Concert Hall sound

[Kal Rubinson]

6 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Actually, one doesn't want one's listening room to have any set reverb times or angular dispersion modes. The ideal listening room is acoustically dead. All of the ambience cues should, ideally, be provided by the recording and reproduced by the playback system. That way when listening to a recording made in England's Watford Town Hall, or The Royal Albert Hall, those would be the acoustic environments that the listener is transferred to while listening. If, on the other hand, one is listening to a recording made in a night club (like Jazz At The Pawnshop), the  dead acoustic signature of the listening room should facilitate the accurate recreation of that acoustic space as well. 

True but that will only work with multichannel recordings. 

It will sound very dead with stereo, as it would in an anechoic chamber as stereo recordings are mastered with the presumption of playback in a typical listening room.

[Kal Rubinson]

29 minutes ago, STC said:

My favourite choice for concert hall sound realism http://www.hdtracks.com/cantate-domino-96?format=AIFF

Concert hall?  "It was recorded in the Oscarskyrkan, a church in Stockholm in 1976. "

[Kal Rubinson]

35 minutes ago, STC said:

 

I was referring to the sense of space. Almost, all of my favs concert hall like sound were made in Church. Naturally, organ sounds best with long RT.

Yeah, I figured so.  I really enjoy the warm, enveloping sound but it is not ideal for most music as the long RT muddies the details.

[Kal Rubinson]

9 hours ago, STC said:

In a room, we cannot increase or decrease the RT according to the music that requires manipulation of the walls around us to control the RT for each recording. 

True but you can impose the RT of the recording on a room with a short RT with multichannel recording/playback.

[Kal Rubinson]

11 hours ago, STC said:

Why not just use headphones? They will sound alike irrespective of the room acoustics. 

And consistently distort the acoustical presentation unless one uses something like the Smyth Realiser (see another thread).

[Kal Rubinson]

8 hours ago, STC said:

Is this some sort of mind conditioning? 

Yes, plus resistance to increase in cost and complexity plus a likely lack of exposure to the alternative.

[Kal Rubinson]

3 minutes ago, STC said:

Subjective. If we can accept crosstalk in stereo then why not the flaws in hp. 

Because I cannot.  I find the inherent flaws of headphones in soundstage/imaging intolerable.

[Kal Rubinson]

30 minutes ago, gmgraves said:

Of course if you had the coin, you could buy one of those beautiful Altec Lansing oiled-walnut Danish modern cadenza-like system with the curved "panoramic" front on it called the Paragon.

Not Altec Lansing but James B. Lansing, iirc.  A friend of mine had one and it wore its age gracefully.

[Kal Rubinson]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

Yeah, you're right. It was gorgeous piece of modern furniture. And it still looks good. But how did it sound? I've never heard one. 

I am afraid that my exposure to it was too long ago for any substantive recall.  I do remember it sounding better than I expected at the time.

[Kal Rubinson]

9 minutes ago, ARQuint said:

Fas42 said

"This obsession with technical issues of artificially enhancing a sense of space during playback is a dead end - human hearing does all what's necessary to "bring recordings to life" if the SQ is of a high enough standard ..."

 

9 minutes ago, ARQuint said:

Fas42 said

"The advantage of using the high integrity of the direct sound method... Adding rear sound actively is another method of pushing our hearing systems over the hurdle of accepting an illusion - the trouble with this is that every recording is different, and what works for one won't for others."

New evidence to support my decision to "ignore" Fas42.  

[Kal Rubinson]

1 hour ago, gmgraves said:

Kal, you have to excuse Frank.

I do.  I just no longer need to read what he writes.   No hard feelings.

[Kal Rubinson]

46 minutes ago, semente said:

Would you mind describing the surgery step by step?