John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part II

[TerryO]

Originally Posted by Johnloudb

Actually my dad says that Avery Fisher Hall was always considered a disappointment.

Leo Beranek took out space in the NY papers to disavow the the design and to save his reputation, as it had been drastically changed from his specifications. I believe I read that AF Hall has had several renovations done over the years to improve the acoustic and that they finally ended up pretty close to what Mr. Beranek had originally wanted.
Maybe not?

Best Regards,
TerryO

[Johnloudb]

Leo Beranek took out space in the NY papers to disavow the the design and to save his reputation, as it had been drastically changed from his specifications.

Thanks, that's good to know.

[TerryO]

Originally Posted by Johnloudb

Thanks, that's good to know.

You've also learned that I don't proofread very well. I just noticed the extra "the" in my post. I'll have to leave out a "the" next time I post, as every man is only allotted so many in a lifetime.


Best Regards,
TerryO

[bentoronto]

1. In building a hall, you buy seats with the same absorption with or without humans in them. That's how the seat manufacturers come to you. For obvious reasons.

2. Orchestra Hall in Chicago, renovated a few decades ago, is an example of how you can destroy a great, non-proscenium hall, by giving the conductors' views priority. I couldn't say how things might be different for them, but shouldn't THEY be professional enough to adjust the performance to the hall, not to their personal vantage point?

3. Specialists like acousticians (and architectural psychologists, ahem, ahem) can always find some trivial reason to argue why the client changed something from their pure spec and ended with a mess. BTW, hall ratings are the views of rich guys (and free-loading critics) in ground-level seats, not poor folks who sit in the gallery - might be just a few good seats on which a hall's reputation is based. Just as some halls how stinking sight-lines (or today's profound stupidity, seats aimed cross-wise), some halls have lots of seats with booming bass for hundreds of seats under overhanging balconies - and that will not be noted in the review in the morning newspaper.

4. GET A GRIP... there are only some many ways halls vary from one another and/or that conductors can fool with. Maybe just: reverb time, high-and-lows, city noise level..... Maybe more. Basic stuff. So let's not attribute a whole texture of control to them. Yes, in a stone cathedral, you have to let the racket from the trombones die down before something else starts up and Berlioz' massive Marche Funebre et Triumphal has to be played slow. Duh. I say as something of connoisseur of conductors, at least when I was young - yes, good one's are wonnerful, but they aren't doing a whole lot apropos the hall characteristics.... the multi-mic recording engineer is.

[bentoronto]

Oh gosh, I forgot to add my theory of how to make a great concert hall: build with wood.

[Pano]

Build with wood and let it age. A long time. Works great.

[jlsem]

i have learned since my last screed that the newish Mariinsky Concert Hall in St. Petersburg, which is now regarded as one of the finest concert halls in the world, was in fact done by the Japanese firm Nagata Acoustics. Wood was used throughout its interior construction.

John

[johnferrier]

Originally Posted by jlsem

i have learned since my last screed that the newish Mariinsky Concert Hall in St. Petersburg, which is now regarded as one of the finest concert halls in the world, was in fact done by the Japanese firm Nagata Acoustics. Wood was used throughout its interior construction.

John

Interesting . . . will look for recordings from the new venue . . ..


Mariinsky Concert Hall (2006)

same acoustic designers of Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (2003) . . .


"Finishing Materials
Ceiling : Douglas Fir
Wall : Douglas Fir
Floor : Oak
Seat : Upholstered"

shows difference in reverberation un/occupied, etc.


.

[wrinkle]

Originally Posted by johnferrier

Interesting . . . will look for recordings from the new venue . . ..


Mariinsky Concert Hall (2006)

same acoustic designers of Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (2003) . . .


"Finishing Materials
Ceiling : Douglas Fir
Wall : Douglas Fir
Floor : Oak
Seat : Upholstered"

shows difference in reverberation un/occupied, etc.


.

I hope their structural calculations were better than their spelling!

Wrinkle

[bentoronto]

The occupied/unoccupied reverberation times are really close and would look even closer if the chart weren't the lying "missing zero" kind.

Mariinsky is a non-proscenium hall like the great Concertgebau.