Article: Calibrating My Ears at the San Francisco Symphony

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6 minutes ago, coot said:

Pianist?

 

Daniil Trifonov

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39 minutes ago, Confused said:

A fine article sir!  Also, it has given me some inspiration, London is a one hour train ride for me, I really should make the effort to visit and listen to something similar myself.

 

As an aside, how impressive is that organ??  I am sure it could be a sub bass monster with the right music.

 

Glad to hear it. You should!

 

I happen to be en route to London. I will be at CanJam this weekend, and have already booked tickets to the Proms on Saturday AND Sunday!

 

As for the organ, yes indeed. I want to return to SFS next time they do Mahler 8th or similar.

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1 hour ago, miguelito said:

A/B? Blind testing?

 

What did you have in mind? ?‍♂️

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17 hours ago, bbosler said:

Can't you just enjoy the music?

 

16 hours ago, bbosler said:

This clearly demonstrates the difference between those who love music and those who love stereos.

 

Sorry for the delayed response, as I was traveling.

 

Thanks to the several folks who have answered this for me already. To summarize:

1. I always  attend concerts to enjoy the music - not to "calibrate my ears." How dreary that would be!
2. I love music AND I love stereos. This is not a zero sum game
3. The fact that I was making mental notes did not in any way detract from the enjoyment of the music. Remember I said I used this concert because the music was so familiar to me, so I could enjoy it without diminishment, and still think about what I was hearing.
4. My point about "these experiences" is that while I chose to use this particular performance to marshal my thoughts, and give them voice, every concert I attend does serve the purpose of "calibrating my ears," even though I don't necessary think about all the aspects I mentioned consciously. 
5. Rather, the collection of experiences - i.e. attending live concerts - serves to build a reference in my aural memory of what music sounds like in a real concert.

It was a fair question, and I hope I clarified my rationale for you.

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8 hours ago, miguelito said:

I was just joking... Sorry if it was too terse. I pictured you standing up and telling them all "Can you play that again while I cover my eyes?"

 

Ah ? I get it now!

 

I doubt MTT would have been amused at the interruption. LOL.

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18 hours ago, hols said:

Hi austinpop nice write up. You lucky man. Daniil Trifonov is really a genius and definitely the most exciting pianist around nowadays. You've got to listen to his recitals if you get a chance. It is even more startling than his concerto performance.

 

He was amazing indeed!

 

18 hours ago, hols said:

Like you I am a classical music enthusiast and I go to orchestral concerts regularly. I agree with you entirely that in the actual performance the orchestra layout is not as sharp as in our recreated audio. But one point I would like to make when we compare real performance and our recreated audio sound is that there is an intermediary i.e. the recording engineer and the mastering engineer. I used to believe that what we can hear from our CDs is not 100% what the conductor wants you to hear but more what the recording engineer wants you to hear. (Musically yes mostly from the conductor but the HiFi aspect it is mostly from the recording and mastering engineer). There are many tricks or tweaks that the recording engineer or mastering engineer can put in before the release of the CD so much so that they can increase the depth or width of the orchestra layout, improve the timbre of certain solo instruments, enhance the reverberation or adding airiness to improve the dynamics. So the final outcome of the CD may or may not reflect the actual performance no matter how hard you try. Just my 2 cents.

 

Great point about the recording and mastering process. In my mind, it's another factor that makes it harder to get close to the real thing. 

 

13 hours ago, firedog said:

I wouldn't be surprised if in the not distant future we will be able to use DSP and psychoacoustics to make a "virtual reality"  playback that is good enough to fool us into thinking we are hearing the real thing. Enough cues, and our brains will fill in the rest. 

 

Yes I wouldn't be surprised if DSP rises in importance and impact. We're already seeing things like the Smyth Realizer, or the JVC Exasound technology. I suspect there is a lot more to come.

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8 hours ago, ElviaCaprice said:

Very nice Rajiv.  Be interesting to hear your perception on a band live via a PA system and how that images or lack of in comparison.

 

Hi Mark, 

 

What I'm describing has been mainly in the context of unamplified acoustic music, which also inclues jazz.

 

While I have attended a few rock concerts in my day, I don't recall getting much out of them, and ended up not having a good time. Mostly because it was way too loud.

 

I would love to hear other views on amplified live music.

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9 hours ago, loop7 said:

Great piece.

 

I've been attending SF Symphony concerts in Davies Symphony Hall since 1997 (4-5 concerts per year). For years, I sat in the First Tier because it offers great views with mid-line prices but I would also sit in the different areas of the Orchestra section when budget or circumstances permitted.

 

So, those were my two areas until I had a lengthy post-concert conversation with a volunteer docent (retired broker) in 2004 who had been attending concerts in Davies since it opened, during and after the renovations. He strongly urged me to give the Second Tier a try because, in his opinion, it was up in that area where the hall really worked in terms creating magic. I questioned his advice because the view is mediocre.

 

The next concert to which I had tickets was Mahler's 6th symphony (Tilson Thomas) in the First Tier but I swapped them for prime seats in the Second Tier. Well, the sound was so balanced, full and emotional that the experience is permanently imprinted into memory. Thinking it was the performance/piece and not the Second Tier, I then attended a few more concerts way up in those "cheap seats" and have never looked back. It's remarkable how much better the sound is up there than in the more expensive areas of Davies.

 

Oh, the wise old docent had spent a lot of time traveling across the country for concerts and thought the Cleveland and Dallas halls are still number one in the US according to his ears.

 

Wow thanks, that is great insight and advice!

 

I’ll have to give it a try and see, next time I attend the SFS. In general - not specific to Davies - I have found the sound in the cheap seats in the upper tiers to lack dynamics, although perhaps it is accompanied by a more balanced presentation?

 

I’ll have to see. I find live dynamics to be one of the more compelling aspects of attending the symphony.

 

I’ll also have to check out Dallas and Cleveland!

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23 hours ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

I agree with much of what you say.  But, there is a solution that works extraordinarily well in dealing with the issues you cited - discretely recorded multichannel sound.

 

I have been attending  Philadelphia Orchestra and other live concerts for decades.  Obviously, nothing beats live performance sonically. But, I was always struck by the fact that no stereos - my own very fine and costly ones or even more outrageously over the top ones - were really faithful to the sound one experiences at live concerts.  Yes,  I could deeply enjoy the music at home in stereo, but it still was too far from sounding real to me.

 

Fortunately, my encounters with Mch audio over a decade ago changed that, dramatically for the better,  and I upgraded to a high quality 7.1 system.  Also, fortunately, I discovered that there was a substantial and rewarding classical discography in discretely recorded Mch on SACD, plus less so on BD-V and BD-A.  Yes, the selection is much smaller than on CD, but I have collected many thousands of Mch albums, all ripped to my NAS.  I do not miss CDs at all, and I have not bought any stereo recordings in over 10 years.

 

I am not implying utter perfection in discrete Mch.  But, I am much, much more satisfied in home listening, with none of the feelings that something is missing from the sound. It changed my life more than any other audio experience.  I also have found that attempting to tweak your hopelessly too small listening  room for concert hall sound or using stereo to Mch upmixing both fall far and disappointingly short of discretely recorded Mch sound.  

 

16 hours ago, STC said:

 

+1 to that. Two speakers system cannot adequately portray a concert hall sound. I have always preferred multichannel format over stereo  for full orchestra. Most Mch SACD's rear channel carries the rear hall ambiance. This is closer to concert hall performance as the additional channels/speakers are reproducing what couldn't be included in the main stereo channel. There are also other 5.1 where the rear or surround channels are not true stereo sound but mere discrete mono channels for creating a sense of surround sound by projecting sound from side and rear. This is more useful for movies.

 

Having said that, even the 5.1 or 7.1 is still far from realism. In my system of 72 channels of hall ambiance alone vs  5.1  (I do not have 7.1 music tracks), the difference can be heard easily. I still think that is still far from realism.

 

Nice to know another fan of multichannel format.

 

Cheers!

 

Great point about Mch SACD.

 

I too have hundreds of ripped Mch SACDs in my library. I do listen to them in my home theater, using my Oppo 105D to stream from my NAS. A few points on this:

• this is a format particularly sensitive to the recording and mastering engineers' skill and aesthetic. The ones that get this right are amazing, but others are ... weird.
• the speaker placement for which Mch SACDs are typically mastered, is NOT the same as for 5.1 HT, but I've never been motivated enough to reconfigure my setup for the recommended Mch music.
• Also, my 5.1 setup uses smaller speakers for center and surround, whereas Mch music benefits from identical speakers all around.

All that said, it is an intriguing alternate path to the concert experience. I admit that I veer towards being a stereo purist myself.

 

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14 hours ago, esimms86 said:

Rajiv, I thoroughly enjoyed the article. I did have one question, though. Please correct me if my recollection is faulty but isn't it so that you do your listening at home through a headphone based system? If so, then I suspect that something like the upcoming Smyth Realiser A16 paired with some multichannel classical recordings would really take your at home listening to another level.

 

Yes, I mentioned the Smyth Realizer A16 up-thread. I really want to audition it. There are also several of these "out of your head" SW technologies out there now. I just wish these software solutions were packaged up as Roon plugins, not standalone apps that run on Windows only, as some are.

 

14 hours ago, esimms86 said:

BTW, if you have a taste for acoustic or slightly amplified jazz performed in a small venue then I would definitely recommend such a concertgoing experience to also help in "recalibrating your ears." In addition, there is nothing to match the dynamic sound of live drums(and piano, as you point out).

 

Oh yeah, the live jazz experience is amazing too.

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Funny corollary - I am in London at the CanJam that starts tomorrow. Today I was walking on Westminster Bridge, and walked past a guy playing Amazing Grace on bagpipes. 

 

The timbre and energy of the instrument as I walked by was just incredible. There are all kinds of subtle sounds and details to the main sound of the instrument that come across.

 

No, I didn't stop to do A/B with eyes closed/open. The guy wasn't that good. ?

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25 minutes ago, astrotoy said:

Thanks to austinpop for your analysis.  We go to the SFS pretty often, it is our home orchestra.  We also know many of the members, who perform in my wife's concert series, and who have performed in our home.  So going to a concert where you know the performers makes it more fun.

 

We go to quite a few concerts a year, about 70 - almost all classical.  I don't normally try to compare to my home hifi system, but several of your statements ring true. We do a fair amount of orchestral concerts, a lot of chamber and solo music and some opera and ballet. About a third or more of the concerts we attend are in London and surroundings on our annual sojourn there, so we get to hear concerts in different halls, generally with some of the best artists.  We are usually in London when MTT is doing his guest conducting stint with the LSO, so get to hear him (and soloists like Yuja Wang and Yo-Yo Ma) with this great band. We heard three operas in London and surroundings last month, Rosenkavalier and Handel's Julius Caesar at Glyndebourne and Lohengrin at the Royal Opera House (Andris Nelsons conducting). 

 

Sitting typically around where austinpop sits, maybe three or so rows closer, the dynamics of a full orchestra playing Mahler from the quietest pianissimo to the loudest triple forte can be stunning.  I think the pinpoint imaging that so many audiophiles enjoy (me included) is not my experience in the concert hall, even when sitting fairly close.

 

We go to concerts because we enjoy the experience. We are often introduced to new music or interpretations that are fresh and different. Sometimes they are revelatory, sometimes we walk away thinking what was that. 

 

Records and tapes, particularly from the predigital era, gives us exposure to artists who are no longer with us.  I was fortunate to start going seriously to concerts while in college in the early and mid '60's, so heard many of the top performers, who regularly stopped in Boston to perform. Of course I could go to the BSO with Leinsdorf conducting, in addition to hearing Rubinstein, Serkin, Cliburn, Joan Sutherland, Budapest String Quartet and many others.  However, their performances are memories, only brought to life by my records and tapes and some digital files ripped from analogue originals.

 

Interestingly, although we currently listen to many of the top current classical performers in concert, I don't buy as many of their releases. We really like Mitsuko Uchida, Paul Lewis, Yuja Wang, Nicola Benedetti, James Ehnes, MTT and the SFS, the London SO, the Vienna Phil, the Philharmonia O, the Chicago SO, Philharmonia Baroque (our other local band), to name just some of the artists we have heard in the few years,  but I almost never seek out their recent recordings to buy on CD or SACD or download.

 

Larry

 

 

Larry, thanks for adding your experiences here. Wow, 70 concerts a year? Nice!

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I just attended two BBC Proms concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London: Beethoven 9th last night, and Mahler 8th tonight.

 

What an experience! The Proms are a unique British event, where the center of the arena accommodates standing-room attendees. Both concerts had a strong choral element. I was seated in the "Stalls," closer to the stage, and so was very close to one section of the choir. The effect of a large choir is stunning. And of course the Mahler 8th is arguably one symphony that is almost impossible to reproduce in an audio system. The effect of the huge choirs and the organ ... incredible.

 

I'm shaken AND stirred!

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1 hour ago, Confused said:

Better than the guy with the bagpipes then??

 

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