Classical speakers that do violins well??

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.

"...The surprise of uncompressed drums is that they do not sound louder.....they sound softer!"

I find this to be true of symphonic music as well. I never find myself wishing the music were louder, even though you can usually hear any shuffling around or other quiet sounds by people near you. The transient peaks of instruments (I'm particularly thinking pizzicato violins, as well as percussion)is loud enough to catch your attention and be exciting. To get this same excitement at home out of a compressed recording, you have to turn the volume of the rest of the music up more than is natural.

you can't use a recording without a reference, if you want to assess the "accuracy" of a stereo system.

i still maintain that the difference between real and recording would be obvious to an experienced listener.

dave, would you be up for a wager ?

if you lived near by, i would identify the source, namely either your trumept playing or a recording of your trumpet played through your stereo system.

i would bet $100 that i could tell the difference.
i have two advantages, namely the dispersion pattern of the trumpet, vs the dispersion of the sound emanating from the speakers and the difference in spl, between the recording and your playing the trumpet.

i still maintain that one would want to find a speaker which minimizes errors in reproducing timbre. regardless of the instrument, certain driver technologies are more likely to be effective in this regard. cones are not the answer. i would look for a ;light and fast driver, such as a ribbon and electrostat. in fact, i am looking for a speaker myself.
i started my search yesterday with an audition of the analysis audio omega. i do not plan to audition cone designs, but may consider a hybrid, namely the piega tc 70x, which has a ribbon mid and tweeter and 2 8 inch drivers. the cones are crossed over at 200 hz.
i am a little concerned about coherence, but i am willing to listen, noetheless.