Prom 53: Wednesday 24th August at 7.00 p.m. (Stravinsky, Ravel, Tchaikovsky)

[Bryn]

I guess you favour those cheap collapsible Chinese horns, like the one Michael Nyman used to play in the Portsmouth Sinfonia, too, eh Ventilhorn?

[Ventilhorn]

I guess you favour those cheap collapsible Chinese horns, like the one Michael Nyman used to play in the Portsmouth Sinfonia, too, eh Ventilhorn?

If it could produce the sound that I would seek to make, and was mechanically reliable, why not?

Many people in all walks of life purchase items that they don't actually need and are far more expensive (but no better) than what they already possess.

Let me lighten this conversion by reprinting a very clever simile by a bassoon playing friend of mine, concerning Constantin Silvestri:-

A bassoon player summed up the enigma that was Silvestri. It was during the interval of a concert and, despite my desperate warning gestures, he was unaware that the maestro was standing with the Concerts Manager only a few feet away.

“Silvestri” he said “is like a small boy with a toy train set. He has a red engine, which never goes wrong or breaks down and a green engine, which can go very well but is never reliable. For some unaccountable reason, he prefers the green engine .

One day, he goes up to the big city and in a toyshop window (a clever reference to the London based orchestras), he spots a black engine. This engine is twice as expensive as the red and green engines put together and cannot perform as well as either, but he makes up his mind that he must have the black engine.”

“When all is assembled and working smoothly, he suddenly decides: I'm going to take this next corner flat out! If it works, it will be a great triumph. If everything falls apart, well it was worth the risk'.”


I finally managed to halt this brilliant simile before something worse was said, but that is not the end of the story. The Concerts Manager told me the following day that Silvestri, who had heard every word, turned to him and said “I don't understood this. Tonight we have difficult concert. The first bassoon and the first horn, all they talk about is toy trains!”

Have a nice day!

VH

[BudgieJane]

I think I'll just stick with my FM receiver and a couple of decent speakers until the BBC forces me to do otherwise.

I think I'll just stick to going to as many concerts as I can.

As the Musicians Union says: Keep Music Live.

[Jasmine Bassett]

Despite Ventihorn's dismissal of sound quality comments, I will add my view.

This was one of the few concerts this year which I have listened to all the way through (for those who are interested via Humax Freeview / Bryston / PMC). That probably means I enjoyed the performances - listening to the music - and I did not find the sound quality unbearable. However that does not mean I can't wish for better sound. To me, this year the sound has been disappointing. The sound is too unnatural and "constructed". I miss the sound of the hall itself but conversely audience noise seems to be more intrusive than in the previous years.

I would love to have the luxury of listening via HD but rural broadband speeds do not give me that option.

[Ventilhorn]

Despite Ventihorn's dismissal of sound quality comments, I will add my view.

This was one of the few concerts this year which I have listened to all the way through (for those who are interested via Humax Freeview / Bryston / PMC). That probably means I enjoyed the performances - listening to the music - and I did not find the sound quality unbearable. However that does not mean I can't wish for better sound. To me, this year the sound has been disappointing. The sound is too unnatural and "constructed". I miss the sound of the hall itself but conversely audience noise seems to be more intrusive than in the previous years.

I would love to have the luxury of listening via HD but rural broadband speeds do not give me that option.

I agree with what you and others have said about the poor sound quality and balance of many of the concerts this year, but this, I would maintain is at source

Spending loads of money on your own equipment will do do nothing to rectify the poor balance and transmitted output from the Royal Albert Hall.

When Radio 3 get that right, perhaps spending a little money on higher quality home equipment is justified, but not until then. (And more expensive does not always mean better sound output)

VH

[amateur51]

I'm so glad that I have tinnitus and chronic hearing loss - it saves me much money AND I enjoy pretty much everything in the same deranged sound that I always have since age 4

[gradus]

I only heard the Tchaikovsky symphony in HD and thought the sound exceptionally good and the performance of the finest quality.
This orchestra under Davis is one of those combinations that really delivers.

[salymap]

I'm so glad that I have tinnitus and chronic hearing loss - it saves me much money AND I enjoy pretty much everything in the same deranged sound that I always have since age 4

Am you poor old thing. My hearing loss/tinnitus is within the last year or two but sad for you.

They can't say yours is age related then

[Jasmine Bassett]

Ventilhorn,

I think we agree - GIGO

Whatever the sound quality it doesn't stop me listening if I'm enjoying the performance, but I aslo can't help thinking how much better the sound quality could be from a live broadcast.

[barber olly]

I think I'll just stick with my FM receiver and a couple of decent speakers until the BBC forces me to do otherwise.

If only this policy yielded the results it did years ago. In order to embrace the digital, computer age, dolby 5.1 and whatever else the basic product has suffered. I'm not a Luddite and enjoy using computers but I do think a lot of fixing things that are not broken seems to have taken place. 60s to 90s FM sound through a decent Hifi system was mostly very good, and pretty consistent. Not now alas. Also off-air recording in some respects has got simpler via iplayer rather than MC or MD, but in other ways eg editing is more fiddly.

[jayne lee wilson]

But, Ventilhorn, it's obvious from all these posts that "spending loads of money" worked for me, since I seem to be enjoying the concerts more consistently than some others!

Almost everything in my system (bar the cabling) is 2nd hand or ex-dem (the new prices are out of sight), and was all bought on sale-or-return, i.e. I kept sending stuff back until the system began to sound more realistic, based on my concert-going around Europe back in the day, now confined to the RLPO. Of course dearer equipment isn't guaranteed to sound better but, carefully auditioned and matched, it certainly can, by a margin that might shock you.
What do you get through all this cash, sweat and tears? A very natural sound, with a much larger scale (orchestra & hall "look" larger in the stereo image), a vivid sense of acoustic spaces, and large reserves of power for those big Mahler moments. You also find you can play it much louder without ear fatigue. But above all, the less-than-perfect sound balances can still be enjoyed, despite, or rather because, you have a clearer audition of what's wrong with them, and can appreciate the better what's right. (Mind you, gross reductions in SQ - low-bitrate mp3/2, severe dynamic compression etc, will indeed become too obvious to enjoy).

It's not easy to get right, no, takes time and patience. But it's still a sad fact of life that cheaper electronics will often get more wrong, and that can distort your view of the music. (More obviously, if you listen on FM you simply can't know what the conductor's doing with the level of various passages etc.)

I knew I ran the risk of being branded a hifi bore or a know-all but, for me it's about the TRUTH - about the DAB specs for example (and how the BBC lied about it), and certainly about the music. I pursued fidelity of sound because I love music and couldn't enjoy it consistently on much of the equipment I owned or heard. The equipment brands I ended up with, ATC and Harbeth, are used all round the world in recording studios because of their accuracy - a good reason for my ears to trust them.

We both love music and we should respect each other's knowledge and differences of approach, but it's a shame you condescend to me about my buying choices, or how and why I spent the amount I did. It was sheer love and dedication..."beauty is truth, truth beauty"..

...and by the way, I've changed nothing in the system for 6 years now, only adding the Cambridge DacMagic for computer-sourced music, for the unapproachable sum of £225!

I agree with what you and others have said about the poor sound quality and balance of many of the concerts this year, but this, I would maintain is at source

Spending loads of money on your own equipment will do do nothing to rectify the poor balance and transmitted output from the Royal Albert Hall.

When Radio 3 get that right, perhaps spending a little money on higher quality home equipment is justified, but not until then. (And more expensive does not always mean better sound output)

VH

[Ventilhorn]

But, Ventilhorn, it's obvious from all these posts that "spending loads of money" worked for me, since I seem to be enjoying the concerts more consistently than some others!

It's not easy to get right, no, takes time and patience. But it's still a sad fact of life that cheaper electronics will often get more wrong, and that can distort your view of the music. (More obviously, if you listen on FM you simply can't know what the conductor's doing with the level of various passages etc.)

I knew I ran the risk of being branded a hifi bore or a know-all but, for me it's about the TRUTH - about the DAB specs for example (and how the BBC lied about it), and certainly about the music. I pursued fidelity of sound because I love music and couldn't enjoy it consistently on much of the equipment I owned or heard. The equipment brands I ended up with, ATC and Harbeth, are used all round the world in recording studios because of their accuracy - a good reason for my ears to trust them.

We both love music and we should respect each other's knowledge and differences of approach, but it's a shame you condescend to me about my buying choices, or how and why I spent the amount I did. It was sheer love and dedication..."beauty is truth, truth beauty"..

Dear Jayne Lee,

If you took my post to be condescending then I'm very sorry, because in no way was it intended as such. My point was that however much sophisticated equipment one might have, it cannot produce what is not there in the input from Radio 3. The number of complaints about inconsistent balance, volume and clarity have increased dramatically over the last two years.
When the BBC used their own audio teams (there's a lot more to it than just the man sitting at the mixing desk) we did not have this stream of complaints. The two facts must be related - I'm quite sure that it's not that our own equipment is starting to deteriorate, so it must be the source which is at fault.

Some folk delight in spending on their cars, some on cameras and video equipment, others on their gardens. We all have our special projects which give us much joy. So why should you not take pride in the quality of your equipment and the satisfaction and pleasure that it gives you?

I only wish that the moguls at the BBC, who squander a fortune on "celebrity hosts" and overseas reporters, who say a few words (usually "That's right") and then hand us over to another reporter, back to the first and then over to another; when the whole thing could be done from the studio against a backdrop of the location, would take the same caring attitude to their quality of output as we all do.

I fear that this is a lost cause, but we must keep banging on.

VH

PS I could produce a nice photograph of Nº 10 Downing Street if the newsteams would like a nice studio backdrop, but I'm sure they would rather have their reporters standing out in the rain!

[Roehre]

I only wish that the moguls at the BBC, who squander a fortune on "celebrity hosts" and overseas reporters, who say a few words (usually "That's right") and then hand us over to another reporter, back to the first and then over to another; when the whole thing could be done from the studio against a backdrop of the location, would take the same caring attitude to their quality of output as we all do.

I fear that this is a lost cause, but we must keep banging on.

PS I could produce a nice photograph of Nº 10 Downing Street if the newsteams would like a nice studio backdrop, but I'm sure they would rather have their reporters standing out in the rain!

Ventilhorn: The nail on its head

[Ferretfancy]

Just a few points. The BBC no longer has an Outside Broadcast Unit, and has thus lost the expertise and experience gained at the RAH by studio managers who learned to deal with the quirks in that difficult venue. I don't think that the contractors who now do the work have had time yet to produce the best results. Even when the same BBC team were present year by year, the results could be very variable, and this applied at other locations as well. I once sat in on a session at St John's Smiths Square where the SM started by using a simple stereo pair with a couple of solo mics, and I thought the result was very good. He the started adding extra space mics and ended up with a complete fudge which for some reason satisfied him perfectly.
The permanent rig this year seems to be even more of a forest than usual, probably allowing for a lot of experimentation in choice with sometimes poor results.

jayne Lee, I agree about the importance of getting the best equipment that is affordable, with the rider that nothing much can improve a poor listening environment. I spent years tinkering with various combinations of speakers and amps before finding a system which worked well in my sizeable living room. This is not an option available to many of us. In my work, mainly in mixing documentaries and current affairs programmes, clarity and lucidity was the watchword, especially when we had to deal with poor source material, and I naturally expect this to be so with music, and I'm afraid the Proms are not producing it as well as they once did.

[salymap]

The World Service wastes just as much money when relaying foreign stories. Recently I heard a story passed down the line four or five times and then the final person interviewed was translated into English by someone else. And the WS is cutting back they say. Huh!