Will someday take you up on your offer, be careful, wouldn't mined hanging out in Brookline a day or two., would you believe I also used to live in the Berkshires and in Taunton and Natick? I do miss the audio stores, and really a lot of the live music in the coffee houses and smaller venues. Great part of the world, were it not for MY screwing up a great relationship, I'd still be there. Thats another story as well.
Anyhow go down to the Backstage and listen to some acoustic music in that small venue, Saw Ginger Baker there, Incredible performance. |
Jvia...I know, I know. We're talking in circles, here.
As a member of Young Audiences in Boston I get to hang out with Yo-Yo when he plays for their annual fundraiser (last year with O'Connor, too). And there's nothing like being in the room with Yo-Yo.... And when I spent my youth as a travelling organist among gorgeous huge organs in northern RI french-Catholic parishes I was always in awe of the sound I could produce...especially with nazards, trombones and ridiculous 32' bourdons (16 Hz low C). Even killed a crow with one pedal tone...but that's another story.
I play my Steinway B almost daily, yet like the sound of most pianos in my room better than most live venues.
Could be that pianos are often simply set up poorly?
Sat amongst the Oriole College women's choir at Yorkshire Cathedral for evening vespers 3 summers ago. A pinnacle
of sonic immersion. The ONLYsurround sound I ever liked!!
My wife's Jewish, and she HATES that I drag her around at intermission, but I grew up too poor to pony up for the pricey seats. Old habits die hard.
A neighbor of mine (Marty Pearlman) runs the Boston Baroque.
Their rendering of the Messiah is an annual treat at Jordan.
C'mon up sometime. Ellen'll make amazing kugullah (sp?) afterwards.... |
Subaruguru, you been going to way too many of those high priced concerts. Come to Nashville on some Sunday night, we will go to The Stagecoach Inn and hear 20 or 30 of the best"hillbilly classical", "bluejazz", and "bluegrass" music there is. All within 10 feet of you. And if you can spend all that time and money for your reference system, you need to buy a subscription to the local symphony and get better seats. just saw Mark O'Connor and YoYo Ma, bout 18 rows back, wasn't to bad. Live up north, go to the Berkshires Summer Series at Tanglewood, minimal costs and great music. I know what you mean by the expense, but there are ways around it. I will even go to a Catholic church during the holidays to hear the Messiah and I am Jewish, but it is the wonderful experience of live music that no system can or will replace. |
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Distant city speaking. Sorry.
Tim |
Jvia...used to agree with you, but after spending the past year or so assembling a ref system, I have to agree that MOST of the time my home seat is better than the cheap tix I buy at most live venues...until I move around after intermission! This includes the venerated Boston trio: Jordan Hall and Symphony Hall center balconies, and Sanders Hall middle orchestra.
I'm NOT saying that slightly imperfect seats are dissatisfying musically, but certainly tonal balance and REALLY non-correlated sounstaging anomolies prevail much more often in live venues than in well-recorded software properly presented in a great system in a well-damped room...in the sweet spot. I know: lots of conditions!
But I must say that I strive, and usually succeed in wrangling a fine seat the majority of the time live, but nearly ALL the time at home!
Again, it took two years of careful building to be able to state this unequivocally.
And it's worth it! |
Paulwp, I disagree, very few times is recorded music as good as live, no matter where you are sitting. You can call it sound, performance, ambiance, feel, whatever, but at a good live performance, the room, the performance and the experience is the "sweet spot". |
OK, Whatjd, nobody's responded in all this time. Lol. But, very good point. A well known reviewer who shall remain anonymous recently commented, and I agree, that the sound is better in a sweet spot in front of a good stereo system than you would experience at most concerts.
We agree once in a while.
Paul |
With the kind of tickets I usually get....most live performances........although with the 7X35 ImageStableized Canons....I can usually tell who's playing/singing. |
I had the same thought cross my mind as Stereodad. I have to start my morning with some Cornfedboy or my day isn't quite right. It's all good fun. |
Hey 25 years ago I thought you had to set mikes in front of your speakers to record to cassette or reel to reel. Then again, a guy wrote and ask me last night what kind or tube/mike/preamp he might use to record his guitar amp to digital, which is the only way to get a certain sound.
Anyhow, its not a bad question, I bet a lot of people read it and wondered a little themsleves, just did not want to admit it. |
As soon as I read the post my first thought was this is just the kind of question Kelly takes extreme pleasure in answering to the best of his ability.F57 Iused to take offence at Cornfedboys comments but they really are made to have alittle fun. Of course 6 months ago I would have beleived him. Larry |
NEAR FIELD LISTENING
In speaker/listener positioning, an equilateral triangle arrangement that equals listener-to-speaker distance with speaker-to-speaker distance and optimally subtracts room interaction from the playback event. The near-field position is often the only workable solution if a long-wall arrangement in a rectangular room is mandatory due to practical considerations. In other words, you are pretty much right on top of the loudspeaker because there is not enough room. Some of the speakers designed for this(and there are a lot of exceptions)have a hump, especially in the mids, so that one might more easily hear any recording mistakes. So if you have a small room, you might like a near
field monitor.
FAR FIELD LISTENING: In speaker/listener positioning, an arrangement whereby the listener-speaker distance is significantly larger than the speaker-to-speaker distance. Far-field listening often occurs when speakers are placed on the short wall of a rectangular room.
The opposite is near-field listening which often is the only workable solution when a system is placed on the long wall of a rectangular room. Certain multi-driver full-range speakers work better in far-field positions where the increased distance allows the physically widespread drivers on the speaker baffle to converge at the listenerÂ’s ears for proper integration.
And I bet some of you thought I wasn't that smart. Definitions are borrowed from the good folks at Goodsound, but most of your good recording engineers could have told you the same thing, only with a little dramatic interpretation. |
Listening from the adjoining room -- like my wife usually does (and then complains the volume is too high). |
binoculars and headphones with a really long cord. -cfb |
