Our Systems, Scale, and the Sound of Music

[bonzo75]

Try listening to Datasat Dirac RS20i with Auro 3d, in something like a 13.4 or 15.4 system. Subs aside, it is the height speakers that recreate a concert hall atmosphere, 3d soundstage and separation. It is the closest I have heard a full symphony orchestra or church organ being reproduced, a Cessaro Liszt, Vox Olympian, or such high end 2-channels cannot compare IMO. The brass in Scheherezade, Bach chorals, and opera duets were to die for. And I heard it in a crappy 7m * 3m room that one would shudder to put a small soundbar in. It will be interesting to see what the Trinnov with remappong and Atmos can do.

 

[Al M.]

Last night, Al M. and I attended a live performance in a residential setting. Jonathan Miller, Cello, and Marc Ryser, Piano, performed "Music from the Time of Louis Comfort Tiffany". In 1900, Tiffany designed the house in Boston in which we heard the music. They played Sonatas from Cowell, Janacek and Debussy. There were 35-40 people gathered around the living room which was roughly 35' X 28' X 15'.

The performance was truly wonderful, but what I really appreciated was hearing music that was composed when the house was built and that was meant to be heard in just such a setting. The energy from those two instruments in a rather grand living room was simply incredible. It was very loud but very easy to listen to. And it clearly demonstrated what I discussed earlier in the thread about the size of the image of the instruments being clear and distinct from the shear power, volume and scale of the sound they produced. That distinction is one characteristic which separates good systems from great systems, IMO. Large systems which can play loudly without distortion or congestion can perhaps begin to approach this level of energy and ease.

Small scale live performances in these kinds of spaces can serve as wonderful references for us as we try to develop and improve our systems. This is what people heard in their living rooms when this music was written and what a treat it was to experience it last night. It was a delightful evening of great music and a reminder of just how far the best systems still have to go to reproduce such a performance accurately.

Yes, that was a wonderful evening of music, wasn't it, Peter? While in that setting the piano produced a quite large sonic image, the cello produced a small one, albeit not as small as in a concert hall, even a hall of rather moderate size. Hearing the small sonic image of the cello producing that huge, room-filling sound made me more fully understand what Peter was aiming to convey on this thread.

 

[JackD201]

Proportion is equal or greater than equal to scale in my book That said, I echo others before me in that IMO and IME the greater contributor to this is more on the production rather than reproduction.