Any die-hard western classical buffs here?

Not sure if I'm a die-hard buff but I sure love western classical, just the way I love a bunch of other genres! My favorite composers are Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Bach and Dvorak. Don't know much about music theory though...
 
Not sure if I'm a die-hard buff but I sure love western classical, just the way I love a bunch of other genres! My favorite composers are Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Bach and Dvorak. Don't know much about music theory though...


Who cares about theory?

As long you have a rocking pair of speakers/headphones and classical music that sounds good!


Listen to some of Mozart's wood wind works especially those for the clarinet...

Awesome! :clapping:
 
Who cares about theory?

As long you have a rocking pair of speakers/headphones and classical music that sounds good!


Listen to some of Mozart's wood wind works especially those for the clarinet...

Awesome! :clapping:

Had a couple of Clarinet works by Beethoven I think, which I liked lots, so will surely look up Mozart's as well. And yeah, most of my music listening is through my HD650s and it rocks for sure! :D
 
Had a couple of Clarinet works by Beethoven I think, which I liked lots, so will surely look up Mozart's as well. And yeah, most of my music listening is through my HD650s and it rocks for sure! :D

Tip: Get the ALO recabled K702 and run them off a Marantz/Cambridge CD player and a good headphone amplifer like mine! :eek:hyeah:

Or, get the just released HD800....

HD650 nice, but I heard that it lacks the top end(HF extension) for classical.
 
Nah, I'm planning to do a DIY balanced re-cabling and get an LD balanced tube amp, though not anytime soon. And no, HD800 is not something I'm even going to dream about. I need to get my hifi rig done so whatever money I manage to save would be for my main rig. BTW, I never felt that the 650s lacked 'top end' nor did it sound 'veiled' and sounds 'just right' for me... :D
 
I currently like Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi, Brahms, Mahler

I love the Russian pianist/composer Sergei Rachmaninoff a lot.
There are so many other composers I need to check out. I am sure Ill find so many others that I may like.

Amit, are you the same as the musician Amit Heri ? :)
 
One more to this thread......
Mostly Beethoven's symphonies, some Piano & Violin Concertos, practically all of Amadeus, Strauss, some Bach, some Tchaikovsky esp ballets, some Chopin, Schumann, Schubert, Haydn and of course Verdi Operas..... Some Organ too.

BTW - mandatory for a classical listener to build a system that does justice to it, esp to absorb all the minute nuances & the swinging dynamics.

Absolutely, if you ask me, classical is the toughest genre to get right.

Everything is required....

From the lowest notes of a huge pipe organ to the piccolo... everything with authentic timbre/tone... spades of resolution to place every performer in a colossal soundstage... dynamics so that every thing from a single player to a canon shot in 1812 overture is heard well... lightning fast transients to do cymbal crashes well... timing and precise attack and decay to get piano right...
 
Absolutely, if you ask me, classical is the toughest genre to get right.

Everything is required....

From the lowest notes of a huge pipe organ to the piccolo... everything with authentic timbre/tone... spades of resolution to place every performer in a colossal soundstage... dynamics so that every thing from a single player to a canon shot in 1812 overture is heard well... lightning fast transients to do cymbal crashes well... timing and precise attack and decay to get piano right...

Completely agree:)
Classical is the most difficult genre for an hifi gear to reproduce convincingly. If they can do this right, everything else is a piece of cake.
 
@bhanja_trinanjan
'From the lowest notes of a huge pipe organ to the piccolo... everything with authentic timbre/tone... spades of resolution to place every performer in a colossal soundstage... dynamics so that every thing from a single player to a canon shot in 1812 overture is heard well... lightning fast transients to do cymbal crashes well... timing and precise attack and decay to get piano right...'

You would have to be in a concert hall with the Berliner Philharmoniker or the Wiener Philharmoniker to hear ALL that.I doubt if any hifi system at ANY price could manage to do everything you have mentioned.
I have yet to hear a hifi system which can reproduce western classical with even a little bit of flair.Neither the solid state nor the valve based systems I have heard could even begin to handle chamber music.As for 'playing back' the symphony's of Mahler or Beethoven - NEVER!
 
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@bhanja_trinanjan

You would have to be in a concert hall with the Berliner Philharmoniker or the Wiener Philharmoniker to hear ALL that.

As for 'playing back' the symphony's of Mahler or Beethoven - NEVER!

Hoping to do exactly that at musikfest berlin this september.
Sir Simon Rattle conducting Mahler symphony 7.

Cheers!
 
In recent times I have changed my opinion about what a decent hifi system can do :)

When I wrote the earlier post, I was wrestling with my initial unsatisfactory attempts at putting together a good playback system for listening to chamber and orchestral works. Things started looking up after I acquired the Vienna Acoustic Beethoven Baby Grand speakers. It was the first and one of the only two speakers ( the other was Sonus Faber Liuto Towers) I have heard, which could reproduce the dynamics, detail, sweetness and tonality of chamber music. It required a decent cdp like the Arcam CD 192 and the distortion-free power of a Bryston pre/power to make the Vienna's reproduce symphonic music convincingly.

Simon Rattle, Berlin Philharmoniker and Mahler 2,3,5 or 7 would be the 'real' thing. But it can only be experienced once in a while. For normal everyday listening a good two channel system is a decent substitute! I now listen to the most adventerous of the modern composers, Mahler, Shostakovich, Stravinski, Messiaen, Schoenberg on my system with a great deal of satisfaction.
 
you are seriously understating when you say 'good' or 'decent' :)
just those speakers are for over $3000! in fact i am willing to pay you to listen to beethoven's sixth on that system!

I will probably build one in a decade or two, but until then i will have to manage with my headphone setup.

Cheers!
 
you are seriously understating when you say 'good' or 'decent' :)
just those speakers are for over $3000! in fact i am willing to pay you to listen to beethoven's sixth on that system!

I will probably build one in a decade or two, but until then i will have to manage with my headphone setup.

Cheers!

bhaskie

If you happen to come to Chandigarh you are welcome to come over for a listen. To a session of symphonies. Beethoven. Mahler. Bruckner. Haydn. Mozart. Schubert. Brahms. Schumann. Dvorak. Sibelius. Shostakovich. Messiaen. Tchaikovsky. Rimski Korsakov. Borodin. Neilsen. Honegger. Martinu....
 
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you are seriously understating when you say 'good' or 'decent' :)
just those speakers are for over $3000! in fact i am willing to pay you to listen to beethoven's sixth on that system!

I will probably build one in a decade or two, but until then i will have to manage with my headphone setup.

Cheers!

bhaskie

I was lucky to get a virtually new 'demo' pair in a fabulous piano black finish, at a reasonable price. After a couple of disastrous hifi decisions last year, I finally had a stroke of luck with the Vienna's :)

Sumiko is no longer the US distributor, and they have handed over their inventory of the Vienna Grands to Listen Up, for disposing off in a clearence sale. The original price was 4000$ and there is a fairly attractive 1200$ discount at the moment.The Bach Grand seems to be a wonderful two way speaker, for a medium sized room

Vienna Closeout
 
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If you happen to come to Chandigarh you are welcome to come over for a listen. To a session of symphonies.

wonderful! might just make a trip especially for this then :)

The Bach Grand seems to be a wonderful two way speaker, for a medium sized room

yes i hope to get myself something within $2k, so maybe the bach or mozart grand will do. i have Dali bookshelves which sound atrocious with western classical.

however i am doing just fine with my sennheiser HD600's until i get some serious gear and a pair of floorstanders!
 
wonderful! might just make a trip especially for this then :)



yes i hope to get myself something within $2k, so maybe the bach or mozart grand will do. i have Dali bookshelves which sound atrocious with western classical.

however i am doing just fine with my sennheiser HD600's until i get some serious gear and a pair of floorstanders!

To get the same SQ as a Sennheiser HD 600, through floor standers and related components, you would have to spend a serious amount of money. Earlier I did not enjoy listening to music with earphones/headphones, as I used to find them uncomfortable and fatiguing. But a few months ago I was at the Delhi airport. My flight was delayed, and I was whiling away the time, listening to music on my iPod shuffle. The music was western classical, transferred from iTunes at a bit rate of 128kpbs. I was window shopping at the Croma outlet on the airport, and on a whim decided to buy a basic Sennheiser HD 180 headphone. It turned out to be much better than what I had expected! Extremely comfortable and the SQ was very good. At times, I heard detail which I had never encountered before on my system.My first experience with direct sound. Direct into the ears, without any reflection.

I can only imagine what the HD 600 would be like. I presume that lossles files played through a decent Dac and head phone amplifier, would sound terrific. Probably far more exciting than many big systems.
 
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I can only imagine what the HD 600 would be like. I presume that lossles files played through a decent Dac and head phone amplifier, would sound terrific. Probably far more exciting than many big systems.

absolutely true! I use a macbook pro with a CEntrance DACPort ($400 class-A headamp + USB dac without external power) and stream flacs (only) via the async USB to the HD600. I really love the way they sound and i have been using them for a couple of years now. I also use the Asus Xonar Essence STX pci-e card's headphone amp but the portable amp is really convenient.

The best thing is that i can carry this setup with me easily (since I am a programmer) so at work or in the car I can still use it.

The HD 180 are really good wireless phones, and very neat for regular use etc. But the HD600 is a totally different beast. Especially when it come to classical, it's just pure bliss!
 
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