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What are the world's best speakers to bring the philharmonic into your living room?

the requirements for classical are the same. a speaker that is good is good on any thing. no specialization. if it is better on one thing...it sucks.[/QUOTE]

you are so wrong that it's not funny. The main reason most of the speakers sucks IS because they try to make them universal. (and secure the sales for deaf imbeciles with loads of cash and "sound advisers") Technology is still in such primitive state that it is not possible to make a truly universal speaker. Save the bits about what professional butchers use. I had my share of criminally recorded material and badly amplified performances. I have as much respect for the sound industry as for MTV .(I was going to say RED district but I respect ladies there much more than sound engineers -most of them are dedicated professionals while sound professionals don't deserve to shine pimps shoes )
 
Definitively not: it goes to about 32 Hz. Timpany goes down to about 70 Hz.

Careful here. If the drum is tuned to 32 Hz then the act of hitting it will create signal quite far below and above this in the spectrum. IMO it pays to have the deepest possible even bass response, although fitting this then in the dimensions of a living room is not trivial (in fact not possible).
 
I wouldn't be that concerned with what operas use . They use industry standards nothing more . Ever been in classical musician home and listen to his Boombox setup?. Most of them (classical musicians ) have an equivalent of boombox at homes and are deaf to differences in performance of audio equipment , just a different mindset. ATC is a good sounding speaker with decent dynamics for direct radiating drivers . It is also little cold sounding and tonally washed out but it would be a minor criticism. (I'm not familiar with active atc's)
I haven't heard any big commercial speaker worth 1/10 it's price for big orchestral pieces . Most of them sound forced and mechanical and way to "impressive" Life music doesn't sound that way at all . Unfortunately without this "engineered in " impressiveness non of the audiophools would pay the sums they are asking for their shiny MDF boxes . It wouldn't work on their expensive yachts entertaining Eastern European whores with Italo Disco .
Ever had an impression that the bigger , more expensive speaker the more ridiculous it sounds? But why blame the speaker designers when the only public going to Orchestra Halls are geriatric Jews and post senior citizens? There are no customers for that kind of speakers. Certainly not subjects of his Royal Highness brainwashed by loyal Hi-fi press into Naim, Linn ,Rega triangle (forgot the porridge:) like there is nothing beyond that.

Do I detect a note of racism or xenophobia? "East European whores, Italo disco, geriatric Jews, post senior citizens." Their ears don't count?

However, I agree with you that a good speaker should sound good with any kind of music, and that most modern high-end speakers are made to "impress." I would dearly love to hear a pair of James' 3-ways.
 
Werner, is it not possible with well implemented DRC?

Literature suggests that five subs, optimally placed, and each driven with an individually eq'd and timed signal, are indeed capable of delivering bass to a listening area of a few square meters in a way that the room does not audibly mar the result.
 
Want huge scale and without strain? Need BIG horns. ala w.e 15's. Maybe very large multi's.

Whilst big direct radiators can be good, they can't compete on this paramater. And i say this as a user of pmc mb2's with 1000w amp at home.
 
Listening to mine now... I've had, amongst others:
LS3/5a, Active Isobariks, and Quad ESL 57, and my Martin Logan Summits are so far beyond any of them that comparison is almost pointless. I'm sure there are better, but nothing I will ever be able to afford.

What's the difference between the Summits and Summit X, Jem, apart from the price? I've seen the former go for 3-4 grand; half that demanded for the X
 
Thought I ought to see what all this classical lark is about...

Found an LSO sampler and played Shostakovich Symphony No11.
Found some loud bits about 7:30 in, quite impressive, got the doors to rattle with the big final drum - quite a long decay after the initial transient, I guess that's the hall reverberation. Excellent dynamic range on this recording, I had the volume well past my usual position for "v loud" and it did indeed get V loud during that crescendo.
It's been many years since I saw the LSO but I don't remember it being that loud (from mid hall).
 
Thought I ought to see what all this classical lark is about...

Found an LSO sampler and played Shostakovich Symphony No11.
Found some loud bits about 7:30 in, quite impressive, got the doors to rattle with the big final drum - quite a long decay after the initial transient, I guess that's the hall reverberation. Excellent dynamic range on this recording, I had the volume well past my usual position for "v loud" and it did indeed get V loud during that crescendo.
It's been many years since I saw the LSO but I don't remember it being that loud (from mid hall).

i went to the Barbican for a performance of Turangalila last year and that was loud enough to leave my ears ringing for a few hours from front mid.

The speaker on the Ondes was definitely on it's way out too.

Been to the RAH and Festival Hall with PA and you never want to be on axis for the treble stacks. Horrible and harsh. Trouble is at RAH they have a different setup each time so you can't predict where is best to sit.
I've had far better sq outside, esp Jazz World and Other stages at Glasto; the wine box might help a bit there though.
 
Quality rant from limono. I'm sure normal service will be resumed when he finds his meds.

Found them , thanks .It's all good now. I did my morning make-up and I'm dancing to Italo Disco , life is wonderful, not even a hint of Xenophobia in the air , we're all brothers from another mothers ...Sorry I don't have time for this discussion anymore. Gulietta Bombassima is so ,..so ecstatic that I simply have to crank up my Proac clone to the max ...
 
I wouldn't be that concerned with what operas use . They use industry standards nothing more . Ever been in classical musician home and listen to his Boombox setup?. Most of them (classical musicians ) have an equivalent of boombox at homes and are deaf to differences in performance of audio equipment , just a different mindset. ATC is a good sounding speaker with decent dynamics for direct radiating drivers . It is also little cold sounding and tonally washed out but it would be a minor criticism. (I'm not familiar with active atc's)
I haven't heard any big commercial speaker worth 1/10 it's price for big orchestral pieces . Most of them sound forced and mechanical and way to "impressive" Life music doesn't sound that way at all . Unfortunately without this "engineered in " impressiveness non of the audiophools would pay the sums they are asking for their shiny MDF boxes . It wouldn't work on their expensive yachts entertaining Eastern European whores with Italo Disco .
Ever had an impression that the bigger , more expensive speaker the more ridiculous it sounds? But why blame the speaker designers when the only public going to Orchestra Halls are geriatric Jews and post senior citizens? There are no customers for that kind of speakers. Certainly not subjects of his Royal Highness brainwashed by loyal Hi-fi press into Naim, Linn ,Rega triangle (forgot the porridge:) like there is nothing beyond that.

Bzlbub once said he hates live music.

I would ignore hifi advice from anyone who says that.
 
Nobody has mentioned Apogees. Best I've heard are the Full Ranges, but Scintillas are pretty amazing. Not an easy speaker to live with (amps), but one of the worlds best, ever.
 
Careful here. If the drum is tuned to 32 Hz then the act of hitting it will create signal quite far below and above this in the spectrum. IMO it pays to have the deepest possible even bass response, although fitting this then in the dimensions of a living room is not trivial (in fact not possible).
No microphone has captured lower frequencies from instruments than those reported in many papers.
If any lower frequencies are captured, these come from the concert hall (vibrations of the back wall, of the stages and so on) not from the instrument. Infact measurements done in appropriate chambers give other results as in concert halls. What also is very important is the propagation of the sound in the room. The frequency responses of instruments are very dependent from the position in the room, even in the anechoic chamber.
 
Yes, and this is the feeling you get in a big concert hall, a kind of low frequency rumble-echo, noise-floor, can't find the words, that gives the atmosphere of a live concert. Because you ears are not in a microphone close to the instruments, but 50 yards away and picking up all the residual echoes of the original sounds. But I suppose really big speakers, in a big room, could reproduce even that, to some extent.
 


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