Thats a great int amp..it hs the A30 power amp in its power amp section and that is a fantastic amp. I have heqrd the A20 (now obselete) with a merlin some time back and was primarily the reason i bought the speaker !
Amp upgrade with Canton speakers: Feasibility study
- Thread starter Asit
- Start date
Thats a great int amp..it hs the A30 power amp in its power amp section and that is a fantastic amp. I have heqrd the A20 (now obselete) with a merlin some time back and was primarily the reason i bought the speaker !
Well, dinyaar, the following is what the user manual is saying about that button:
PHASE CORRECT LOUDNESS SWITCH
This switch activates a unique low frequency equalization circuit that provides full, natural sound from small speakers that are normally deficient in the bass region. It can also be used in place of conventional loudness compensation.
Now my speakers are not small, and they also go down quite low in frequency. But still with some recordings I have used it with good effects.
Good to know about your expt. I thought up to about a meter, balanced would not make a difference. Oh, BTW, have you used up the 1.2m piece of the D102 that you promised to give to me! Just joking
.I sure have that concern. However, from many reports on the net they are known to drive a multitude of normal but good quality speakers with a variety of sound signature. Sure in addition, if the sensitivity is 90 db or higher, it can only help matters.
I suppose, if I settle for such an amp, in my next speaker purchase, I should be really careful about the impedance vs. frequency plot and make sure there are not many significant dips (as correctly pointed out by you here, and by ROC in another thread recently, and many others I am sure).
The Shindo Montille has about the same power, from reports in this thread some weeks back, they drove the Usher Be-718 really well.
Your own Leben CS600 has just about double the power, which really means a difference of 3 db. Many people are using Cadence VA-1 with just 20wpc (so not even double). I would like to be aware of all issues but would like to know and understand them before getting scared away. For many many years, I have not cared about anything other than the music, and now because of the forum I guess, would like to get to the bottom of things a bit and really explore what one can do. Music will prevail very shortly
.
Hahaha No Asit that is seperate. I have 2 D102 Mk 3 ICS and then there is also a 1.2 M length which is now cut into two and i will just buy some decent connectors and mount. This will be your IC.
I haven't forgotten.
Actually i sold a few ICS last week and hopefully will sell the last two soon enough. This kind of inventory makes no sense
Rgds
I haven't forgotten.
Actually i sold a few ICS last week and hopefully will sell the last two soon enough. This kind of inventory makes no sense
Rgds
3dB can mean a LOT..it can be the difference between a Full sound and a thin sound .. but in the end it is all about the speaker and actually there are many speakers which are sensitive so it is not a problem..just something you must keep in mind while buying
I always thought these are actually equalisers which give a bump to the midbass area to make the sound fuller. the phase correct might just mean that the phase is preserved during this "Bump "..could that be it ?
neo
Active Member
Hey! Co incidentaly one of friends has just mailed me an article which might be of intresest to some of us. Although most of it has been discussed in various thread's i guess the article sums up most of what is being discussed & to my limited knowledge most of it makes sense, so pl give youre comments esp if you disagree. It'll help me to uderstand things better.
How many watts do I need?
Amplifier power behaves logarithmically. Each time an amplifier drives a loudspeaker to an increase in sound pressure level of 100% (or adds 3dB of gain to the signal), it must double its power output.
This means that the loudness ratio between 2W and 4W is exactly the same (3dB) as that between 100W and 200W, even though the difference in wattage is far more extreme.
Put differently, at full output, a 200W amplifier can only play 3dB louder than a 100W unit. However, it's just as rare to drive an amplifier to full output as it is to push a car to full redline. Besides, if you did drive your amplifier to full output, you'd know it - it would audibly clip and you'd hear distortion. So the 3dB advantage of the larger amp would probably end up just sitting there.
So why buy more amplifier power than you might need on average? Because music frequently has wide extremes in dynamics (which is another way of saying that it ranges greatly from the quietest passage to the loudest), and while an amplifier might cruise along happily outputting 10W, some passages might require ten times that amount of power for an instant.
Put in the most basic terms, four different factors determine how much amplifier power you need:
* Speaker sensitivity. Briefly, with the same power, a more sensitive speaker will play louder than one with less sensitivity.
* Room size. Everything else being equal, a larger room absorbs more power than a small room. That's because the speaker sound we hear is the sum total of direct and reflected sounds, and sound pressure diminishes with distance. Hence, to overcome the increased volume of a large room, an amp needs to put out more power.
* Listener distance. This can be independent of room size. If you sit close to the speakers, even in a large room, you will be using less power than if you sit farther away.
* Your average playback level. Are you a background music type or party animal? Average listening levels (neither background nor party but, well, normal) require less power than you may think -- the average listening level requires somewhere around 10 watts in a standard 14'W x 20'D x 9'H room.
Power Handling
Electric Power that can be input before unacceptable distortion
Hence at 1W the speaker produces 86dB @ 1 Meter
So at 50W, maximum SPL is 103dB @ 1 Meter
In addition, most popular music recordings compress their dynamic range electronically to keep the differences between the quietest and loudest passages to a minimum. The average power requirements barely fluctuate. Classical music can feature extremes that range from pianissimo to triple forte. Without altering the average power requirement, this type of material might demand spontaneous peak power bursts that could be 100W or more.
This brings us to the way power ratings must be read.
Continuous or RMS power simply tells us how much power a given amp can deliver day-in/day-out on a steady basis. (RMS stands for root means square, an equation that specifies average power.) An amplifier's peak power might be three times its continuous rating, or even greater, but that rating is only available for milliseconds.
There aren't many manufacturers left who'll try to fool you by passing off peak power ratings as average, but there are still quite a few who will specify an amplifier as having an output rating at a specific frequency rather than over an range. When you see a spec like 100W @ 1kHz, you should be suspicious -- this is not the same thing as an amplifier that delivers 100W from 20Hz-20kHz.
* The first is power output at only one frequency.
* The second is power output at the full bandwidth of whats considered important for human hearing.
Also look for the words both channels driven, since any amplifier can deliver more than its true peak output when only one channel is driving a loudspeaker (and for home-theater enthusiasts, look for something like all channels driven since there may be five or six channels of power).
Make sure you're not comparing apples with oranges when studying power specs. This means you must consider the impedance rating to which the power rating is attached. Since most speakers (especially in the affordable arena) are rated at 8 ohms, amplifiers and receivers most frequently list their power output into 8 ohms. However, speaker impedance generally varies with frequency, so you'll see some speakers specified as having a "nominal" 8-ohm impedance. And sometimes the specification will simply be an average taken over a wide frequency range, so be careful and ask your stereo salesman if a given speaker's impedance is a real figure, a nominal reading or an averaged reading. If the speaker you like has an impedance rating that drops below 4 ohms, you'll want to look at an amp with a robust power supply.
Amps with robust power supplies will sometimes feature a 4-ohm rating. Ideally, this rating should be double that of the 8-ohm figure, which indicates that such designs are stable and compatible with low-impedance loads. Certain amps will also specify their power ratings into 2 ohms and even 1 ohm. The true brutes among these will double power into each lower impedance, all the way into 1 ohm, giving rise to astonishing figures of 1000W or higher. But, since affordable speakers tend to be either 8 ohms or 4 ohms, you won't need to worry too much about power output into lower impedance loads.
For completeness' sake, we now need to cover amplifier current.
A reasonably close car analogy is the horsepower/torque equation. A high torque rating is useful when negotiating steep inclines and towing trailers. Depending on how you use your car or truck, high torque could be more important than ultimate horsepower specs. Similarly, decent current delivery in amplifiers is necessary to control speakers with large and/or multiple woofers. Such speakers make greater current demands and (within the context of our analogy) could be thought of as steeper hills or heavier trailers.
The subject of current delivery gave rise to the popular notion that not all watts are created equal. In a limited sense, this is true, as long as it is not taken literally to mean that Denon watts are different from Kenwood watts. It simply means that an amp's current capability and power rating need to be looked at in conjunction with one another.
Our earlier explanations indicated how much (or, more accurately, how little) average power we tend to use. You can now appreciate that a 50W/high-current amp may outperform a 200W/low-current design when mated to demanding high-end audio-type speakers.
While massive amplifier current ratings are one way to evaluate a power amplifier's ability to drive all loudspeakers, they are not essential if the loudspeakers you have chosen are reasonably sensitive, your room is of moderate size and your listening habits are relatively sane!
The truth is that a simple listening session will tell you whether a particular amp/speaker combination is copacetic or not.
Try to listen to an amplifier at home, so your room and other equipment can be part of the audition. Play some of your favorite records -- the ones you are familiar with, not special "test" discs (and not an "approved" type of music -- if you normally listen to rock, audition with rock, not classical).
First listen at your regular loudness level and see if the amp/speaker combination can play at the level you prefer. Listen for the things you like about your musical selections.
* Is the bass punchy and tight and deep?
* Are the vocals clear?
* Is there a big difference between the loudest and softest passages
(keeping in mind that not all recordings have such a distinction)?
And if it all sounds good at your regular playback loudness, turn it up to about the loudest you'll ever listen at and check for the same properties.
You'll be surprised at how much your ears can tell you in your own room!
Cheers.
It'll help me to uderstand things better.How many watts do I need?
Amplifier power behaves logarithmically. Each time an amplifier drives a loudspeaker to an increase in sound pressure level of 100% (or adds 3dB of gain to the signal), it must double its power output.
This means that the loudness ratio between 2W and 4W is exactly the same (3dB) as that between 100W and 200W, even though the difference in wattage is far more extreme.
Put differently, at full output, a 200W amplifier can only play 3dB louder than a 100W unit. However, it's just as rare to drive an amplifier to full output as it is to push a car to full redline. Besides, if you did drive your amplifier to full output, you'd know it - it would audibly clip and you'd hear distortion. So the 3dB advantage of the larger amp would probably end up just sitting there.
So why buy more amplifier power than you might need on average? Because music frequently has wide extremes in dynamics (which is another way of saying that it ranges greatly from the quietest passage to the loudest), and while an amplifier might cruise along happily outputting 10W, some passages might require ten times that amount of power for an instant.
Put in the most basic terms, four different factors determine how much amplifier power you need:
* Speaker sensitivity. Briefly, with the same power, a more sensitive speaker will play louder than one with less sensitivity.
* Room size. Everything else being equal, a larger room absorbs more power than a small room. That's because the speaker sound we hear is the sum total of direct and reflected sounds, and sound pressure diminishes with distance. Hence, to overcome the increased volume of a large room, an amp needs to put out more power.
* Listener distance. This can be independent of room size. If you sit close to the speakers, even in a large room, you will be using less power than if you sit farther away.
* Your average playback level. Are you a background music type or party animal? Average listening levels (neither background nor party but, well, normal) require less power than you may think -- the average listening level requires somewhere around 10 watts in a standard 14'W x 20'D x 9'H room.
Power Handling
Electric Power that can be input before unacceptable distortion
Hence at 1W the speaker produces 86dB @ 1 Meter
So at 50W, maximum SPL is 103dB @ 1 Meter
In addition, most popular music recordings compress their dynamic range electronically to keep the differences between the quietest and loudest passages to a minimum. The average power requirements barely fluctuate. Classical music can feature extremes that range from pianissimo to triple forte. Without altering the average power requirement, this type of material might demand spontaneous peak power bursts that could be 100W or more.
This brings us to the way power ratings must be read.
Continuous or RMS power simply tells us how much power a given amp can deliver day-in/day-out on a steady basis. (RMS stands for root means square, an equation that specifies average power.) An amplifier's peak power might be three times its continuous rating, or even greater, but that rating is only available for milliseconds.
There aren't many manufacturers left who'll try to fool you by passing off peak power ratings as average, but there are still quite a few who will specify an amplifier as having an output rating at a specific frequency rather than over an range. When you see a spec like 100W @ 1kHz, you should be suspicious -- this is not the same thing as an amplifier that delivers 100W from 20Hz-20kHz.
* The first is power output at only one frequency.
* The second is power output at the full bandwidth of whats considered important for human hearing.
Also look for the words both channels driven, since any amplifier can deliver more than its true peak output when only one channel is driving a loudspeaker (and for home-theater enthusiasts, look for something like all channels driven since there may be five or six channels of power).
Make sure you're not comparing apples with oranges when studying power specs. This means you must consider the impedance rating to which the power rating is attached. Since most speakers (especially in the affordable arena) are rated at 8 ohms, amplifiers and receivers most frequently list their power output into 8 ohms. However, speaker impedance generally varies with frequency, so you'll see some speakers specified as having a "nominal" 8-ohm impedance. And sometimes the specification will simply be an average taken over a wide frequency range, so be careful and ask your stereo salesman if a given speaker's impedance is a real figure, a nominal reading or an averaged reading. If the speaker you like has an impedance rating that drops below 4 ohms, you'll want to look at an amp with a robust power supply.
Amps with robust power supplies will sometimes feature a 4-ohm rating. Ideally, this rating should be double that of the 8-ohm figure, which indicates that such designs are stable and compatible with low-impedance loads. Certain amps will also specify their power ratings into 2 ohms and even 1 ohm. The true brutes among these will double power into each lower impedance, all the way into 1 ohm, giving rise to astonishing figures of 1000W or higher. But, since affordable speakers tend to be either 8 ohms or 4 ohms, you won't need to worry too much about power output into lower impedance loads.
For completeness' sake, we now need to cover amplifier current.
A reasonably close car analogy is the horsepower/torque equation. A high torque rating is useful when negotiating steep inclines and towing trailers. Depending on how you use your car or truck, high torque could be more important than ultimate horsepower specs. Similarly, decent current delivery in amplifiers is necessary to control speakers with large and/or multiple woofers. Such speakers make greater current demands and (within the context of our analogy) could be thought of as steeper hills or heavier trailers.
The subject of current delivery gave rise to the popular notion that not all watts are created equal. In a limited sense, this is true, as long as it is not taken literally to mean that Denon watts are different from Kenwood watts. It simply means that an amp's current capability and power rating need to be looked at in conjunction with one another.
Our earlier explanations indicated how much (or, more accurately, how little) average power we tend to use. You can now appreciate that a 50W/high-current amp may outperform a 200W/low-current design when mated to demanding high-end audio-type speakers.
While massive amplifier current ratings are one way to evaluate a power amplifier's ability to drive all loudspeakers, they are not essential if the loudspeakers you have chosen are reasonably sensitive, your room is of moderate size and your listening habits are relatively sane!
The truth is that a simple listening session will tell you whether a particular amp/speaker combination is copacetic or not.
Try to listen to an amplifier at home, so your room and other equipment can be part of the audition. Play some of your favorite records -- the ones you are familiar with, not special "test" discs (and not an "approved" type of music -- if you normally listen to rock, audition with rock, not classical).
First listen at your regular loudness level and see if the amp/speaker combination can play at the level you prefer. Listen for the things you like about your musical selections.
* Is the bass punchy and tight and deep?
* Are the vocals clear?
* Is there a big difference between the loudest and softest passages
(keeping in mind that not all recordings have such a distinction)?
And if it all sounds good at your regular playback loudness, turn it up to about the loudest you'll ever listen at and check for the same properties.
You'll be surprised at how much your ears can tell you in your own room!
Cheers.
Here is a bit more on the "Phase Correct Loudness". The Technical Specifications in the User Manual says
Phase Correct Loudness
Boost (at 50 Hz) : +6db
Phase Shift (400-20K Hz) : <5 degrees
Whatever you guys make out of that!!!
Arj, in accordance with what you might have wanted to suggest, I also do not think a 30 wpc amp with 87 db speaker (for the Merlins in your case) can be equivalent to a 15 wpc amp with 90+ db speaker (for the Cantons, assumed), even if the amps come from the same brand and the speakers have very similar tonal character and resolution. The 30 wpc amp in general should sound better with a fuller sound.
In other words those 3db cannot really be made up by a clever choice of speakers. But the CS300 has one interesting provision: it has a bass boost button which can be set to 0, 3db and 5 db and a lot of people are using it for late night listening sessions with neighbors around in Europe and Asia (in the US this is not really a problem because generally the neighbors are far away in the next building altogether) for listening at low volume setting but still enjoying a full tonal impact.
Yah, I have all these in my mind. If the amp is really good, some of the concerns would vanish.
Phase Correct Loudness
Boost (at 50 Hz) : +6db
Phase Shift (400-20K Hz) : <5 degrees
Whatever you guys make out of that!!!
Arj, in accordance with what you might have wanted to suggest, I also do not think a 30 wpc amp with 87 db speaker (for the Merlins in your case) can be equivalent to a 15 wpc amp with 90+ db speaker (for the Cantons, assumed), even if the amps come from the same brand and the speakers have very similar tonal character and resolution. The 30 wpc amp in general should sound better with a fuller sound.
In other words those 3db cannot really be made up by a clever choice of speakers. But the CS300 has one interesting provision: it has a bass boost button which can be set to 0, 3db and 5 db and a lot of people are using it for late night listening sessions with neighbors around in Europe and Asia (in the US this is not really a problem because generally the neighbors are far away in the next building altogether) for listening at low volume setting but still enjoying a full tonal impact.
Yah, I have all these in my mind. If the amp is really good, some of the concerns would vanish.
This is exactly what I was saying. it is doing an equaliser on the 50Hz region with no phase shift.
Asit, I was meaning the opposite.
A 15W with a 90db speaker will sound the same as that of the 30W with an 87db (assumning the speakers and speaker are the "same") but if the 15W and the 30W are running an 85 db & tough speaker whose impedance dips really low in the 30-40Hz area, upto the 45 hz may be the same..after than the response will be stronger in the Bass in the stronger amp...
But the above is all theory and is true only if the speaker at antime needs more power than the amp can supply. I doubt if a 90dB speaker will need more than 5-10W at any time to blast ones brains out in case of the Cantons, since the sensitivity is 90dB, I do not think you will find any difference betwen the two amps . you just need to do some due diligence whenever your next speaker change come up
BTW I have run an earlier speaker (the klipsch reference@92dB) with a 50W NAD and a 25W sugden. The sugden had tighter control in the bass than the NAD and sounedd more powerful !
Very interesting points put forward by the many knowledgeable people on the forum.
I have one more question - a member posted this link Welcome to Musical Fidelity that says this about dynamic peaks in a classical concert. To quote
and this Welcome to Musical Fidelity
Now my question is - Is it really important to attain these actual volume levels or will it satisfy a listeners musical enjoyment if only the difference in dynamic range from quietest to loudest peaks is achieved? i.e an amp that can play softest passages at the intensity of 44db ( buzz of a mosquito<45db>normal conversation) and can only peak at 90 db, 3 mtrs away from speaker ? As you can see - that is still a dynamic range of 46db.
Depending on Yes or No, now with regards to all that has been said about amplifiers and power - is it possible to arrive at a theoretical but ideal set of amplifier specs that best amplify (no pun intended) all the points made about what distinguishes a great amp from a poor one? Esp with regards to dynamic range and distortion?
Before you rush to say I missed the essence of all that was said about synergy with speakers depending on their impedance characteristics etc etc.. I am just looking for something that will assist a less technical audio-bug (like me) to sit-up and take notice perhaps look a little more closely when such specs are encountered? Perhaps help decide if the amp was worth auditioning or not while looking at specs on the Internet?
TIA
Cheers
I have one more question - a member posted this link Welcome to Musical Fidelity that says this about dynamic peaks in a classical concert. To quote
and this Welcome to Musical Fidelity
Now my question is - Is it really important to attain these actual volume levels or will it satisfy a listeners musical enjoyment if only the difference in dynamic range from quietest to loudest peaks is achieved? i.e an amp that can play softest passages at the intensity of 44db ( buzz of a mosquito<45db>normal conversation) and can only peak at 90 db, 3 mtrs away from speaker ? As you can see - that is still a dynamic range of 46db.
Depending on Yes or No, now with regards to all that has been said about amplifiers and power - is it possible to arrive at a theoretical but ideal set of amplifier specs that best amplify (no pun intended) all the points made about what distinguishes a great amp from a poor one? Esp with regards to dynamic range and distortion?
Before you rush to say I missed the essence of all that was said about synergy with speakers depending on their impedance characteristics etc etc.. I am just looking for something that will assist a less technical audio-bug (like me) to sit-up and take notice perhaps look a little more closely when such specs are encountered? Perhaps help decide if the amp was worth auditioning or not while looking at specs on the Internet?
TIA
Cheers
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Hmm I think my question may be answered by the Fletcher & Munson curve.
To hear completely all the frequencies from 30hz to 20Khz with 1kz to 4khz at barely audible levels of 20db, the amp needs to be capable of sound intensities of 60+ db at the lower spectrum of frequency range. Hence an optimal amp needs to deliver between 60db to 106db.
Awaiting your responses about ideal specs.
Cheers
To hear completely all the frequencies from 30hz to 20Khz with 1kz to 4khz at barely audible levels of 20db, the amp needs to be capable of sound intensities of 60+ db at the lower spectrum of frequency range. Hence an optimal amp needs to deliver between 60db to 106db.
Awaiting your responses about ideal specs.
Cheers
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The calculation in Musical Fidelity is crazy. If you take a average sensitivity of speakers to be between 85 and 89dB and take the sitting distance as 12dB, you will never get the OK/green DbWatts of 106 unless you have an amplifier of 1000 watts or more. Sheesh!! Let us all get ready to junk our equipment and do yoga in penitence for our sins.
I think what John Atkinson and Muscal Fidelity conveniently forgot was the environment of the concert hall and our own homes. A concert hall is huge and has hundreds of people creating a 'wall' for the sound to travel through. Essentially the amplification has to be huge. Sometimes I think the amplification is just too much to compensate for the collateral noise. Many times my ears hurt and I have to block them when I am in concert halls.
At home we have no collateral noise, and the sound travels straight to you. So if you have a reasonably quiet room, the sound will travel to you easier (maybe with less pressure and intensity). Take a walk in a open field, and you can easily hear the twitter of a bird half a kilometer away. Taking Musical Fidelity's calculation we are looking at 100,000 watts or more. Poor bird. It has to carry a atomic power generator all the time.
Cheers
I think what John Atkinson and Muscal Fidelity conveniently forgot was the environment of the concert hall and our own homes. A concert hall is huge and has hundreds of people creating a 'wall' for the sound to travel through. Essentially the amplification has to be huge. Sometimes I think the amplification is just too much to compensate for the collateral noise. Many times my ears hurt and I have to block them when I am in concert halls.
At home we have no collateral noise, and the sound travels straight to you. So if you have a reasonably quiet room, the sound will travel to you easier (maybe with less pressure and intensity). Take a walk in a open field, and you can easily hear the twitter of a bird half a kilometer away. Taking Musical Fidelity's calculation we are looking at 100,000 watts or more. Poor bird. It has to carry a atomic power generator all the time.
Cheers
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Actually that article in the MF site is used to make a case for their 500K power amplifiers or something. In the morning I saw that link posted by Vortex in the other amp thread for Dali Lektor 2 speakers. Vortex put it up to illustrate that a 50 W amp and another 70 W amp are not that different in terms of db, as far as I understood.
But the article otherwise does not make much sense to me as others have also noted. I do not know where JA went and made those measurements. Some people swear by him and he must be worth it. However, from my experiences of attending a few concerts (Western Classical) in some of the most famous concert Halls, I never found sound levels even remotely that much as mentioned. Western people come to concerts immaculately dressed up (to the extent my wife and I felt a little awkward at times) and even long before the concert waiting in the lounge area they whisper to each other and smile a lot. So inside the concert hall, you can imagine the atmosphere. Even the turning of the notation page is heard vividly and even though I hear that they use some kind of sound enhancement even in Vienna Opera House, I did not notice too much electronics in any of those halls. In solo, they use some amplification, I guess.
In contrast, in India nowadays I find the soundlevels reach deafening proportions in classical music concerts, especially instrumental music. I have actually stopped going to most of these places of late. It was the same at the Purbayan Chatterjee - Zakir Hussain concert alluded to in my Cayin A-88T audition report.
My view is, if such volume levels need to be reached for it to be music, I would rather not be a part of it. Sure dynamic headroom is a must to reproduce music, but drama should not overrule music. 'Pure music' is all about tones, and tones only. Only a personal opinion. For my purpose, I would ignore what JA has measured.
But the article otherwise does not make much sense to me as others have also noted. I do not know where JA went and made those measurements. Some people swear by him and he must be worth it. However, from my experiences of attending a few concerts (Western Classical) in some of the most famous concert Halls, I never found sound levels even remotely that much as mentioned. Western people come to concerts immaculately dressed up (to the extent my wife and I felt a little awkward at times) and even long before the concert waiting in the lounge area they whisper to each other and smile a lot. So inside the concert hall, you can imagine the atmosphere. Even the turning of the notation page is heard vividly and even though I hear that they use some kind of sound enhancement even in Vienna Opera House, I did not notice too much electronics in any of those halls. In solo, they use some amplification, I guess.
In contrast, in India nowadays I find the soundlevels reach deafening proportions in classical music concerts, especially instrumental music. I have actually stopped going to most of these places of late. It was the same at the Purbayan Chatterjee - Zakir Hussain concert alluded to in my Cayin A-88T audition report.
My view is, if such volume levels need to be reached for it to be music, I would rather not be a part of it. Sure dynamic headroom is a must to reproduce music, but drama should not overrule music. 'Pure music' is all about tones, and tones only. Only a personal opinion. For my purpose, I would ignore what JA has measured.
that is the supercharger !
Makes sense. Knowing that sustained exposure to 95db can make one partially deaf its not practical. Of course dynamic peaks may be for less than seconds but like Asit implied there are more ways to create a sense of drama in music than to play so loud that one has to drop everything and stare at the source of the noise.
Thanks
Regards
Thanks
Regards
square_wave
Well-Known Member
Agree with you Asit in every way.
Live music in 90 percent of all halls in India is a FARCE
Recently I and a friend walked out of a hall fifteen minutes into a virgil donatti concert. I have come away very sad after quite few other concerts too.
I hear the NCPA hall in Mumbai does a great job. Never been there though.
I have also noticed, that the higher end your system, you need less volume to hear and appreciate every nuance in your music. In fact it gets more pleasurable that way. My benchmark -volume for LIVE loudness is the unamplified volume level of the most prominent instrument in the mix. For ex: a tabla at 8ft distance. I more or less know how loud it gets at such a distance. Once the volume reaches that threshold, I stop. Any more volume and it gets on my nerves. The volume level should represent the correct size of the instrument too. If the system makes it bigger or smaller, there is something wrong somewhere in the system.
At a recent Carnatic festival spread over venues in Bangalore ( the performer was the veena player smt. Gayathri), I could hear traffic noise and honking in the background. And the speakers were setup so that the performers would be drowned in loud volume of the poor amplification and not be distracted by traffic. The room acoustics needless to say were terrible - it wasn't fit to hold concerts. It was a pity that people who spend 12+ years dedicated to their art practicing many hours a day get these sort of "privileges". To me it felt like an insult to art and artists. We are a society (private bodies and government) that spends very little on institutions and infrastructure promoting art and culture.
Regards
Regards
square_wave
Well-Known Member
This is the reason why most of our own classical artists love performing in the west rather than in our own land. It is a pity.
They have:
1. Better venues.
2. Very attentive, serious and mature audience.
3. State of the art audio at the venue designed by people who are very serious about it.
4. Artists are respected and made to feel at ease and treated very well.
5. Live-music sound engineers who are very dedicated to their job. If you mess with them, you dont have a show
On top of this, the recordings done at these performances are top class. Most of my Hindustani recordings are all done in Germany. Most recordings done here are horrible.
It is sad to see that we have to depend on the west to take care of our recordings. They get to listen to our artists too in the best way possible.SAD but TRUE.
They have:
1. Better venues.
2. Very attentive, serious and mature audience.
3. State of the art audio at the venue designed by people who are very serious about it.
4. Artists are respected and made to feel at ease and treated very well.
5. Live-music sound engineers who are very dedicated to their job. If you mess with them, you dont have a show
On top of this, the recordings done at these performances are top class. Most of my Hindustani recordings are all done in Germany. Most recordings done here are horrible.
It is sad to see that we have to depend on the west to take care of our recordings. They get to listen to our artists too in the best way possible.SAD but TRUE.
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