a system for a musician and violin maker...?

[Yomanze]

Whatever amp, speakers and CD player is bought, I suggest you factor in the cost of an ifi itube2. It will tranform the sound. Spend most of the remaining budget on speakers and then get a cheap amp from Richer Sounds and a cheap DVD player from a supermarket.

Lol.

 

[Rockmeister]

Lol.

I wasn't sure what was meant? Is it tiny bits of gold foil you stick over the kit??

 

[Rockmeister]

Thanks so far. It's very interesting also to hear from Violinists. I probably should have said that the aim is to get closer, and the assumption was that 30 years have probably thrown up modest kit that will outperform the Creek/Kit speaker combo in that respect.
I agree with takey boy. It would take the best valves (yes, single ended I concur), a vinyf front end with very special cartridge and HUGE horns to even get close, but I HAVE heard it done and anyway, the jump from NO timbre, to some is bigger than the jump from some to perfect.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

One snag here is that the sound you'd get when holding an acoustic instrument is likely to be very different to what it sounds like a distance away in the audience. I'd assume most 'classical' types of recording are trying to get the 'in the audience' sort of sound. Not the sound of a violin next to your ear. So deciding on this matters.

 

[Rockmeister]

One snag here is that the sound you'd get when holding an acoustic instrument is likely to be very different to what it sounds like a distance away in the audience. I'd assume most 'classical' types of recording are trying to get the 'in the audience' sort of sound. Not the sound of a violin next to your ear. So deciding on this matters.

DEciding on what Jim? I think we are over complicating this.

Bloke who plays violin wants better sounding HiFi. Help!

 

[mandryka]

He will probably already know, but if not you could gently prompt him, that he is NEVER going to hear himself on recorded music as he hears himself when playing acoustically.
It is impossible. It is two different forms of sound reproduction.

No hi fi, at any cost, is going to enable a recorded acoustic instrument ( violin for example ) to sound the same as a person playing live in that same room.

The closest I’ve heard ( but still lacking what acoustic music gives ) has been with vinyl front end, valve amps and horn speakers.
With respect, with his budget, it is just not going to happen.

Gunnar Letzbor’s recording of the Bach solo violin music has tried to address this problem of capturing violin sound on record. Letzbor writes



“ A violin sounds completely different when one uses different microphones. Many types of microphones (also very expen- sive ones) greatly alter the natural sound and lend a special timbre to the recording. i often worked with the unfortunately deceased sound engineer Michel Bernstein; in his microphones, i was lucky to find devices that capture the sound and the special colour of my violin almost one- to-one.

sound engineers like to offer the possibility of technically “optimising” the sound generated by the microphone. since my intensive preoccupa- tion with the sound, however, i notice every alter- ation, regardless of how small. For me, one always loses more through technical influences than one gains! Why should i have had to occupy myself with the sound of my instrument only to change everything again when recording?

We wished to attain a special sound image with this recording. out of good loudspeakers, there comes a sound comparable to what i heard with my ears during the recording sessions. if you go up close to the loudspeakers, you’ll hear it accord- ingly. if you move away from the loudspeakers, the sound of your listening room will alter the sound; it will almost have the effect as if i had been playing in your room. You thereby experi- ence your own personal room acoustics. if you place the stereo system in the bathroom, then you’ll hear my violin as it would have sounded in your bathroom. if you place the system in your largest room, then you’ll hear the music almost as if at a concert in that room. increasing the dis- tance from the loudspeakers also increases the extent to which the room colours the sound.”

MDG recordings also take very seriously the idea of realistic sound, including violin sound. Their sound engineering policy is ambitious.

“
Sound Realism in Recording
"The recording of the sound produced in speaking or musical performance so as to be able to conserve it and to reproduce it at will is an idea that has long occupied the human mind. More magical approaches may initially have inspired the imagination, among them Giovanni della Porta's 1598 attempt to capture sound in lead pipes, but the progressive development of scientific thought led along a relatively straight path to the solution" (Riemann Musiklexikon).
Since the beginning of the electric recording era, the recording engineer in his role as a "sound director" has made it his business to meet the needs of composer, interpreter, and hearer. We all know what goes into a recording, but the criteria shaping the listening experience are another matter. And so we would like to take this opportunity to share with you our sound ideal.
The Recording
Once questions of place and space have been resolved, the production of good sound then turns to microphones. Different types of microphones, each one with its own distinct sound qualities, are available and have to be brought into harmony with the sound of the instruments in the recording space. The placement of the microphones is also important for the natural production of sound; they have to be placed so as to bring out the proper nuances in a solo performance or to compensate with "cover-up" effects. The purist's ideal of only two microphones only rarely meets the complex demands of a recording with a number of different instruments. But no matter how many microphones are employed, the impression of natural sound is what counts, not how this live effect is produced. It is good enough if it sounds as if only two microphones were used. Without so-called corrective devices such as filters, limiters, equalizers, and artificial resonance, we collect the microwaves directly in a purist's dream of a mixer and pass on the stereo signal controlled by the electrostatic headphone linearly and unlimitedly to the analogue-digital converter in the pulse-code modulation storage unit. This guarantees the maintenance of even the finest nuances of sound. On the digital level, we edit the tape here at MDG on our own editor and without any modifying manipulations of the sound. This tape is produced into the compact disc for you hearers, and hopefully, to your great listening pleasure.
Criteria of Good Sound
1. Natural tone colors of the instruments (voices)
2. Natural room acoustics
3. Natural reproduction of the ensemble in breadth and depth
4. Natural balance between the instruments
5. Natural dynamics (differences in volume) of the instruments
6. Natural musical flow of the performance/reproductionyou may enjoy this recording for example.”

You may enjoy this recording

It’s quite a big undertaking for a recording company to try to create a realistic recording, not only technically. Many people don’t expect the real sound of music, they’re not used to the real sound of music and they don’t like it when they hear it in their living rooms, it makes them feel uncomfortable, it’s too demanding, too imposing. So the realistic sound may be judged negatively.

 

[ff1d1l]

To revisit this thread, if, like me your violin making friend is particularly sensitive to timbral purity - no fizz, please - I'd very strongly suggest he investigates passive pre amps.
Doesn't have to be silver traffo'd jobbie - cheaper alternatives exist, from an Alps in a box, to the still affordable and really excellent Khozmos. Could check out Schiit, too. You have to spend really silly money on an active pre to enjoy the lack of hash and clarity of even a modest passive.
As an attainable system suggestion, what about a good passive and some of those active wee JBLs LSR 305's - recommended these to a musician friend recently and he is totally chuffed with them especially as he was thinking of spending many times what they cost. They sound excellent, btw. With a sub they could be everything you need...really. They're that good.

Edit review here

 

[Take5]

In my view, a lot of the above is just nonsense.

Probably written to sell cds.

Any honest violinist would never say that a CD reproduction can replicate for a listener the experience of hearing the same piece of music live, in the same room.

Just think what they are saying. That a pair of speakers, set possibly 8ft apart can replicate the sound coming from a an unamplified violin. It is nonsense.

 

[Take5]

My post above was being written as post 27 was posted. I was referring to post 26.

 

[mandryka]

In my view, a lot of the above is just nonsense.

Probably written to sell cds.

Any honest violinist would never say that a CD reproduction can replicate for a listener the experience of hearing the same piece of music live, in the same room.

Just think what they are saying. That a pair of speakers, set possibly 8ft apart can replicate the sound coming from a an unamplified violin. It is nonsense.

Have a listen to Letzbor with good equipment, see what you think of the sound.

 

[k90tour]

This violinist isn't saying that you can replicate a violin. Of course you can't. We are just discussing what HiFi can better another. This isn't a thread about NOT buying a system.
Most professional musicians I know don't listen to music. Between practice, rehearsals and performance, there's more than enough music playing between their ears.

 

[ian r]

Whilst accepting some selling re the violinist....Im going to buy it and listen as I am glad he cares so much about the things we like to listen too.

I think his point re listening nearfield as opposed to back on the sofa is a fair suggestion

good thread

 

[Hempknight]

If his main source is CD ? I can recommend Deltec/DPA DAC's for folk/acoustic, a PDM1 or one of their DX range can be had reasonably, partnered with a Musical Fidelity valve buffer, and it's like their playing in your room (depending on the recording/mastering ofc).

 

[Helen Bach]

I'm also a musician. Been one for 63 years (saxes and flute, lately guitar). Played in orchestras, wind ensembles to simple acoustic stuff, classical, folk, jazz, and even '20's dance band when I was 9. And I'm interested in hifi, or rather getting a realistic sound out of what I have.

I have found over time that a realistic sound is not related to price of equipment, some expensive kit can/does sound dreadful (LS3/5A a case in point).
And cd is pretty awful, too. I have a cd player and haven't used it in 10 years!

But I won't recommend anything as it depends on the individuals wants and needs, I'm just going to say that music and hifi are not necessarily on the same Venn diagram!

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

DEciding on what Jim? I think we are over complicating this.

Bloke who plays violin wants better sounding HiFi. Help!

But is he judgeing this on the basis of wanting to hear from the HiFi what he hears when the violin is under his chin, or on the basis of what a violin sounds like ten feet away? Makes a big difference.

 

[Rockmeister]

well as it's a CD, I guess 10ft away? From the point of view of his audience, and, before you ask, I have no idea if he knows what that sound is so, as I said.
Bloke wants better hiFi system Ta.

Passive pre is an idea, but he really is NOT HiFi man so more boxes = a bad thing.

 

[Minio]

From my experience of listening and playing (or I might say: dabbling with) violin, the instrument can be used to convey a wide pallet of tones according to mood of the music. From assertive quartet, pizzicato and then the lush sweet orchestral tones for more pastoral moods. I’ve also had a fiddle player in my band.

I can’t say I have heard the hifi get in the way of listening to violin, but then I’m spoilt, I suppose, by having half decent hifi. I’d recommend a good dealer with proper dem facilities to the op.

Things are more likely to go wrong in the recording and mastering process imo.

 

[mandryka]

One bit of experience I have with this is that when I got my first good DAC - a Museatex idat44 - the first thing I noticed was the texture of the string tone, not violin but viol. It changed my whole attitude to music, beacuse it made it more sensual. It was that experience which made me start to take hifi really seriously in fact, it made me see that it was rewarding to invest time and money.

I’m now a few thousand pounds poorer and I have more equipment than I need, but I am happy . . .

 

[vinylslug]

...Gunnar Letzbor’s recording of the Bach solo violin music has tried to address this problem of capturing violin sound on record. Letzbor writes...

I'm really enjoying this recording. I'm iTunes streaming, so not even getting the best quality, but I'm enjoying the rawness of it. It's possibly more akin to textured noise than music, but there's a palpable presence.

 

[Arkless Electronics]

When playing an instrument there is also often a significant amount of the sound being heard through your bones transferring it to your ears so unlikely to ever get same sound as when playing it.