CONCERT HALLS AS A SOURCE OF CONFUSION
Many experienced listeners and engineers recommend younger people to learn how an unamplified performance sounds. Late Peter Aczel recommended just this recipe: Unamplified concert and music.
@Floyd Toole has reported on his many visits of concert halls too.
I am not a regular goer to concerts. During the ones I have been to, I sat 15 meters or more from the performers. Lucky me, I have attended private concerts too; distance from performer(s) was 1 meter and up to 10 meters.
I have hifi friends that go to symphony orchestra concerts more regularly. So I remember one of my friends telling me a symphony orchestra should sound dark on a high resolution, well calibrated hifi system. I never thought of this remark in a critical fashion before I met this rather obvious illustration by Lokki et al.:
View attachment 24590
Take a look at the frequency response of the virtual loudspeaker orchestra in the top left FR chart. Higher frequencies are attenuated significantly due to sound power dispersion as a function of distance in air. There is nothing new in this chart; but it made me look at an old statement on «dark symphony sound» from this very perspective.
My friend uses digital room compensation to calibrate his system. He got help setting this drc system up from a performer of classical music.
Then it strikes me; if you go regularly to classical concerts and are used to the air related attenuation of higher frequencies you would anchor your evaluation of reproduced classical music as if you had a seat 10-15 meters or more from the performers. If you bring this experience - which may have become habit and a preference - you would expect the same attenuation of higher frequencies from your speakers. However, in case the recording you listen to is made closer to the microphone than 10-15 meters, the recording may sound too bright. Right?
My point is: Coming home from a symphony concert may tilt your preferences of such sound in a way that is not easily compatible with recordings of symphony orchestras.
The air attenuation problem; how does one deal with this in a recording and unknown reproduction scenario?
Should recording of symphony orchestras sound dark (i.e. attenuated in low-frequency terms) or as bright as the recording dictates?
Should a fan of classical music EQ his reproduction system to attenuate higher frequencies through DSP?
I am confused
ADDENDUM: In private concert where I was much closer to performers, I often found the sound shrill, too bright. This adds to the suggestion that distance related air attenuation of higher frequencies is of essence in both recording and playback, right?