Living Presence

DDB

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Mar 28, 2012
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Am I wrong in/at/for thinking like that?

By the way, Welcome DDB to WBF! :b

Thank you for the welcome NorthStar!
While there are a lot of good - read: well designed acoustics - modern concert halls around today, we have and had - just as many great sounding halls from years long gone.
Conserved on many great stereo record(ing)s from the 1950ies/60ies/70ies.
 

Syntax

Well-Known Member
Feb 26, 2012
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At The Dark Side
Conserved on many great stereo record(ing)s from the 1950ies/60ies/70ies.

Some good Masterings ;)


 

MylesBAstor

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
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Fifty years ago, most acoustics from concert halls were very poor. Today we have some much better ones.

And forget it, 'bout music rock concerts and all those poor theaters or/& clubs where the sound is just a cacaphony of reverbs!

You can live in a place where there are no good places to serioulsy attend live music concerts with the right acoustics! So then you are slave to your own demise; at home trying to recreate it! :b
...But recreate the good ones (concert halls with the best acoustics).
And how would you know if you have never been there???

Audiophilia is a relative Living Presence; an interpretation, a brain recreation, a conjecture.

Really can't say that I agree with you Bob.

Carnegie Hall. Boston Symphony Hall. Two of the best that I've been lucky enough to attend. Then there was Chicago Orchestra Hall pre-renovation. That's not to mention smaller halls such as the Troy Savings Bank Hall near Albany.

Then look at all the great halls in Europe such as Vienna, London, Amsterdam, etc. I don't think any of the new halls come close. Certainly not the Cyril Harris abominations.
 
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NorthStar

Member
Feb 8, 2011
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What I simply meant is that today we are in much better acoustic disposition
than what we were fifty years ago.

Just look at all the new concert hall designs, plus the renovations done on many older ones.
That is all.

Jeezzz, I only said "most".
 

MylesBAstor

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
11,236
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New York City
What I simply meant is that today we are in much better acoustic disposition
than what we were fifty years ago.

Just look at all the new concert hall designs, plus the renovations done on many older ones.
That is all.

Jeezzz, I only said "most".

Unfortunately Cyril Harris proved that acoustic equations for small halls don't apply to large halls. Also, don't place too much faith in acoustic measurements vis a vis the destruction of Carnegie Hall. The hall is but a shell of its once glorious self despite the claims about the hall measuring the same. Oh, and after the powers to be at Carnegie proclaiming the "new" hall to sonically equivalent (and they had all the charts and graphs to prove it), they found that the contractors had forgotten to remove the concrete construction slab after the rennovation. Oops :)
 

fas42

Addicted To Best
Jan 8, 2011
3,973
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NSW Australia
A music system either reproduce the signal that corresponds to a specific instrument or group of instruments or it doesn't. This can be measured to certain degree. We are not at a point where we know everything that must be measured but we do know a few ...
Correct. It can never be "perfect" reproduction, but there is a certain standard of accuracy that can be achieved, by "due diligence", that is sufficient to fool the brain. This is an extremely worthy goal to pursue but the efforts to get there have been very sporadic, poorly understood and largely ignored. This is one of the great shames of the hobby, and industry ...

Frank
 

NorthStar

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Unfortunately Cyril Harris proved that acoustic equations for small halls don't apply to large halls. Also, don't place too much faith in acoustic measurements vis a vis the destruction of Carnegie Hall. The hall is but a shell of its once glorious self despite the claims about the hall measuring the same. Oh, and after the powers to be at Carnegie proclaiming the "new" hall to sonically equivalent (and they had all the charts and graphs to prove it), they found that the contractors had forgotten to remove the concrete construction slab after the rennovation. Oops :)

Very interesting Myles.

How many concert halls are there in the world? ...Large, and smaller ones.
And how acoustical measurements from fifty years ago translate to today's measurements?
...The mics used, the technics used, the computers used, the material used, etc., etc., etc.

Are we advancing, or going backwards?
 

MylesBAstor

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Apr 20, 2010
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Very interesting Myles.

How many concert halls are there in the world? ...Large, and smaller ones.
And how acoustical measurements from fifty years ago translate to today's measurements?
...The mics used, the technics used, the computers used, the material used, etc., etc., etc.

Are we advancing, or going backwards?

I think the making of a great hall is more art than science :) For example, why is Vienna's Musikverein rated one of the top halls?

This paper is a good review of what goes into the acoustics of a hall!

http://www.leoberanek.com/pages/eightyeighthalls.pdf
 

NorthStar

Member
Feb 8, 2011
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I think the making of a great hall is more art than science :) For example, why is Vienna's Musikverein rated one of the top halls?

This paper is a good review of what goes into the acoustics of a hall!

http://www.leoberanek.com/pages/eightyeighthalls.pdf

Mister, you always give me links that take forever to load!

Anyway, it finally appeared and I strolled through it ...
It even mentioned Potter et all. ...Harry Potter? ;)

Myles, that is a fantastic link (read)! Very cool of you to share this with us.
I did not read it in its entirety yet, but I surely will.

And how appropriate and on topic. ...1962 was exactly fifty years ago!
I am truly advancing... :b
 

cjfrbw

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
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One wonders how the so called acousiticians get those contracts for hundreds of millions of dollars, some kind of graft? Nobody ever agrees how hall acoustics should be done, and nobody seems to like the halls exactly when they are finished.

Maybe the secret formula is decades of sweat, vaporized secretions, smoke and carbon dioxide embedded in the walls.
 

MylesBAstor

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
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Mister, you always give me links that take forever to load!

Anyway, it finally appeared and I strolled through it ...
It even mentioned Potter et all. ...Harry Potter? ;)

Myles, that is a fantastic link (read)! Very cool of you to share this with us.
I did not read it in its entirety yet, but I surely will.

And how appropriate and on topic. ...1962 was exactly fifty years ago!
I am truly advancing... :b

What are you using- an abacus? ;)

It took ten secs to load on my iPad and a couple of seconds on my pc. Sounds like you need some more memory! :)
 

Soundproof

New Member
Jan 13, 2012
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Oslo, Norway
I think the making of a great hall is more art than science :) For example, why is Vienna's Musikverein rated one of the top halls?

Musikverein is actually art as happy historical accident. We're in Europe as the bourgeoisie is growing, but nobility is still receiving respect, particularly in Kaiserlich & Könighlich Austria-Hungary (1867-1918)

The building was inaugurated three years into the timespan above, and was built during a period and at a location that allowed for a certain width, and a given length. Those dimensions (a shoebox, really) were ideal for the propagation of music to an audience. Extant knowledge of what materials to dress the inner walls with was used - one had centuries of experience with similarly dimensioned music rooms from the great houses of nobility.

Later, with the bourgeoisie growing and the clamor for admission growing, music halls grew in size and width, and acousticians and architects had to devise stranger and stranger ploys to make the listening conditions acceptable. With wider halls, the propagation patterns just were no longer manageable, demanding instruments that produced stronger and stronger sound ... which makes an argument for the HIP recordings, actually, if it's authenticity one wants. But that's another matter.

Musikverein - at the intersection of changing world orders, architectural building skill and limitations given by the site chosen. And we're all the better for it. BTW - the people who built the new hall in Aarhus, Denmark, went to great lengths to recreate the acoustical conditions of the Musikverein hall, paying particular attention to the dimensions. If you're ever there, try to make the trip coincide with one of the frequent performances in the hall.
 

DDB

New Member
Mar 28, 2012
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The Musikvereinsaal in Vienna is a happy example of very old architectonic principles consequently (if maybe be coincident...) applied to form a wonderful acoustical result in action.
You'll find very similar ratio ( the golden ratio that is ... ) in the hall's dimensions here as you will in Troy Savings.

Next - and most important - it is irrelevant how a hall "measures" (measurements taken where ?).
In a concert hall it all comes down to how it sounds when filled with hundreds (thousand(s) of bodies which themselves do highly influence the acoustic behavior of the given space.

The relative modern Munich Philharmonie Gasteig (where I have attended about 140+ orchestral concerts in the past 22 years plus about 30 in the way older Herkulessaal) was sonically dreadful ( L. Bernstein's famous remark: "burn it!" ;-) ...) in most places (very good in a small handful ) and soon modified with acoustical panels to get it a bit better.
That all in modern times, with the best of modern equipment at hand and with lots of funds in the back.
It still doesn't qualify for any list of good sounding concert halls.
 

MylesBAstor

Well-Known Member
Apr 20, 2010
11,236
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New York City
Later, with the bourgeoisie growing and the clamor for admission growing, music halls grew in size and width, and acousticians and architects had to devise stranger and stranger ploys to make the listening conditions acceptable. With wider halls, the propagation patterns just were no longer manageable, demanding instruments that produced stronger and stronger sound ... which makes an argument for the HIP recordings, actually, if it's authenticity one wants. But that's another matter.

Thanks for the historical perspective.

I also think there's a lot to be said for your argument about halls being bigger and bigger. Look at that travesty here in NY: Avery Fisher No amount of money has fixed it and now they're calling for it to be torn down. Except the donors then say they'll withdraw their sponsorship of Lincoln Center.
 

ALF

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Mar 15, 2012
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Super Structural Space


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Simply, a room that works; it is enhanced by the nonlinear moving from the whole to the part...
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
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Manila, Philippines

NorthStar

Member
Feb 8, 2011
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...The view from the front window and window door?

- Enhancement (from the view).
- Non-linear (mountains).
- Moving (the front window door can be opened).
- Whole (room, loudspeakers, plants, albums playing, and the view of course).
- Part (of the entire synergy).

:b
 
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