Keyser Soze wrote:
On 4/2/18 2:31 PM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 4/2/2018 2:23 PM, John H. wrote:
On Mon, 2 Apr 2018 13:45:36 -0400, Keyser Soze wrote:

On 4/2/18 1:33 PM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 4/2/2018 1:20 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 1 Apr 2018 13:28:25 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 4/1/2018 9:59 AM, Keyser Soze wrote:
On 4/1/18 12:51 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 31 Mar 2018 17:54:49 -0400, Keyser Soze
wrote:

You probably are right. Pretty soon we'll be seeing one liter
engines
zipping "funny cars" down the dragstrip!

They are getting a 3 ton truck up to 60 in 6 seconds with a 213
Cu/In
engine. In the 80s that would have taken a high performance 350 or
400. It would have been a 427 in the 60s.
Engines have come a long way.




Apparently so, but somehow it reminds me of the guys who used to
tell me
that those little Bose speakers put out the same quality of sound as
theater-sized klipschorns or wharfedales or other large, horn-loaded
speakers, or that "surround sound" is "more real" than what you
hear at
an acoustically correct concert hall with proper miking. I never
believed that...taste, after all, is subjective. I have a CD of
Mischa
Maisky playing Bach cello suites I play frequently, and I've seen
him
perform in a small concert hall. I used to lug a copy of that CD
around
to audio stores when I was thinking of getting different
speakers. The
CD sounded like **** to me on new technology small speakers...the
cello
sounded like a viola, which is tuned an octave higher.


Your ears and yourÂ* expectation of what "good" music reproduction
sounds
like is very subjective.Â* Your brain is an excellent equalizer so
if you
listen to music often on poorly performing speakers it can start to
sound ok.Â* Your brain replaces what is missing.Â*Â* You just can't
do an
instant "A", "B" test because you'll immediately notice the
difference.

Surround sound sucks usually because people over-do the rear
"reflectance" sounds in terms of amplitude.Â* Set up properly you
shouldn't even notice that there are read or side speakers at all.

Surround is really for movies anyway where it is specifically
recorded
to use the side and rear speakers as origin points, like a helicopter
circling over your head or something.


I agree. I don't really notice the surround on our 5.1 systems until
we play a movie that uses all of it. I suppose they could record music
in 5.1 but there is not a lot of it around.



Some music and even symphony orchestras are recorded in surround but
the
intent of trying to create a true hall effect is hard to do plus most
people set the surround levels too high in order to "hear" them. Doing
so destroys the subtle reflection of sound that was intended.

Six channel "Super CD" recordings are very high in dynamic range and
fidelity because the recording technique is totally different than
regular CD'sÂ* but again, the extra channels don't always add to the
authenticity of the performance in a large venue or hall.





We're going to see The Barber of Seville at the KenCen later this month,
featuring, among others, the Moldavan baritone, Andrey Zhilikhovsky.
Hopefully, no one will mess with the sound and make it sound like
someone's multi-channel surround stereo.Â*

The baritone is rising rapidly among the great singers...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWyqaomjpdE

...especially since the sad and untimely death from brain cancer of
Dmitri Hvorostovsky.


Yeah, that was a real shame.


I guess that appeals to many people (which I can understand) but I am
not high brow enough to appreciate it much.



The Barber of Seville and Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro were the
musical theater of their times, and those comic operas and others had
great appeal to the masses, even those with no formal education. The
same was true of Gilbert & Sullivan's operettas.

Incidently, both the Rossini work and Mozart's were based on works by
the same playwright and the main protagonists are as a result named
Figaro.

You might like these version of Figaro's Barber of Seville aria...with a
translation.

My taste for enjoying opera is limited. I like a lot of the comic operas
for their great music and really silly plots. Many of the "tragic"
operas put me to sleep.



Most of the operas and operettas were the soap operas of the time.
Nothing highbrow about a big bunch of them. Especially Gilbert and
Sullivan.