Classical musicians and hi-fi selection

i dont think it holds true that bass should be heard and not felt. many classical intruments have deep sub bass that can shake a room. a good hifi system will tell it as it is.

perhaps its due to acoustics, a classical musician is likely to play in a large purpose built hall with very good acoustics where low frequencies are not a problem whereas you play the same music in a living room and the bass is likely going to be problematic. i would imagine most uk living rooms are far from ideal in the low bass region.

Fascinating topic FZ .. I really enjoyed reading your thread .. I'm wondering whether the musicians' perspective you talk about is as a result of them actually being in a specific part of the orchestra and playing in the orchestra as opposed to sitting out front ?  

I play no instrument so can only imagine what it must be like to participate in a music generating environment .. if you are playing in the violin section are you aware of what's happening with the timpani or the tubas ? 

feeling_zen posted:

 

electrostatics (ESL-63s)

Two of them? What a ridiculous extravagance! 

With orchestral classical music, in my listening experience, the presence or absence of a detectable level of VLF (sub bass) energy is most often a characteristic of the auditorium.

From my extremely limited experience of playing, things are quite different.  Even as a violinist or oboist, yes you are acutely aware of all the other sections of the orchestra; you have to play with all the other musicians to achieve the desired result, and that requires awareness and deep attention.  But there in lies the difference - as an orchestral musician you have to be acutely aware of the sound, but can completely ignore the feeling of the bass, so to keep concentration on the music you just don't pay any attention at all to the bass feel.

Fascinating topic indeed Mr Z.  By coincidence we had friends over last weekend one of whom happens to be a semi-pro bass/double bass player across all genres.  Played the usual eclectic mix of JSB,, Mozart, The Trane, Miles, Clapton etc and he commented that the great thing about my system was that he "felt as well as heard the music" which I though was interesting because when most other folks come we have the volume down because they are neither musicians nor musos like me and simply don't appreciate it - and that is in no way a criticism just that we all like and appreciate different things.   The point about last weekend was though when we played Jeff Beck's Live at Ronnie's set - the comment was "wow - the genius of Tai Wilkenfield really exposed".

Now bass and Dynaudio speakers can be a very tricky issue but I did find it reassuring that our system could give a very knowledgeable musician a greater insight.

Regards,

Lindsay 

 If the bass is cut so much that you can't feel it at all then it is also likely to mean you can't hear the fundamentals of the notes (assuming overall listening level is realistic). certainly in much of the music I listen to, including classical, there is often bass down to 30-40Hz, sometimes lower, and I do not enjoy the music so much with it curtailled. And if it were to be cut so far as Feeling Zen described, I think his simile neatly sums up my expectation of listening pleasure!

Huge's explanation as to the possible reason why some classical musicians feel that way sounds very plausible. BTW! My son, who is a cellist, and plays a little in an orchestra doesn't reject feeling the bass, though he does prefer to listen at a significantly lower volume than I - sensitive young ears, and hopefully they'll stay that way!

On further thought, try asking Evelyn Glennie, Ludwig van Beethoven or William Boyce (but in the latter two cases getting a response may prove somewhat difficult).

I don't play an instrument but I do go to live classical (orchestral and chamber) concerts and you certainly do hear deep bass, but not so much feel it in my experience, although it does depend on the auditorium, where you are sitting and who is playing what.  The key for me though is that you don't hear or feel bass all the time and when you do hear it, it mostly doesn't have a lower midrange bump associated with it, which you do tend to get in cinemas and in hifi systems where the room is making itself felt.

On my own system I like the very low bass to be heard and felt only occasionally and although I use a Quad sub-woofer, the low pass filter is set to 35 Hz, which is the lowest setting.

But it will be fascinating to see what other members who do play classical instruments think.

best

David

Huge posted:

On further thought, try asking Evelyn Glennie, Ludwig van Beethoven or William Boyce (but in the latter two cases getting a response may prove somewhat difficult).

An amazing musician indeed, and all done by feel.

How does this person get on with his CM1 S2's then?

Surely the only comparison is between both speakers playing the same 'instrument' (system) in the same room. Which one provides the least compromises wins? To my ears (as an ex-cellist) the reason given for rejecting the speaker seem rather spurious. No mention of any other quality of reproduction?

All My PMCs provide a lean, fast bass, sometimes I wish there was a little more 'dirt' (harmonic distortion) or warmth (overtones) in the Bass dept. but then they wouldn't make the right sound at other times.

I doubt I'll get much support for this view, but . . . IMHO most hi fi systems deliver far too much bass.

When I go to an acoustic/orchestral concert and really listen, the bass is a component of the music, a resonance within the tone of the instruments. On the other hand, much hi fi seems to deliver bass as a sort of 'whump', devoid of tonal distinction. It overwhelms the music. 

I'm with the OP's musician friend on this.

Solid Air,  I recognise that from fixing it; it's a sure sign of uncontrolled room resonances - and very irritating too.

Most people haven't controlled the main room modes and use speakers with extended bass response - hence extreme over emphasis of 1,2 or 3 very specific bass frequencies.

Solid Air posted:

I doubt I'll get much support for this view, but . . . IMHO most hi fi systems deliver far too much bass.

When I go to an acoustic/orchestral concert and really listen, the bass is a component of the music, a resonance within the tone of the instruments. On the other hand, much hi fi seems to deliver bass as a sort of 'whump', devoid of tonal distinction. It overwhelms the music. 

I'm with the OP's musician friend on this.

Well, you'll get my support. I've heard systems with so much bass it's ridiculous. My system goes incredibly deep, but it certainly doesn't have a lot of bass. In fact, it's just right. Quality not quantity. 

feeling_zen posted:

But here's the thing; from my friend's perfectly valid point of view, while playing in an orchestra or listening to live orchestra he has never ever felt any low frequency response from a live instrument uncluding the percussion section. As a result, in his view, if you can feel bass, then the system is simply wrong. End of story. Bass should be heard and never felt.

 

An interesting post, but I can't agree with your friend's view. It's a while since I've been to a live performance of a full orchestra but I pretty sure I felt the power of the bass as well as heard it - up through my feet and through my chest. A wonderful feeling of involvement as I recall. Hard, perhaps impossible, to replicate at home.

That said, if your friend felt that some hi-fi systems have bass that overwhelm, I would agree. But that's a different matter.    

As a violinist his ear is pretty close to the sound source and would mask the real bass - that area between 20Hz - the tone of a large area of air being energised in a large space on a stage. If you had speakers or a sub that could track that you'd get a sense of space rather than bass - which is always in the 80Hz.

.....plus the violinist might not have felt this frequency due to the large space giving ample distance to play out without reflections.

Thanks for sharing so far.

[@mention:25360285675874000]: Possibly yes. An early experience I recall was demoing a system to a clarinet player. They put their music on. Nicely blanced full orchestra and then things die die for the woodwind section. Instantly some response like "Clarinets don't sound like this. Change everything now." Several hours later with huge amount of mixing up components to a real frankenstein system. Customer was really happy "Now that is what a clarinet is supposed to sound like. I'll take it." Shame nothing else sounded right. On this particular occassion they did seem deaf to everything but their instrument. I seem to remember being taken aside by my manager at the time and counselled never to try and educate a musician about hi-fi. They think they know the answers and it will piss them off and lose a sale. Demonstrate whatever they like but let them do the selling to themselves for a change. However, I don't think my friend is in that state. He's a violinist who mainly listens to classical but his taste does reach into just about all other genres except rock music.

[@mention:1566878604010590]: Really interesting. Never had the pleasure of demonstrating to a double bass players. Interestingling, a fair few piono players which never caused too much issue. None were concert pianists though but I would have been interested nonetheless since the piano produces such a wide range the also covers much of human vocal frequencies,

[@mention:24797126400677499]: Yes absolutely 100%. I think most systems does have way too much. But do you think it should have no sub-bass at all? You've got nothing to fear regarding support for your view. I think it is all valid - even if we don't all agree.

[@mention:4804681823084713]: Not sure we are talking about the same degrees here HH. Your SL2s and prior 23s would have been chucked out the window in this instance. The issue really isn't too much bass. The issue is that I often hear that there should be absolutely no sub-bass at all.

In my case, the room is not perfect (sprung floor), but the large size of the room and asymetrical shape of both the ceiling and the room dimensions itself does a great job of avoiding standing waves and overall, the sound is about as far from fat bloated boomy cotton ball bass that you can get. It's definitely on the lean side. How does it differ with CM1s? Well the electronics aside (the CM1s are on an entry level Onkyo integrated and Pioneer streamer) the CM1s are configured with the port bungs in place and when I last listened had a very large low requency bloom (cotton ball bass territory) that was very domineering and intrusive but not as linear as 23s by a long way. That is to say the 23s clearly go much deeper but without the same boom. I think my friend's interpretation matches very closely to my past experiences with classical musicians. The low frequency aspect is found so distracting that it becomes hard to evaluate any other merits or deficiencies. Which I can actually completely empathise with. If you feel something is just completely tonally wrong, then clarity, soundstage, PRaT etc are not going to get a look in. Should point out that they didn't necessarily think the CM1s were better - they are looking to tame the bass hence the reason they are changing speakers in the first place. I've commented before that here in Japan there are almost no decent dealer demonstration facilities for systems under maybe GBP50K. You buy, you try, you sell on - a big expensive waste of money.

In the meantime, since electrostatics are cost and space prohibitive, I think my friend is going to go down the road of sticking with standmounts (like 805 D3) and find an amp that is more capable of a speaker in that range but also has tone controls. And this is where our opinions diverge too far. We discsussed room correction but if sub bass is in the mix, room correction just brings that in line closer to the original mastering intent. If you want to delete it then room correction still won't do the job, hence tone controls. Which are something I just cannot reconcile to my own view of correctness. And unless mastering studios for classical music are radically different than others, they are still often as not, going to be using monitors that produce far more sub bass than most of us use at home, So should we be trying to change the mastering intent at all?

So we come back to the orginal issue: can you have a system that accurately produces how a classical musician often (I won't say all - I've yet to meet every musician on the planet and can't speak for them) feel accurate classical playback should sound and also manages to delivery the accurate low frequency kick of a live blues or jazz performance (which definately gets felt through your feet and diaphram when the double bass is strummed in an intimate venue. Or is this all an artifact of the room resonances only? If so, that would support electrostatics as the only worthy playback end point. After all, they have very low frquency response but produce almost not sub bass unless the room allows (reinforces it). Certainly, this is how most owners of ELS-63s I knew felt.

MDS posted: 

An interesting post, but I can't agree with your friend's view. It's a while since I've been to a live performance of a full orchestra but I pretty sure I felt the power of the bass as well as heard it - up through my feet and through my chest. A wonderful feeling of involvement as I recall. Hard, perhaps impossible, to replicate at home.

That said, if your friend felt that some hi-fi systems have bass that overwhelm, I would agree. But that's a different matter.    

To my ears - and skin - some hifi systems are quite unsatisfying because don't reproduce real bass at all, rolling off well above the fundamentals of common bass instruments including the bottom octave of bass guitars and double basses, let alone the lower notes you sometimes get with organs and electronics.  Yes you can sometimes hear what you think is bass, but it is just the harmonics, the fundamental tone missing or heavily curtailed. At the same time, strong resonances can certainly detract the music, as can excessively wallowy bass, and getting the bass balance right is one of the biggest challenges in any setup. Of course, music without low bass, e.g chamber music where the lowest is a cello, can sound great on a system missing the bottom octaves, but that is not true: where bass is supposed to be present: those bass pedals in some music are played for a reason! Taking into account the music styles I like, If I had to choose between a system that erred on the side of emphasised or curtailed bass, I am firmly in the camp that would choose the former.

Feeling Zen, for a person as you describe, a simple answer would seem to be buy any 3-way speaker and disconnect the bass cone! Or (but at greater cost) go for triamping, but omit the bass amp...

More realistically perhaps, rather than compromising on an amp by seeking one with (usually crude) tone controls, go for something with DSP. This could be a dedicated EQ box inserted, of which there are a number available at a range of prices, or with a source like Mac Mini/Audirvana, as I use, it is possible to add parametrc filtering and so roll off the bass if desired, or even add Dirac room correction software and do it with that.

I think your on the wrong end of the stick/baton determining differences here. If you had a proper conductor in your room listening and criticising  you might get a more appropriate response as they would know how a particular acoustic instrument should appear within a score. Different to someone contributing who has their own perspective. 

Best not to generalize from the particular. The 1500 or so classical musicians I know have no such issues. OP must have met a rogue bunch. SQ is in the ears of the hearer, and the customer is never wrong!

But it should be a good enough excuse to start another fight in Valhalla!  

Most of my orchestra and concert band participation has been from the back of the ensemble.  Yes, I certainly "felt" bass back there.  Try sitting next to the bass drum.  Or holding a tuba.

But I get the point . . . which is a subset of a larger point, namely, that sitting in front of stereo speakers for home hi fi reproduction or orchestral music is not all that similar to sitting within an orchestra that is producing said music.  "So what?" is my answer.

Watching football on TV is not like sitting in the stands and watching and is even less like being on the pitch or field playing it.  "So what?"

"Charlie I really don't like your Samsung 70 inch 4k display; it's nothing like playing football with the guys."

I find the opinion of the OP's friend rather puzzling. Are we talking about the same speakers, PMC 23s? I listen to classical music mostly (95% of my listening) and have never felt that there was too much bass - the sound is particularly well integrated, with a discreet amount of sub-bass when needed; if there is too much bass sometimes, it seems to be the fault of the recording engineer, or the venue. But then, I'm not a musician.

Frenchnaim posted:

I find the opinion of the OP's friend rather puzzling. Are we talking about the same speakers, PMC 23s? I listen to classical music mostly (95% of my listening) and have never felt that there was too much bass - the sound is particularly well integrated, with a discreet amount of sub-bass when needed; if there is too much bass sometimes, it seems to be the fault of the recording engineer, or the venue. But then, I'm not a musician.

Puzzling but completely valid. That is the point of the thread, to get a broader understanding of how classical musicians view correctness. My 23s were just a reference point to explain to the forum that I am not talking about DBLs or something and establish the degree of dislike for sub-bass. Though what I am reading so far suggest some sympathy (but I don't think the same degree Solid Air), but a fairly consistent discussion of the differences of the venue and the seating within that venue (performer, conductor, audience) and which perspective is most valid.

I would tend to agree with those who idicate the perspective of the performer is the least valid (or maybe most biased is a better view) since there is the psychological aspect combined with an position on the stage rather than the auditorium. Maybe the conductor's position is the most valid reference point?