I go to lots of concerts both classical, rock, popular, etc. In all types of concerts except for classical, the sound is amplified, and comes at the audience from many directions, and therefore that magic that we call air is not available except for an electronic echo that is ubiquitous in almost all of these venues. In classical musical concerts, however, it is possible to achieve that magical sound that we say is "air" if we find the seat(s) that can maintain the proper phase of the performance. That means that you should choose a seat in the 1st row of the balcony, with no ceiling or second balcony above yours. You will find these seats to be absolute magic and will give you a memorable performance in sound quality. You will notice that you are in perfect alignment with the recording microphones of the orchestra.
The focus and air lie
There always have been some kind of fashion in the way a system sounds and since a few years it seems that more and more people are looking for details, air and pinpoint focus / soundstaging.
There's a lot of components, accessories and speakers designed to fill full that demand... Halcro, dCS, Esoteric, Nordost, BW, GamuT are some examples.
This sound does NOT exist in real life, when you're at a concert the sound is full not airy, the soundstage exist of course but it's definitely not as focused as many of the systems you can hear in the hifi shops, it just fill the room.
To get that focus and air hifi components cheats, it's all in the meds and high meds, a bit less meds, a bit more high meds and you get the details, the air, the focus BUT you loose timbral accuracy, fullness.
It's evident for someone accustomed to unamplified concert that a lot of systems are lean and far from sounding real.
Those systems are also very picky about recordings : good recordings will be ok but everything else will be more difficult...
That's a shame because a hifi system should be able to trasmit music soul even on bad recording.
In 2008 this is a very rare quality.
So why does this happened ?
Did audiophiles stopped to listen unamplified music and lost contact with the real thing ?
Is it easier for shops to sell components that sounds so "detailled and impressive" during their 30mins or 1 hour demo ?
There's a lot of components, accessories and speakers designed to fill full that demand... Halcro, dCS, Esoteric, Nordost, BW, GamuT are some examples.
This sound does NOT exist in real life, when you're at a concert the sound is full not airy, the soundstage exist of course but it's definitely not as focused as many of the systems you can hear in the hifi shops, it just fill the room.
To get that focus and air hifi components cheats, it's all in the meds and high meds, a bit less meds, a bit more high meds and you get the details, the air, the focus BUT you loose timbral accuracy, fullness.
It's evident for someone accustomed to unamplified concert that a lot of systems are lean and far from sounding real.
Those systems are also very picky about recordings : good recordings will be ok but everything else will be more difficult...
That's a shame because a hifi system should be able to trasmit music soul even on bad recording.
In 2008 this is a very rare quality.
So why does this happened ?
Did audiophiles stopped to listen unamplified music and lost contact with the real thing ?
Is it easier for shops to sell components that sounds so "detailled and impressive" during their 30mins or 1 hour demo ?