I think that many of us are saying essentially the same things but using different words. I agree with the common theme here, which is that large scale classical music is perhaps the most difficult style of music for an audio system to convincingly reproduce. An audio system has to "do it all" in order to get this style of music right. As Atmasphere said, you need full range frequency extension, you need wide dynamic range, and you need very accurate tonal balance to capture the natural timbre and harmonics of all those acoustic instruments. In addition, the system needs to have a very low noise floor and a high degree of transparency in order to present pianissimo passages at something approaching the level of quiet and nuance you experience in a concert hall. On top of all that, all the components in the system have to be able to handle the complex, peak passages with a sense of ease (i.e., lack of strain) that is faithful to the sound of live acoustic music
That's a very tall order. Once you have a music system that is doing all these things at the highest level, you have a system that should do well with literally anything you can throw at it - whether that be chamber music, a cappella vocals, jazz, rock, etc.
However, as we all know, audio is about compromises. And the reproduction of large scale classical music is not at the top of all of our lists when it comes to system priorities. My SET audio system is an example of a system that I specifically designed for small scale music, knowing that complex, large scale music does not play to the strength of simple MTM two-ways or low-powered SET tube amplification for that matter. Similarly, there are a lot of systems out there that do a great job with rock music but quickly expose compromises/shortcomings when you ask them to reproduce subtle acoustic music that demands timbral accuracy and many of the other attributes cited above.
Coming back to cartridges for a moment, I agree with Raul that all the cartridges mentioned in the original post that started this thread and most other top-of-the-line cartridges are capable of the ultimate challenge if the rest of the system is up to the task.
