Unamplified music

Gustav Mahler quotes "If a composer could say what he had to say in words, he would not bother saying it in music". Words sometimes do seem inadequate. When a chick addresses a thirty years old "Hello! uncle", he might feel a sense of maturity but to a fifty years old, dudes, it sounds like an old hog. Take a hike, uncle. Unless the old hog riding a Ferrari, ha ha ha... 

Worry not. There is no end to worries. We all should live life by the day, blessing Lord for each new day. The thought came to me that I should go get a ticket to Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO), with or without buddies. I picked up the phone and book my ticket. My distance to MPO is manageable and I don't have to put up a night in the city the least. I could hit home in 45 minutes after the show. No sweat.

MPO is a world class auditorium designed by Cesar Pelli. You will be greeted by the majestic of the hall upon entering. Wow! The lushness of Asian hardwood decorated the hall, wooden hard floor, the majestic of the pipes, tall ceiling, hidden diffusers and the circular lighting mimicking the stars of the universe is the highlight of the hall. The hall air ventilation is also noteworthy, quiet as a mouse. Pictures paints a thousand words, need I say more? The seats are showing signs of wear though. All in all, this is one acoustically very good hall.

"A superb 885-seat shoebox-shaped auditorium, it has a 2,997 pipe Klais concert organ with 44 stop tracker action and a state-of-the-art recording studio designed in Britain by Abbey Road Studios. The hall has two large rehearsal rooms, a third for section rehearsals, eleven individual practice rooms, two suites for conductors, a dressing room for the orchestra leader, two for soloists, and provision for ensembles". John Robert Brown.

Mahler Symphony Nine, conducted by Yoel Gamzou. He is a young conductor specializes in Mahler's works. The dramatic performance with romantic ending, the performance under his baton lasted approximately ninety minutes. I couldn't comment how good his performance but would agree it was a good performance. Yoel's music background was impressive and perhaps will get better with age. All conductors do. My ears were served with a great variety of timbre goodness, my cognitive was busy impregnating the experience in my tired brain. Not before long, my memory was full. It is a tiring endeavour performing long critical listening. Used to complain why with all the coughing, I couldn't resist the itchy throat as well! I was wore down and submitted to the kaleidoscope of sound. Quite an ear "bashing" when great variety of instrument plays simultaneously and consequentially at the peak of drama. Well, not to the extreme of discotheque though. When the music pause, deafening silence follows, the kind of silence like you are exhaling your last breath.

Third row center seat, approximately ten feet from the stage, this a close emulation of near-field listening in my room. Not to be self fulfilling, I got to admit my system could not come close to emulate the atmospheric details. There is a whole lot of information missing! If there is one word I may want to use, sterile. Of course, front three rows tickets are cheap. Constant looking up to the stage contributes to sore neck. You got to pay for better seats. Furthermore, no full visual of the orchestra particularly, woodwinds and percussion sections. You do get a good look at the conductor's back, the hysterical intensity. The orchestra members maintain a close watch on the whipping of his baton, little do I know, his baton now regulates the pressure of my bloodstream too.

A couple of things become apparent upon comparison. First, dynamics is on a whim without hesitation. Accelerate and stop liken road runner, bing bing. This is where most box speakers failed miserably. Hello horn speakers, you don't get any impeccable rise time other than horns. Timing is without question spot on. Secondly, the priceless effortless. It comes only with large diameter driver. Thirdly, overhang bass. Ill-designed boxed speaker and room acoustics are largely account for these. A great amount of turbulence generated inside the speaker box in dire straits, self regulating the air pressure. Seal box designed speakers control the aggression of driver excursion in the expense of sensitivity. A good amount of power is necessary to move the high Qts driver to produce weightier sound. Bad room acoustics aggravate the problem. All box designed speakers exhibit bass overhang to some degree, period. The best bass I heard is from open baffle speaker!  Open baffle speaker bass comes really close to the real thing in this regard. Box-less designed speakers in nature will not have to deal with box induced colourations.

Next, the unparalleled directness of sound, "in yer face" is how audio community says it. This directness diminishes in correspond to the distance from the stage, somewhat homogenized from row thirteen onward, premium seats. You get full view from premium seats in which they also charge you premium for the seats. I now know which row I wanted to be seated.

Lastly, harmonic purity. Without amplification and minimum room influence, harmonic is presented in its truest form. In my humble view, I break harmonic down to two namely, harmonic hue and density. These two virtues fundamentally responsible for tonality. I couldn't help some recollections flashes in my mind, some speakers innately sounded overly rich and denser than reality and vice versa. Most home speakers are tuned to be ear pleasing, anyway.

Watching and listening concurrently brings forth information explosion where your two primary sensors are working their ass off feeding information to the brain. Your brain may caught in buffering mode. Your attention most likely moving around all sections, you could barely cover the orchestra on certain passages. The experience differs from listening playback through a system, you simply let your imagination go wild. MPO, thanks for the experience, I will return for more for the musical extravaganza.