Classical speakers that do violins well??

Honest1,

You give but one example why you should leave recording to professionals and keep amateurs away.

You are completely correct that a recording using a microphone will record NOT just the acoutic instrument itself but ALSO the reverberation response due to the room. The biggest effect will be ceiling or floor (esp if floor is hardwood). Audio engineers play with microphone heights and surfaces to modify this reverb effect. Studios even buy large expensive panels for vocalists to sing next to and add interesting effects (these are called "microphone plates").

To record ONLY the instrument you would need to use an anechoic chamber...just as you describe. Only then would the playback be closest to the instrument sound - but even then......there are still other issues that are not worth going into here.

Back to speakers.

As a classical music listener and former choral singer IMO large scale classical is hard to do well on a budget, especially massed string.

I would also say that the front end, pre and amps + are also critically important to your string sound. LP is less problematic.

That said, I've been this speaker search route a couple times, been a Maggie owner, and I frankly have very few speakers I like in this price rnage that I think do justice to orchestral music and string tone - chamber or otherwise. I don't honestly care for a lot of popular speakers.

My suggestion would be to go used - more bang for the buck. Then match your amp(s) to your speakers.

I left Maggies for Alons (now Nola). My Alon Vs Mk IIIs had a lot of what I liked about my Maggies - airy, open, unboxy, coherency, imaging - plus they had some virtues the Maggies didn't - bass and dynamics, resolution, ease of placement. They also had a huge soundstage that didn't require one to sit with one's head in a vise.

So I Like Alon/Nola speakers, the designer voices them with classical music and they're probably a little hard to find used but they are huge bang for the buck. Alon Vs, Nolas...great speakers that are neutral but not colorless, and are very (VERY) slightly forgiving. The down side is you want to triwire them and get them away from the walls. If you do that, then you just point them straight ahead. No messing with toe-in.

I saw a lone voice up there suggesting Shahinians - GREAT idea. If you could find a pair of Shahinian Obelisks used they would be wonderful. Richard Shahinian designs them for classical music. 'Nuff said. They also have a very open presentation (notice a theme here?)

Along a similar line, Ohm Walsh has some speaker models that might do well for you. The have (again) a very open spacious presentation, but excellent for classical.

I personally like Audio Physic speakers better than SF or VAs. Used Virgos would be an excellent choice.

I also like the suggestion for used Vandersteen 3a Sigs - these speakers do many things well and nothing bad, like get hard in the tresble and annoy you on massed strings.

VAs are very sweet, but if you have your heart set on them I suggest you go as high up the model line as you can, especially if you listen to much symphonic music.

Yes, Shadorne understands what I meant. That the effect of the room will be doubled when you play a recording of the room in the room.
Having said that, I don't doubt that in a good large, dead, neutral room, Dave is getting surprisingly good results. If the room is contributing very little to the sound, then doubling that effect shouldn't be objectionable. He is also recording farily close to the instrument, which is pretty directional, that is, the sound comes straight out the bell, not from all over the trumpet body.
Are you using any processing (compression, eq), Dave, beyond perhaps a bit of peak limiting? I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is probably a major key to his success, compared to commercial recordings (see other recent thread on compression).
I also believe MrTennis' assessmetn that his recording of a cymbal came up way short. He picked one of the most difficult to reproduce instruments (imo, based on listening to commercial recordings). Cymbals radiate in all directions, so it would be difficult to get a recording that captures all of the cymbal's sound without picking up a lot of the room's interaction with the sound. They have a lot of complex high frequency content, and very fast transients. I don't know MrTennis system, but he has often posted that he likes dull, boring sound (I believe these were his words), so I can see why he would have trouble reproducing cymbals on his rig. Perhaps an instrument that he has geared his rig toward excelling at reproducing would have produced better results.

02-08-08: Honest1 said:
"...
Having said that, I don't doubt that in a good large, dead, neutral room, Dave is getting surprisingly good results. If the room is contributing very little to the sound, then doubling that effect shouldn't be objectionable. He is also recording farily close to the instrument, which is pretty directional, that is, the sound comes straight out the bell, not from all over the trumpet body.
Are you using any processing (compression, eq), Dave, beyond perhaps a bit of peak limiting? I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is probably a major key to his success, compared to commercial recordings (see other recent thread on compression)... "

Correct, I use no compression or processing. I'm using 1-bit DSD at 5.6MHz, so I've got 130dB of dynamic range to play with. Thus there's no need to worry about overload (a very common problem with recording trumpet and trombone). My mic is out in the middle of the fairly dead room with high ceilings, thick carpet and overstuffed chairs and couches, so the main reflection I get is from the ceiling. I'm six feet tall and my speakers stand just under forty-inches and fire the opposite way into the room than from where I record. Hence doubling resonant frequencies is just not a problem.

The problems you mention would probably be most aggravated with a bass instrument, particularly an amplified bass. If you set it up in the same end of the room as the speakers and had the cab relatively near the speakers, then on playback you'd probably hear serious doubling. OTOH, I think that most treble string instruments and soprano brass and woodwinds are not going to present much problem, except in a very reflective room.

Dave

Cymbals have a lot of room reverb effect. I agree they would be very difficult. I suggest MrTennis try the Shefield Labs Drum Track to test for realism. Why mess with making your own recordings when Doug Sax has already made a good one (without the usual compression on drums that let you know that it is not real). Note that you will need extremely high peak SPL capability in order to reproduce the dynamics on this recording. The surprise of uncompressed drums is that they do not sound louder.....they sound softer! Yes you get way more peak SPL's but the transients (from stick impact) are so brief that it does not register as loud.