Music Lane It's all about the music, dude! Sit down, relax and listen to some tunes.

---

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Music Lane ]

---

[ Alert Moderator ]

---

The "special" sound of the VPO? - Maybe not

Posted by Chris from Lafayette (A) on March 3, 2011 at 21:55:25

In my post about attending the Vienna Philharmonic concert on Sunday, I raved about the sound quality of this orchestra, even to the extent of claiming that they seemed to improve the very acoustics of Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley. Some excerpts from my post:

"I could hardly believe it - if this had been a recording, I would have have sworn that they had spot microphones on the lower strings!"
"you would have thought Zellerbach was one of the most acoustically perfect halls in the world!"
"startling resonances that I've never heard in this hall before"
"it's almost as if the VPO brought their own acoustics with them!"

If this sounds almost too good to be true, that's because it WAS too good to be true, as the SF Chronicle revealed earlier today:

The Vienna Philharmonic, which came to Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall over the weekend for its first local appearance in more than 20 years, is famous for its rich orchestral sound - but it needs a hall with suitable acoustics to make that sound heard. In Zellerbach, that task is entrusted to Constellation, a customized acoustic setup installed in the hall in 2006 by Meyer Sound Laboratories of Berkeley. Through an elaborate series of hardware and software components, the setup can mimic the acoustics of many different types of halls, producing what CEO John Meyer calls "a virtual space."

For the Vienna visit, the Constellation setup included 148 loudspeakers and 40 microphones, dispersed through the hall and onstage. But the result, says Meyer engineer John McMahon, is not like a PA system or sound reinforcement. "You're hearing the sound coming to you directly from the instruments, but the way it comes back to you from the room is virtual."

Constellation can be almost infinitely tweaked, but in practice there are a few standard settings that get used repeatedly - which is not to say that glitches don't happen. For Friday's opening performance of Schubert's Second Symphony, the wrong setting was used, producing too much reverberation; it was fixed at intermission.

Joshua Kosman

This article appeared on page F - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle

I do not believe there was any indication of this virtual reality acoustic in the concert programs or for that matter anywhere in the hall. I did see microphones, but I thought they were there for recording purposes - I did NOT think they were part of the actual concert itself!!

So now we find out that the vaunted "sound" of the VPO was nothing more than a computer program to enhance the sound. To me, this is far worse than putting in 400 edits on your CD: it's a TOTAL MISREPRESENTATION of how the orchestra sounds in the real space. You'd think you were at a Britney Spears concert, for crying out lould!

Needless to say, this totally changes (and actually negates) most of my points in my discussion with tinear further below, because I was basing my arguments on what I felt was the UNIQUE sound that the VPO was obtaining. Yes, it was a unique sound, but THEY weren't obtaining it!

So now I just say, the heck with them!

• http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/03/   (Open in New Window)

Edits: 03/03/11 03/03/11

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Sonic Craft

---

[ Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]

---

[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]

---