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

[Chris Newman]

Jayne,
As I have explained before, I play most CDs on my computer because of little space. I also use it to receive via download my TV and Radio (mostly in HD) but I play the sound through much more superior speakers than the computer's own. I am perfectly happy with the sound produced by CDs. I am perfectly happy with the sound of the last two Wednesday's Proms which were excellently delivered by SIS or Radio 3 whovever miked and balance the sound those nights (or both?). However most nights the Prom relays are poor compared with that of the 1960s and 70s. Some 2011 Proms are not a patch on some BBC Legends CDs recorded with two mikes over the conductor's head. Usually I notice that if the engineers expect a piece of music to be loud they turn the level down and creep up once they know what is going on. This was made rather amusing when Bernard Haitink gave us his beautifully gentle Brahms Fourth Symphony last weekend they expected some entries to be very loud and almost missed them because they were not.

[jayne lee wilson]

One detail we haven't mentioned - the acoustic "mushrooms" or flying saucers", which were put in place in 1969. I remember a R3 piece in the 1990s where a producer or engineer was asked about them and he said that the hall without them was "much better, from a broadcasting point of view, absolute hell if you were in the hall"! Anyone have any experiences and views to offer about this?

Chris, I notice the level shifts and the limiting on FM a lot but much less obviously, often scarcely at all, on the HDs feed, although that does seem to suffer fairly often from over-cautious dynamics (as measured by Bryn in the Mahler 6), easier to compensate for than outright compression! Perhaps what you described in the Haitink Brahms 4th as entries being "almost missed" came across to me as a relative lack of presence, compared say to the Salonen concert, the BBC NOW Beethoven, and others I've highlighted?
Part of the fascination of such a big festival is the changing sound produced by different engineers and different orchestras. This has always been more a source of enjoyment for me than frustration, you hear it too on the Berlin Phil DCH and other streams, but I almost abandoned R3 concerts when the choice was only between compressed FM and DAB.

[makropulos]

One detail we haven't mentioned - the acoustic "mushrooms" or flying saucers", which were put in place in 1969. I remember a R3 piece in the 1990s where a producer or engineer was asked about them and he said that the hall without them was "much better, from a broadcasting point of view, absolute hell if you were in the hall"! Anyone have any experiences and views to offer about this?.

I first went to the Proms in 1969, so my only experience of the hall was with mushrooms. But I'd heard plenty on the radio before then and all I can remember is that the broadcast sound once the mushrooms were installed was vastly clearer.

[Chris Newman]

I first went to the Proms in 1967 when there were no mushrooms and Colin Davis conducted The Trojans at Cathage by Berlioz. Terrific it was but loud fast bits like the reprise of "Hail, All Hail to The Queen" before Dido's death could be heard three or four times.

1968 still was mushroomless. Listen to incredible Svetlanov's recording of Scriabin's "Poem of Ecstacy" and you catch a tinge of the echoes as you do the week before when Rostropovich played his extraordinary Dvorak Cello Concerto hours after the Russians had entered Prague. Karl Richter conducted a wonderful St Matthew Passion that season with Elly Ameling, Janet Baker and Alexander Young. Felix Aprahamian said in the Guardian that echo miraculously went on holiday that night.

The 1969 season was marvellous with the mushrooms installed although we had tested them a few months earlier when Carlo Maria Giulini and Ben Britten jointly conducted The War Requiem and Raphael Frubeck de Burgos conducted Mahler's 8th.

All the mentioned performances (except Berlioz, Bach and de Burgos Mahler)can be found on recordings on BBC Legends which has closed but you can still find them (Presto and MDC should still have copies). Also recommend Mahler's 8th with Horenstein from 1959, any Horenstein Mahler or Goodall/Horenstein Bruckner Proms on BBC Legends. They demonstrate the fabulous sound quality of the old BBC Third Programme (now Radio 3).

[alywin]

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.

I didn't realise that. That would explain quite a few things, especially my disappointment with most of the televised Proms I've seen (compared, sometimes, with actual performances in the Hall).

[amateur51]

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

I had lots of intramuscular penicillin injections because of middle-ear infections, salymap - I went deaf for a while and lost my sense if balance - some might say permanently One of the side-effects of prolonged early penicillin therapy was tinnitus - in my case a constant background electronic-type whine which occasionally changes pitch in which case I become totally internalised for 3-5 seconds. Thank goodness I don't drive!. It makes listening to anything in a noisy environment very difficult but music is fine - my digi-hearing aids compensate well for my loss of 'top' and my naturally duff hearing means that I can listen to noisy recordings with great pleasure

A doctor once tried to cure it and I was always in two minds about whether I wanted to lose it after all this time. She failed, of course.

Yours must be a terrible bore salymap, coming after a life-time of good hearing - I'm glad that the headphones help

[Ferretfancy]

I went to Proms regularly during the 50s and early 60s before the mushrooms. In those days, depending on where you were, you could get performances of a piano concerto twice because the echo on repeated notes was appalling. The sound in the gallery wasn't quite so bad. Don't forget that until the mid 60s many Proms were still broadcast in mono, and that might have made it slightly easier for the studio managers. That said, I remember the famous Horenstein Mahler 8, both in the hall and on the experimental stereo tape made using only two C12 microphones! It's available on a BBC Legends CD and still sounds quite impressive for 1959!