  Is this possibly what people are hearing?

DGG quality varies over time.  Remember that DDD was already a thing by 1980.  Besides a slow, long learning curve, there's also the quality of the ADC being used to consider.  It was *early* DDD DGG recordings that were the worst offenders.

Really. Learn something new every day. Enormous eye-roll emoji 🙄

Violins produce perfect square waves....very difficult to reproduce from a speaker.

For me, Decca/London recordings, in general, are among the most realistic sounding and DG among the worst.

i think the same and most musical afficionados i know of....

I too have participated in DG recordings and concur with terraplane8bob’s accounts of DG micing technique; multi-micing galore and placement way too close up to be able to capture a realistic sense of instrumental timbre and texture was my experience. If I am not mistaken, at least one poster who considers DG’s string sound to be the best also considers Decca to be the worst. Precisely the opposite of what I hear. Go figure. For me, Decca/London recordings, in general, are among the most realistic sounding and DG among the worst. Kenneth Wilkinson recordings in particular can have stunning string sound.

Still very interesting ------.  I wanted to add a bit more to the discussion.
     A few posters have mentioned Deutsche Grammophon as one of the greatest offenders regarding string tone and I thought this experience might bring a bit of light to the subject -----.
    I was involved in a DG recording session as a performer.  Myself and a bassoonist friend were very interested in all audio and recording matters and paid quite a bit of attention to the various techniques that their recording engineers used.  One that struck us both as being rather unusual was when we saw one of the DG staff walking about the stage with a book and a tape measure.  Of course, we inquired as to what he was doing.  He was rather indignant that we'd approached him, but nontheless he tried to explain that the book was a microphone manual and that he had a special function on the team.  His job was to check each microphone during breaks in the recording session to make sure that they were still located at a specific distance from the instrument they were meant to capture.  The book apparently listed every microphone that DG used and listed its proper placement and distance !  I personally counted over 20 microphones on stage for that session, guaranteeing copious amounts of phase distortion !   I figured that the monitoring engineer simply accepted the placement of the mics that the guy with "Das Buch" had determined, regardless of how it sounded !   So much for the personal imprint of a music-minded engineer.  This was no Ken Wilkinson of London/Decca fame in action.  This was business, pure and simple ! 
      I also had the great pleasure of recording for London/Decca with Ken Wilkinson as the recording engineer and recall his fondness for his Tannoy monitors.  He said he used them on every session, not because they were state-of-the-art, but because he knew them so well and could hear changes as they were made, with absolute clarity.  One of the "greats" !
      

I forgot to say that Hélène Schmitt plays on a baroque violin....The beauty and complexities of the sound is  explained in part by that....

I just reach my final goal: Controlling the sonic performance of my room...

Passive materials treatment being only half of the solution, active controls device(different resonators, with active diffusors playing the main role in a balanced equilibrium between reflective,absorbent, and diffusive surface).
The key to room enhancement controls(i prefer this concept than correction and treatment) is listening with your ears to the tonal instruments accuracy for feed back.... Treating room in function of some frequencies correction only is not my way at all and sometimes erroneous because many variable conditioning sound in a particular room are not reducible to frequencies ...It is more a synchronization, a timing of waves of sound than only correction of the waves....

This recording of solo violin is particularly good and the playing interpretation very impressive, not the best tough (for me it is Henryk Szeryng spiritual endeavour) but soundwise very amazing and you will listen to the micro texture of the string....If not, your audio system+room is defective or not enough refined....

These tonal material microstructure of the strings are like a crowd singing together and you will  listen with each note to a crowd of events or voices....Each note is a universe.....

All audio is mainly 3 embeddings of the electronic components....(mechanical,electrical and acoustical)
Speakers are only a part of the room/ear system...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2a9IY3UtU4

6119: Many thanks on your kind words. As a fellow audiophile, my intention was to demonstrate that great results can be achieved by making sure that every link in the recording and reproducing sound equipment is on a high level. While there is some thought and commitment involved, it is so worth it. 

Finally, as we live in the age of covid, where we may have more home time, we can search out small companies which are creating some of the finest tools for us to listen to our favorite music. They are worth searching out and auditioning with your equipment to discover how they fit in your life. 

Have have a hard time calling anything related to the normal sound of an instrument IM distortion. Of course an instrument sounds different from afar as it does close up. Hopefully the recording engineer knows how to capture this so that what we hear on playback is at least close to the truth. Having lived with a violinist I can say with reasonable assurance from the recordings of soloist violins I have heard that it is easier to get a solo violin right than massed strings. But, given a good recording and the right playback system it is possible to get a reasonable facsimile.  

glevinson : Watcfed the wonderful video. I was surprised by how clear and listenable the sound was though the tiny speakers in my laptop! The beautiful playing, the articulate discussion.Very interesting about the old and new mics and their spacing and the eye opening description of the roles of engineer and producer in recording classical music. I hope that many of the posters here will watch this video. Thank you very much.

So many great posts on this one. You’ve all given me a great sense of relief as you report experiences that parallel mine.
After a virus-driven (bored) series of updates, cables and tweaks, I still get the orchestral hash under extreme volume passages. In 50 years of hifi, I always blamed my gear, or the recording, or some unknown soprano. I’ve got it down to a dull roar by treating my room and re-cabling, but still . . . .
What most of us are talking about here is IM distortion that is originating at the instrument. Darn harsh cellos! 
I watch many of the youTube classical videos (especially those originating in the Netherlands), so I suffer through the string problem often. These videos span a few years right up to today and the mics used and their set-up is evolving fairly rapidly. The sound improves—and then it doesn’t. Never fear, this blog has enough good ideas to keep me spending and tweaking until I get it right.

Respectfully, your friend from the speaker company is clueless. There are literally hundreds of recordings that don’t suffer from the problem you’re referencing because the engineer and producer know what they are doing.  Here is a video that deals with some of the nuances of both recording and reproducing: https://youtu.be/h9dv9AVVHT4

The bottom line is some of the best mics to record violins or any acoustical instruments are being made now. Conversely ribbon mics of the 1930s were also marvelous at recording the great orchestras of the Golden Age. Look for Cleveland Orchestra with Szell and Chicago symphony with Reiner as a start and you will hear breathtaking sound. Let me know what you think of the video and what your conclusions are. 

It's well known that Karajan was a particularly enthusiastic early adopter of digital recording and the CD.  He make pronouncements on its superiority to anything achievable by analog technology.  And like I say, given the dubious quality of the early ADC machines handling the feed from the mikes, the recordings from that period often suffer from a lot of digital glare.  Since then, things have improved very considerably.  But you can make your entire CD collection eminently listenable through careful selection and combination of components.

jrbirdman333: I'm a little slow--after all this time it suddenly hit me......"this a fascinating STRING".  P U N !!!

Massed violins are not only difficult through playback, they often sound off in a bad concert hall or a bad seat in a good concert hall. 

thanks for that, terraplane8bob, was a great read : )

Thanks to terraplane8bob for clarifying even further what other posts have been developing: it's in the recording. I'm sure there are components that exacerbate the problem and,hopefully, others that might ameliorate it.  We probably have diifferent goals for what we want to hear in our listening rooms. For me, if I don't hear something in the concert hall,I don't want to hear it coming out of my speakers--or less of it.Today,I revisited an old "frenemy": EMI Classics CD. von Karajan,Berlin Phil.,. Schubert Symphonies 8 and 9. ART,Abbey Road Technology."Remastered to 20 bit for optimum sound sound quality."Exciting,dynamic,moving performances.Awful, shattering,cacophonous strings.Sad. In a few days i'm going to be auditioning a used pair of Mozart Grand Symphony speakers [ what's not to love about a speaker with a name like that ]. If they can tame the Schubert just the slightest bit, the ever exciting Maggies may be put up for adoption. To be continued.......... 

This is really an excellent thread that seems to get the best from the forum. Thanks!
My journey to get strings sound like you experience them live: (1) Add power conditioner (Shunyata Hydra alpha). Moderate effect. (2) Eliminate all 'polluting' clients with switching power supplies (apple airport, logitech remote). Obvious effect. (3) Add DualCore room correction with linear power supply. Pronounced effect. Replace B&W803D with Helsinki Gradients (i.e., dipoles with cardioid radiation pattern). Dramatic effect. Seems that room interaction was, at least in my situation, dominant parameter.
For reference, the amp in this system is a LSA Statement integrated, all ICs are Kimber Hero balanced, power cables are Kimber, speaker cables are DNM incl. DNM RF/EMI filters.
Good recordings are, as stated many times, a must.
For a close mic'd solo violin, Anne Sophie Mutter, Carmen Fantasy (Sarasate) - Introduction, is a great piece. For mass string, again, Anne Sophie Mutter, Violin Concerto No 1, B flat minor  (hi rez MQA file on TIDAL), seems a very good recording.
I am happy now...

Seems to me  orchestras I see on youTube are afflicted by numerous microphones much as society is afflicted with the virus--they are everywhere.  So there's all this mixing which means some of the subtlety of the sound gets lost.  There's a reason the old 2 and 3 mic recordings with the right mics have beautiful string sound.  They are capturing the sound in space  where the close miking expects a speaker to fill space like live music, but a speaker is directional and can't do that.

Very interesting thus far, and a couple of folks are close to the real answer.  I spent over 25 years as a symphony musician in a major orchestra, and then upon retirement, another 30 years as a recording engineer.  I hope these credentials might add some weight to my comments.
    If you stand next to a single violinist while they are playing, you can distinctly hear the horsehair of the bow and the rosin that is put on the bow making a totally non-musical noise.  It is the mechanics required to make any bowed instrument play that you hear regardless of how beautiful a tone the performer manages to extract from the instrument once that bow brings the strings into vibration.  The rich sound that we all crave to hear does not mostly emanate from the top of the violin.  The top of the violin is where most of the mechanical noise comes from because that is where the bow and the strings intersect.  The richest sound of the violin is given off by the back of the instrument.  On many occasions, I would place a microphone below and to the rear of a solo violinist to capture this rich sound.  A big mistake is to place microphones above and too close to the string section.  That most certainly results in capturing too much of the afore-mentioned mechanical noise.  Another factor is that not only the different timbres of each individual violinist, but the fact that they are almost never playing the same pitch. I'm relating this to pitch alone, not vibrato, which itself is a rapid changing of pitch. Think of it : Do you really think that the concertmaster in the front of the first violin section can hear what the player in the rear of the second violins is playing ?  Not only must they sit at a reasonable distance from each other to have enough bowing room, they must forego the luxury of sitting near to each other as the woodwind and brass sections can easily do.  Much of the "hash" that happens is micro differences in pitch caused by that very necessary seating arrangement.  The subtle differences in timbre of each instrument is also a consideration.  Woodwinds and brass also have an additional luxury, and that is that there is usually only one player on a part, not massed players like the strings.
     I once was asked by the concertmaster of my orchestra, why his home recordings of his playing didn't sound as rich as he thought he sounded to himself.  I pointed out to him that he was hearing a far more complex sound than anyone else possibly could because he had his instrument firmly clamped between his collarbone and his jaw which provided a "mainlining" effect directly to his hearing apparatus.  He heard overtones that no one, even someone standing beside him, could hear.
     It is truly remarkable that massed strings sound as good as they do when performed by a professional orchestra when considering all of the possible ways for this delicate balance to go awry.
     I recorded a lot of choral groups in my career and will guarantee you that any two sopranos in a group of ten who are singing even slightly out of tune with each other will produce the "hash" we all hate.  In my early days, I thought it was "phase distortion", where the signal was reaching different microphones at different times, but even by using a minimal number of microphones and keeping them at a respectable distance, the phenomenon persisted.  Again, as in a violin section, the more sopranos involved, the less able they would be to actually hear each other, compounding the problem.
     So, physics is involved, mechanics is involved and artistry is involved.
Just like you wouldn't want to remove the noise of Buddy Rich's sticks hitting his drumheads, you wouldn't want to remove the initiation of the string sound.   They aren't synthesizers, you know ?
     Definitely a fascinating subject !

ymmv, as I said above I have only heard ESLs get massed violins right. Dynamic drives are incapable of doing this correctly because of cross overs and dispersion characteristics. Some ribbon speakers can almost get it right but you still have to deal with cross overs.

ymmv , it gets even better. Save up for a pair of Sound Labs 545's. No cross over at all. Voices will take on a palpable quality that your speakers have some trouble with due to the cross to the woofer. Once you have the 545's you will never be interested in another speaker:)

I’m a musician (trumpet) who plays in an orchestra (well, not at the moment actually - sniff!).

I too struggled with building a sound system that could handle the challenges of classical music.

I didn’t achieve that until two things happened:

1. I acquired a pair of hybrid electrostatics (Martin Logan Spires), and
2. I powered them with 600W monoblocks (70’s era Soundcraftsmen)

I should add that I rarely listen to anything beyond the first two notches on the preamp's volume dial.

Classical music has to be one of the most challenging genres of music for any system to reproduce. Therefore, if it wasn’t recorded well from the start, no system will be able to make up for that. I look for recordings by Telarc, RCA Living Stereo, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and Sony. I am rarely, if ever, disappointed in their recordings (the conductor maybe, the recording - no).

And I disagree with those who claim that *any* speaker can faithfully reproduce classical music recordings. That has not been my experience.

YMMV.

Hi Wolfie
Counting past one is not your forte.
A violin concerto is NOT massed violins

How many violins make a mass?

I dont know if he know how to count, but you must learn how to count  the many strings instruments there is in a an orchestra perhaps....

« Before seeing the dog in the eyes of others look at the elephant in yours» -Groucho Marx

Do you know how hi resolution recording is done today ?
Are the studios recording to high speed tape or to DXD or to both simultaneously ?
As to their vinly offerings, are they mastered from tape or DXD (or other) digital masters ?
Thanks for any info.

Hi Wolfie
Counting past one is not your forte.
A violin concerto is NOT massed violins.  Even a double violin concerto.

Violin sound is the ultimate testing on our audio system ...

I will add Brass ensemble with trumpet, horn, tuba, and trombone together....
A bad system cannot distinguish the gleaming sound of each and his particular timbre when mixed together....

This complement mass of violins in the higher frequencies with mass of brass for the mid and bass frequencies....

Retired classical musician here too.
Just listening to Karajan’s 1963 performance of Beethoven’s Eroica on Idagio.
Violins and strings couldn’t be sweeter or more natural.

Retired professional classical musician here. I've had highend audio in the house for 25 years. I have to agree, massed violins can to be a problem. In fact, listening to how these are reproduced in orchestral recordings has been the first thing I listen for in judging the quality of the system. Long story much shortened: I recently added the Benchmark AHB2 amplifier, DAC3B and LA4 preamp to my system. The speakers are the remarkable Thiel 3.7, which I've had for 3 years now. The sound is jaw dropping. No artifacts, no grain, just dead-on timbral, dynamic and transient reproduction against an absolutely black background. And, goes without saying, massed strings sound just as they should. Finally.

Violin sound testing is the ultimate testing on your audio system. The most important components are speaker and amp. Ribbon or esl speakers with single ended triode amp tend to do better job in playing whole violin spectrum without distortion. Cartridge and phono stage are next link needs to up to the bar for producing close to real violin sound.

One other critical point.  How can some people think 95% of their recordings sound great and another 15%.  I suspect individual variations in ones hearing and CNS processing of music is very different from one listener to the next.  This may be a major factor with massed violins as much of their harmonic content is right where our ears are most sensitive.

I think it went away in my system several years back when I upgraded preamps from old Carver to new Audio Research which was a big jump in sound quality overall.

I've never experienced this issue. As long as the recording is of good quality even with mid-fi system it will be fine. Records from sites like Acoustic Sounds for example.
Good Luck!
Emil

I repeat once again once again, right now this fiddler is experiencing superlative string tone from Primephonic, this time of Lalo's Symphonie espagnole.  My system -- Mytek Brooklyn Bridge, PrimaLuna Prologue One, Nola Boxers.

GoldenEar Triton 1 speakers used or 1R new.  Very smooth.
Aforementioned Benchmark AHB2 amplifier.  I combine with a tube preamp (Conrad-Johnson).
 I listen to 95% classical, mostly symphonic, with these components.  Never a problem with massed violins sound, even in poor recordings, yet very revealing and transparent.

Personally, I think the dispersion characteristics of the mid and HF driver(s) is critical in regard to addressing your concerns.  Assuming fairly flat and smooth response of the associated components, the proximity of presentation should reflect that of the recording when the speakers have good dispersion.  At least that has been my experience and has been the case with a variety of vacuum tube and solid state equipment used.  Another thing I would keep in mind is playback volume.  I usually sneak up on the volume until I'm comfortable I'm hearing the level of detail that sounds right to me.  If I start too loud, things don't sound as good when I lower the volume.

hypomam : thank you. your post makes sense and reinforces what several others have been saying.the problem is in the recording and you and others have made a strong case for the causes.i feel the best thing to do is to find components, amps and particularly speakers, that tend toward a softer, more distant presentation with out too much collateral damage. suggestions, anyone?

Very interesting discussion.  I have been listening to what I think are the best massed string recordingI have come across:  The Cleveland Orchestra’s A New Century boxed set. Disc 1 has a string orchestra arrangement of Beethoven’s string quartet No. 15 that is extremely well recorded. As is the entire three disc set—at $50 an absolute bargain: 3 SACDs, a code for 24/96 hi-res downloads, and A lavish 180 page book.  
I used to find mass strings to be hashy on a couple  of recordings of The Lark Ascending.  These same recordings sound much better now.  Can’t pinpoint the reason but three things come to mind: upgraded power cables in my sources (Nordost Vishnu’s and now Morrow MAP3s), more powerful amp (Bel Canto Ref 500m), and IsoAcoustic Gaia feet under my speakers (Dali Mentor 6s).

Three factors come to mind. 

1.  Microphones used, pickup pattern of those mics and miking technique.  Having made many orchestral recordings using a variety of mics and miking techniques and in a variety of halls, it has been my experience that these variables can make a real difference in the way strings (and everything else for that matter) sound in playback.  The best vinyl recordings I have heard seem to be older ones that were made using very simple miking techniques.  While there are variations in the smoothness of the string sound among those recordings, they are all very listenable.  Much time was typically taken to make tests in order to achieve proper balance of the various orchestral sections as well as the balance of direct to reverberant sound with the goal to get the mics in absolutely the ideal location.  There are a number of more recent recordings that were made using similar minimalist techniques that sound impressive as well, some analog and others digital.  Many post mid-1970 recordings were made using overly complex miking techniques that sound awful.  The development of multi channel recorders and mixing consoles created opportunities for engineers to twiddle away to a fare thee well.  Some engineers justify this claiming that it is far easier (and less costly) to achieve proper balance in mixdown if they mic sections of the orchestra more closely.   No one listens to strings or any other instrument from 5-6 feet away in a concert hall save the musicians themselves.  There are sometimes some nasty mechanical sounds one can hear when very close to an instrument that just naturally get attenuated and mixed with reflected sound in the concert hall and seem to disappear by the time it reaches the audience.
2.  There is the psycho acoustic effect of actually being in the concert hall and seeing the musicians play.  It has been my observation that we accept sounds in a live performance that we would reject as troubling in some way when in playing back a recording of that same performance in a listening room.
3.  When we listen to a recording in a listening room, we hear not only what was recorded, but the influence of the listening environment and the playback equipment.  We can chase our tails (and empty our bank accounts) trying this type of tweeter or that type of preamp and never achieve what we heard (or thought we heard) in the concert hall.   

cal91,

Ironic, I just started a thread on that subject.  Let’s see what happens.

larry5729...BTW, I listen mostly to classical and I am very happy with my Harbeth Super HL5 Plus speakers. 

larry5729...You are opening a can of worms when you imply that some speakers may be better than others at playing certain genres. I started a thread on this subject looking for speakers that were considered especially adept at playing classical, and particularly the violin, and I was blasted. More than one poster called the idea ridiculous and insisted that a good speaker will play all genres equally well. Some of them weren't very nice about how they said it.

if you choose to replace your old amp, I would suggest a home trial of a neutral sounding one such as the Benchmark AHB2.  100 wpc, same as yours.  Sounds fine with massed violins in my system.

@6119  
Several years ago I copied tracks from a variety of CDs on to one CD-R so it would be easier to carry around when auditioning equipment.  One of the tracks was the first movement of the Barber violin concerto played by Shaham, exactly the recording you mention.  So we have a concrete data point in common.  I put the Barber on the CD-R precisely as a test of violin reproduction (as well as bass--those falling two-note bass figures in the background).

What I can tell you is this: the DGG recording is never going to be described as forgiving, but it can be played on equipment without inducing the slightest wince, grimace, or tensing of the muscles.  It just depends on the equipment in the system, because these days listening to that recording at home is a pleasant and rewarding experience.

While I'm at it let me recommend this recording of a consort of viols as a wonderful test of overall timbral reproduction of stringed instruments (as well as an excellent CD):https://www.amazon.com/Crye-TYE-HUME-TALLIS/dp/B000025DFV/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=crye&qid=1599586146&s=music&sr=1-1

What about buying speakers that are made acoustically to match the instruments you like to hear.  I am sure there are speakers that reproduce classical music better than others.  It would be interesting to hear from those who have found the right equipment to best reproduce classical instruments.  I am sure cabinet design is a good source of the problem.  There are many in this group who know what speakers are best to reproduce classical instruments along with components.