Romy the Cat wrote:

My ultimate wet audio dream was to have Bruckner Room. But so far it turning out that I got another big B room. Since 3 days back I stopped the intellectual masturbation with my room my playback up for the whole week and listening what I am listening I recognize that have un-proportionally high amount of Bach in my listening. It is not that I have anything against it but I wonder if my new listening environment has anything to do with it…. The Cat

unicon wrote:

Romy can you explain the differences between a Bruckner room and Bach room ?(technically) Im all new in this subject. rooms are a part of audio playback to transparent audio waves in my idea and no more.

Lbjefferies7 wrote:

Interesting.When I moved my system and was just learning the new room and making changes, I was also listening to more Bach than usual.  I mostly wanted to play Partitas, Inventions, Preludes, and Goldberg Variations.  I was turned off by any cello work (which is terribly unusual for me), concertos, fugues, and WTC. The system at that time was only pleasing with "typewriter music."

Lbjefferies7 wrote:

I suppose WTC is properly in the first group, but I was playing my beloved Richter 1970 performance.  The gorgeous, aqueous, lucid, somehow Mozartian playing just did not work on a inferior setup.  I think that Bosendorfers may always have at least one leg in the second group. You are right..."Typewriter music" is most certainly not an insult.  I don't know if I could live happily without Bach, but I doubt it.

Oh, yes, the Richter’s 1970 performance of WTC will certainly do it. I agree that it is with one leg in the second group. The WTC that I am tend to listed latterly is more like pure Typewriterish – by Glen Gould. I have to admit that Gould forever broke my virginity about how Bach might sound. Regardless who I listen – Richter or Feinberg I always miss that neurasthenicly-harpsichordish pattern of Gould’s Bach. In some instance I feel that back need to be played only like this…

Anyhow, what is interesting that this harpsichordishly-typewriting play is more suitable for my current room sound then “cello work, concertos, and fugues”. BTW, yesterday WCRB broadcasted live recording of of BWV 1061A double concerto  (with no strings, just Artist Name/Performers: Peter Sykes and Mahan Esfahani played double harpsichords harpsichords) and it was very nice. So, I guess the typewriter concertos would do….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V56_x_tGzrA

At about 2:50 into the video, Gould explains how his playing differs between his living room and a concert hall.  "...the moment that I step into such an ambiance, something says, 'be expansive,' you know.  'Feel levels of things that you can't hear in a living room with a rug on the floor' and so on and so on.  Right there, there's a difference, a difference so great that it really influences the concept of the piece."

I suppose it is not exactly the same as some composers working somewhat well on primitave-sounding systems, but his comment on speed smote me, and I believe it applies to a room in which Bruckner and the composers of "expansive" sound and meaning could sound proper.  In my new room, I can't find the patience to listen to Bruckner.  I can now listen to concertos and pieces with content in the tone and space, but if the music takes too long to get into it, I become impatient, then feel like a rediculous and disrespectful philistine for turning it off prematurely.  In my old big room, it was never a problem.  Do I need "Expansiveness Injection?"  Absorption? Diffusion?  Maybe I should read-up on Lamm's X-Factor and steal an L2...

The Bewildered and Somewhat Pissed,
LBJ

Lbjefferies7 wrote:

In my new room, I can't find the patience to listen to Bruckner.  I can now listen to concertos and pieces with content in the tone and space, but if the music takes too long to get into it, I become impatient, then feel like a rediculous and disrespectful philistine for turning it off prematurely.  In my old big room, it was never a problem.  Do I need "Expansiveness Injection?"  Absorption? Diffusion?

Thank you Gentlemen,

"I would offer some of my commentary of the subject. The very first thing you need to find out if your audio anti-Brucknerism has natural or audio nature."

Of course any input you can offer will be gladly considered.  Yes, of course, I have gone through cycles where I don't care to hear certain pieces.  It usually ends when, for whatever reason, I just need to hear it again.  I haven't really been able to figure out exactly why this is, but, of course, it has nothing to do with the system and everything to do with me.  It is certainly possible that I do not yet fully "get" Bruckner (Wagner is still a mystery).

"Gould was such a great talker!  I love listening to him on just about any subject.  But don't let this stop you from digging into it, if you want to "fix" it."

Ditto.  Gould was an amazing musician as well as an amazing person.  It is a shame that he couldn't do more.  That's a rediculous and terribly selfish thing to say, really, but anyone who could converse like that and be so grippingly interesting could probably also write quite effectively; literature, naturally, and in his case, music also.  I think that one of the best things he did was his attempt to discourage clapping.

"LBJ, there are bound to be periods when, and plenty of varying reasons why, one just is not up for big music;"

True, but I don't quite think that's what is going on.  I always (almost) love big music and big sounding performances.  I have been trying to play Von Karajan's 1971 Bruckner 7th, particularly because of Karajan's incredible ability to make the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra play so expansively and so hugely.  I just played Dvorak's 9th "New World" Symphony with Rafael Kubelik leading Berlin PO (a performance that is really quite important to me) and the system did not reveal the size of the first movement well enough.  The Largo was phenominal.  There were deficiencies, of course, as there always are, but I could not be compelled to care.  The expression was just as I have wanted to have it...Except...At the big fortissimo at around the 9 minute mark, it was wonderfully loud, but not properly big.  I want it to tower over the world, not to "be loud."

"I can't remember if you mentioned your room particulars, or if you've said anything about BEP and/or its remediation in your system."

I haven't.  I had previously been listening in a room that is about 65 feet wide by 32 feet deep with 14 foot ceilings at a far-field position.  I once set it up for near-field and was intrigued enough to move into a room that is exactly 11'1" by 11'1" by 8'1".  My Ears are exactly 5'11" from the speakers.  They are time-aligned teardrop shaped 3-ways (probably soon to be 4-way to solve a fairly moderate mid-bass deficiency).  In the previous location, they were trained to behave very well when portraying size.  Here, things have not been quite so easy.  They are postioned to within a red twat-hair's breadth of DPOLS (quite impossible in the old room).  Electricity is untreated, so...you know how it is.  For my Dvorak performance, it was not too crazy.

Anyway, I thank you all as cordially as I can and look forward to expanding on this rediculous little expedition of mine.  Night, night.

jp wrote:

Ive only had experience with one room for any length of time but I can identify with the experiences of LBJ and Romy.  I could not bear to listen to Bruckner when my system was somewhat out of sorts while conducting experiments in my system.  Listening to Bruckner in a less than ideal state, I felt impatient and somewhat annoyed and mentally fatigued.  It was nearly impossible to get at or into Bruckner.  I had a much more enjoyable time listening to it on my portable cd player. In my attempts to locate the DPOL, I would use certain concertos and solo pieces to nail down the imaging but often times the sound/presentation was completely unsatisfactory when I changed to more sophisticated symphonic pieces such as Bruckner.  Quite frustrating and maddening.  So now when I do any sort of experiments I pretty much use Bruckner as my final test in evaluating my system.

I would not say that listening to Bruckner at even the worst equipment brings me impatience, annoyance or mentally fatigue of any kind. There are however different type of listening: regular listening and The Listening. In the high-end audio we go for The Listening and this is VERY far experience from regular listening.  The last weekend I had Bruckner’s The Listening even in a house of one of my local audio guys – it was the super event. I meant to write up about the event but my feelings of it still too fresh and to vulnerable to fuck it up with writing about it.

BTW, above I have promised that I will do write up about the “Bruckner room sound”. I did not do it yet. Well I did some sketching but it turned out to be a post not about the listening room but rather about Bruckner Sound and Audio. It is much wider than the subject of this thread and I had a lot of interest to write that article. I will compile it in a finish set of thought and will post it in a separate “Bruckner Sound and Audio” thread.

Here is an introduction section from it:

As the prelude to this post we have to very clearly understand that we are talking about audio and audio only. If you are not a fool then there is nothing to prevent you to get Bruckner whiteout any evolved audio – table radio or a car are perfectly fine. However if we presume the audio is able to make difference then let talk just about strictly audio aspects of reproduction the Bruckner sound.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Lbjefferies7 wrote: Interesting.When I moved my system and was just learning the new room and making changes, I was also listening to more Bach than usual.  I mostly wanted to play Partitas, Inventions, Preludes, and Goldberg Variations.  I was turned off by any cello work (which is terribly unusual for me), concertos, fugues, and WTC. The system at that time was only pleasing with "typewriter music." You said it all. I have absolutely identical observation, with exception of WTC that I feel is more in the first group. Your phrasing "typewriter music" (no insult to Bach intended) describes perfectly what kind usic I tend to listen in my new room.  The Cat

REG wrote:

No composer has ever been written about more than Wagner. Indeed, few people have altogether. In the midst of the vast literature on Wagner as a philosopher of music, revolutionizer of harmony, redefiner of opera, master of poetry, dramatic interpreter of mythology, and, incidentally, political revolutionary, it is easy to overlook a basic point: Wagner changed the literal sound of music. Listen in your mind to the opening of Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and then to the opening of Das Rheingold. The Mozart is light, staccato, divided into short phrases, treble-oriented (the melody is the highest part, and harmonized from the top down) and, philosophically, clear and rational. Moreover, the music asks for clarity in performance: clear playing, separated instrumental lines, and clear acoustics to help with the first two. Das Rheingold is massive and so long-lined as to have lines that go on indefinitely ("endless melody"); it is built from the bottom up and it is philosophically mystical. The performance requirements are warmth, continuity, fullness, bass solidity and relatively reverberant acoustics to support the sound. Of course, this is oversimplified: Mozart contains Wagnerian passages (the overture to Don Giovanni); Wagner contains few Mozartian ones, but Strauss contains a great many. Still, the essential point remains. The Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, Bruckner's massive sound structures, and Mahler's adagios inhabit a sonic world different from that of the Classic period - Mozart and Haydn-and to a great extent, different from that of Beethoven, too. The Beethoven Fifth has the philosophical character of Romanticism heroic passion, extreme intensity and extreme contrasts. But its sound remains based in staccato-accented rhythmic structures, far more so than, say, a Bruckner symphony. This shift in sonic emphasis has vast implications for how the music should be recorded and reproduced. These implications and how they have been largely ignored or misunderstood will be my subject here. To a great extent, the musical changes I am talking about are written in the scores. The massive orchestrations, the abundance of bass instruments - even the invention of at least one (the "Wagner tuba") - and the long melodic lines propelled by complex chromatic harmony are all literal parts of the music as written. But, in addition, one can hear the changes in the acoustics of the places where the music was intended to be played.