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A wonderful thread, gentlemen. I listen to a lot of live music, almost all Classical...

...and mostly big-orchestra stuff. Lately I've heard a few chamber-music concerts in good venues.

All the perfectly valid opinions so far. Here are what resonate for me:
1. One can always recognise live music as such no matter what the hall sounds like, and sometimes it amazes me how 'present' and dynamic is it.
2. There's no substitute for a hi-quality multichannel system to get you closer to the sounds of a live performance, and I'd never go back to 2-channel. Naturalness, spaciousness, and transparency are, IMO, the most-important improvements from CD-quailty 2-channel.
3. WIDE dynamics are indeed an essential characteristic of live music. Even in a great-sounding 3000-seat concerthall like Grady Gammage Auditorium* at Arizona State University, one can hear the WIDE dynamic range. I remember a performance by the ASU SO of a Mahler symphony where the sound of the crash cymbals** simply exploded out of the back of the orchestra, startling me.
4. Almost any electronic reinforcement of an acoustic instrument turns it into something less good than it was.

* One of Frank Lloyd Wright's last designs. At 3000 seats, it ought to sound 'too big', whatever that means, but it sounds wonderful--big enough, and warm and not bright, requirements for good sound in a concert hall for me.
** Percussionists, what's the correct name for that pair of big, hand-held cymbals?


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  • A wonderful thread, gentlemen. I listen to a lot of live music, almost all Classical... - jeffreybehr 11:01:32 03/29/12 (0)

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