advertisement


How often do you hear music performed, acoustic or amplified

whatsnext

Naimless
Observing those make a thing in PFM of getting their HiFI system to be realistic this crosses my mind.

How often do you hear music being performed by others.

Maybe a member of your family or social circle plays something. Ideally it is a time served instrument but synthesised devices count these days.

Is their performance within a building or outside?

Alternatively it might be a club, concert hall ... outside the domestic type of building. Maybe even outdoors.

Me? Outdoors. My place of work and some shopping is a traffic free area. This makes a range of performers come and show their skills. Almost all are amplified in some way or to varying standards. Accordion, violins, guitars, wind instruments and one old guy who carries an amplifier on his mobility cart blasting his favourites from the early 1950s.

Rain or shine.

So all you strivers to enhance your systems how do you know your latest change is more like real music and what real live music would that be.
 
How often? So far this year I've been to around a dozen concerts including 9 at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival, and last year well I gave up counting at 2 dozen, most of them accustic.

I don't think that you can shout about your system if you really don't know what "live" music sounds like. You only know you like it but not whether it's realistic.
 
not often. I gave up going to large scale concerts in large venues like Albert Hall, long time ago as the seats I could afford had compromised sound - I am not sure being any closer would have made any difference any way. Ensemble vocal music can be as unclear or even more so than what you hear on records. Small scale in smaller venues can be interesting. I remember a Martin Best ( medieval music ) concert in the Wigmore Hall in London, I think it was. I was quite close to the group, what was interesting was the way his voice was fighting its way through the air , as if the air was a barrier. His voice was as brittle as on some of his recordings.

What can be fun is getting a seat in the choir behind any orchestra, the sound is very vibrant an exciting but lopsided.

In general I dont go to concerts these days as often I am not in the mood by the time it comes and nod off lol, so a waste of money. Being a large person having people left and right back and front I dont particularly like - as the on the buses, the seats are made for average size people. I think hifi is like the images of great places to visit -eg that Inca city whose name I can not spell ( lol) high in the Andes that you normally see in pictures from the air , looks really great must go and see first hand!!! - on the ground walking the terraces must be quite a bore assuming you are not gasping for breath at the altitude. So I will stick with the hifi pictures you probably wont see in real life
 
These days we (i.e. me + wife) tend to hear live music most often at our local theatre. Mix of mid-day concerts and musicals.

A recent example was of a solo harpist - Sophie Rocks - playing various classical/serious items. Excellent. If anyone gets a chance to hear her play, take it!

The musicals and G&S tend to suffer from the usual blight of being needlessly 'amplified' and we often give up and leave at the first interval because the result is too loud and brash.

We also sometimes go to a large local hall for orchestral performances. Younger Hall in St Andrews. Not the best acoustic in the world, but OK if you choose the balcony.

However to some extent I think I've got used to a 'secondary calibration' approach as a reference point. Decades ago when I lived in London I used to go the the South Bank and RAH a lot, as well as various BBC R3 venues inc Maida Vale. The music was often broadcast later on and I could use the memory to help me decide what a hifi should sound like when playing them. Having done that I now tend to use R3 broadcasts (and latterly BBC4 Proms) as a 'reference point'. What the NPL would have called a 'transfer standard' I think. :)

For much 'pop' music, of course, there may be no real standard to judge by which most people can ever hear. Even the monitors used to mix it may deliberately have a sound different to that of end users, and the person doing the mixing tries to take that into account.
 
About 15-20 times a year, nearly all classical these days. Coming back and listening on a hifi is a terrible disappointment. Last night I sat less than 10ft from Paul Lewis playing the Grieg piano concerto- I got the sound coming from under and above his Steinway. The sheer spl coming from massed strings was quite something. I watched him in rehearsal with the orchestra and if anything he played it even better!
Amplifying an orchestra as at concerts in parks, is a horrible thing to do to these instruments.
 
Call me cruel, but most of the 'live' music I hear is by Britain's Got X-Factor Talent wannabes in the city centre. Some are good, but almost all I tend to hear these days play through a (probably cheap) mic and amp setup and sing inoffensive popular songs seemingly intended to make one part with a quid or two, but all it does for me is make me want to quick march on by. Sickly sweet or cheesy crap, that's about the sum of it.
 
Used to be a few times a week for gigs & concerts, now a few times a year (not counting buskers)... I do have a clarinet though, am constantly playing with synths (am liking the Yamaha TX81Z at the moment) my daughter's always singing her head off, gleefully out of tune. Also working in Manchester I do always bump into buskers quite often, last time I saw a great flamenco-style contemporary guitarist doing his thing in St. Ann's Square. I feel I get enough point of reference to 'reality' to be happy enough with my system's performance.
 
The recent Mahler 3 at the RCH was the first live show I've attended in years I'm afraid. I think I got too focussed on hearing music at home on my hifi I forgot all about the real thing. I'll go back for more later in the year as Mendelson's violin concerto is being played on the 9th December while Mahler's ninth is being performed next year, both at the RCH.

I'll go more often as long as the choices are compatible with my classical preferences. Anything by Mahler is a slam dunk, and so is Shostakovich's 2nd symphony plus a few others. I've bookmarked the RSNO website to see what's coming up.
 
When I was a student I'd be going to live gigs several times a month. Nowadays with a family and career etc I'm lucky if I get to four or five gigs a year.

However I make sure I REALLY extract as much of everything I can from those few live shows!
 
I've now all but given up on rock gigs as I am determined not to lose any more hearing due to stupidity (I've worn ear-plugs since the mid to late '80s, but it has still taken its toll, I always have a pair in my record bag and often wear them in pubs etc too). I am however lucky enough to live about an hour away from the RNCM and love going to the free afternoon concerts when I can along with some of the full price stuff, e.g. I went to see Bach's St John's Passion a couple of months ago, but I do really like the closer nature of a string quartet or solo piano piece in a fairly small space. It has been great to reacclimatise myself with this kind of music and has only reinforced my personal view of what an audio system should sound like - I find much modern kit far too bright, hyped-up and forward, listening to live classical just makes me all the more convinced the vintage Quad/BBC/Tannoy balance is the right one for me.
 
Reminds me of a trip to Bose HQ in Boston at one stage - chatting to a girl t and she told me that they could go to any concert in the area they liked and the company would happily pick up the cost of the tickets, providing it was an acoustic performance.
 
Twice a month on average, classical unamplified performances normally in two halls, one large and one small. For sound quality in the large hall my favourite seat is along the sidewall of the Grand Circle, which means that I am sitting over the violins and any 'stereo' is up and down rather then left to right. The 'tone' of my system is very accurate and it details well.

In my opinion much of the insecurity relating to the HiFi addiction comes from the artifices of stereo reproduction, artificial reverb and mic placement, and I am tempted to go mono for my last system. I shall put this to the dealers if that happens, though I may be in for a fight.:D
 
Virtually every day for me, as both of the fruits of my loin are multi-instrumentalists and practice frequently.
For officially organised live music events an average of approx' once every couple of weeks - circa 10% of these are acoustic.
 
Twice a month on average, classical unamplified performances normally in two halls, one large and one small. For sound quality in the large hall my favourite seat is along the sidewall of the Grand Circle, which means that I am sitting over the violins and any 'stereo' is up and down rather then left to right. The 'tone' of my system is very accurate and it details well.

In my opinion much of the insecurity relating to the HiFi addiction comes from the artifices of stereo reproduction, artificial reverb and mic placement, and I am tempted to go mono for my last system. I shall put this to the dealers if that happens, though I may be in for a fight.:D

you will be laughed all the way out of the shop. I hope you dont have a beard and crazy hair if so they may have you sectioned;) or exorcised.
 
I have had a long beard and worn clean MC leathers since 1969 being shown the dealer's door many times over the years despite being quite well off! Nothing new :D
 
Get to listen every day and it is all acoustic instruments, some with vocals.

Concerts and gigs - about 20-30 times a year.
 


advertisement


Back
Top