# Choral Music is best Live



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Those high pitched portions always distort on playback, even at low volumes and I find that quite irritating. That is why I conclude it is best live. What do you all think?

:tiphat:


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> *Those high pitched portions always distort on playback*, even at low volumes and I find that quite irritating. That is why I conclude it is best live. What do you all think?
> 
> :tiphat:


This is a generalization. I listen to a lot of choral music, and I do not find this a general axiom. There are plenty of recordings where the sopranos do not distort, not at all. If/when it does happen, it can mean several different things:


the microphones were over loaded during the recording session and distorted (this happens often and is discussed on many recording forums)

the playback volume is too high and amp clipping is distorting the transducers used for playback

the source material is sub standard (MP3, youtube, etc.)

the electronics used in playback are sub standard

Interestingly, I've read that some singers produce this 'distortion' from singing too loud with poor technique.

If I had to get my "fix" of choral music by only going to live venues, I'd be a hurting puppy.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Joe B said:


> This is a generalization. I listen to a lot of choral music, and I do not find this a general axiom. There are plenty of recordings where the sopranos do not distort, not at all. If/when it does happen, it can mean several different things:
> 
> 
> the microphones were over loaded during the recording session and distorted (this happens often and is discussed on many recording forums)
> ...


I have great equipment and I'm listening to CDs, but I agree, I need to listen at home as well; concerts wouldn't be enough.


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## drmdjones (Dec 25, 2018)

All classical music is best live in my opinion. Due to heavy overdubbing on recordings, rock and pop music are rarely so.

Regarding recorded classical music, I prefer recordings made without an audience present. They always make noise and I can do without the applause.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Captainnumber36 said:


> *I have great equipment* and I'm listening to CDs, but I agree, I need to listen at home as well; concerts wouldn't be enough.


The main issue is whether or not your great amp has enough power to cover the peaks on choral music given your speakers/headphones and listening volume, and it's a very real possibility it doesn't. Tell me your gear and I'll look up the specs.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Joe B said:


> Interestingly, I've read that some singers produce this 'distortion' from singing too loud with poor technique.


I don't think singing loud can cause this. Many pop/rock/metal singers add intentional distortion to their voices either via vocal fry or false chord, and neither has to do with volume.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> The main issue is whether or not your great amp has enough power to cover the peaks on choral music given your speakers/headphones and listening volume, and it's a very real possibility it doesn't. Tell me your gear and I'll look up the specs.


Macbook Pro-->Focusrite Scarlett Solo Interface-->1/4" adapter-->1/8th" input-->Senheisser On Ear Momentum headphones. External CD Drive, LG Model #: AP70NS50.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Those high pitched portions always distort on playback, even at low volumes and I find that quite irritating. That is why I conclude it is best live. What do you all think?
> 
> :tiphat:


Do high pitches distort only on recordings or do you experience the same problem in live concerts? If both, you might want to get to an audiologist. Seriously. I have a friend who bought an expensive system because the old one just didn't sound that good. The new one, with $10,000 worth of speakers sounded worse. To the rest of us it sounded incredible. Of course the problem was his hearing was shot and distortion was now his constant companion. That's what happens when you listen with headphones too long!


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

mbhaub said:


> Do high pitches distort only on recordings or do you experience the same problem in live concerts? If both, you might want to get to an audiologist. Seriously. I have a friend who bought an expensive system because the old one just didn't sound that good. The new one, with $10,000 worth of speakers sounded worse. To the rest of us it sounded incredible. Of course the problem was his hearing was shot and distortion was now his constant companion. That's what happens when you listen with headphones too long!


It's only with recordings, and some recordings are better than others but you have stricken me with fear to listen at lower volumes. I tend to listen to Classical quieter anyways!


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Macbook Pro-->Focusrite Scarlett Solo Interface-->1/4" adapter-->1/8th" input-->Senheisser On Ear Momentum headphones. External CD Drive, LG Model #: AP70NS50.


Those headphones should be really easy to drive at 18 Ohms/112dB sensitivity, but I'm not finding any info on the power rating of the Focusrite Scarlett. Seems that's meant more as a recording interface than as a DAC/headphone amp. Might I suggest investing in a decent DAC/HP amp? The Schiit FULLA is cheap and should provide all the power those phones would need; or you could get the Modi/Magni combo for more power/flexibility in case you ever get a set of harder-to-drive phones.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Those headphones should be really easy to drive at 18 Ohms/112dB sensitivity, but I'm not finding any info on the power rating of the Focusrite Scarlett. Seems that's meant more as a recording interface than as a DAC/headphone amp. Might I suggest investing in a decent DAC/HP amp? The Schiit FULLA is cheap and should provide all the power those phones would need; or you could get the Modi/Magni combo for more power/flexibility in case you ever get a set of harder-to-drive phones.


I'll be getting my tax return soon, so thanks for the heads up!


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I'm trying The Mozart Requiem that spurred this thread on a sound-bar I own, and it's distorting much less. Perhaps it is an issue of equipment after all!

It is near unbearable as it is, I think I'll need the amp. And yes, the Focusrite is more for recording, and I use it as such, but it also makes my music sound much better.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I've sung a lot of choral music -- Beehthoven's Missa Solemnis, Bach's St. Matthew Passion, Haydn 7 Last Words, Stabat Mater & a couple masses, Mendelssohn Elijah, Handel's Messiah and Israel In Egypt, and more -- and I certainly enjoy the electricity of live musicmaking. But there are singers just as shrill in performance as those one hears on recordings. And lots of singers go flat during performance; you almost never hear that on recordings, even so-called "live" recordings because recording companies either merge one or more performances or substitute something else from another recording in the bad spot.

Yet the thing you almost never hear on recordings that happens all the time in live performance (I heard it once on a Naxos recording of Beethoven's Missa) is the director losing control with the singers either trailing the orchestral beat, being ahead of it, or the whole thing just coming apart. This tends to happen most in amateur productions but it can occur in professional productions where there wasn't enough practice time. I've seen it both ways.

And BTW the human voice can distort without any electronic implementation, especially in a large choir being pressed beyond its abilities. In 2019 with the technology available there isn't any justification for that occurring on a professional recording.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

larold said:


> I've sung a lot of choral music -- Beehthoven's Missa Solemnis, Bach's St. Matthew Passion, Haydn 7 Last Words, Stabat Mater & a couple masses, Mendelssohn Elijah, Handel's Messiah and Israel In Egypt, and more -- and I certainly enjoy the electricity of live musicmaking. But there are singers just as shrill in performance as those one hears on recordings. And lots of singers go flat during performance; you almost never hear that on recordings, even so-called "live" recordings because recording companies either merge one or more performances or substitute something else from another recording in the bad spot.
> 
> Yet the thing you almost never hear on recordings that happens all the time in live performance (I heard it once on a Naxos recording of Beethoven's Missa) is the director losing control with the singers either trailing the orchestral beat, being ahead of it, or the whole thing just coming apart. This tends to happen most in amateur productions but it can occur in professional productions where there wasn't enough practice time. I've seen it both ways.
> 
> And BTW the human voice can distort without any electronic implementation, especially in a large choir being pressed beyond its abilities. In 2019 with the technology available there isn't any justification for that occurring on a professional recording.


Thanks for the informative post.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Those headphones should be really easy to drive at 18 Ohms/112dB sensitivity, but I'm not finding any info on the power rating of the Focusrite Scarlett. Seems that's meant more as a recording interface than as a DAC/headphone amp. Might I suggest investing in a decent DAC/HP amp? The Schiit FULLA is cheap and should provide all the power those phones would need; or you could get the Modi/Magni combo for more power/flexibility in case you ever get a set of harder-to-drive phones.


Thanks for your help! I'll have to try out my portable CD player and see how it sounds on that too. Right now, the music sounds great on my soundbar.

Edit: It didn't sound good on my portable CD player.  (I'll have to learn to live with it, it's not the end of the world bad or anything)


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Thanks for your help! I'll have to try out my portable CD player and see how it sounds on that too. Right now, the music sounds great on my soundbar.
> 
> Edit: It didn't sound good on my portable CD player.  (I'll have to learn to live with it, it's not the end of the world bad or anything)


Portable CD/digital music players simply aren't big enough to support beefy amps. This is why as their popularity increased, pop music started mastering music louder (see: "loudness wars") so they would play at acceptable volumes on such devices. Classical has, by and large, not done this. Classical is mastered at a relatively low level to allow for wide dynamic ranges similar to what you hear live. In order to make that low-level audible, you have to turn your amp up, sometimes all the way up. When you do that and the music gets loud and hits a peak, it's very likely the amp will clip/distort. The only solution is to get a better amp. I own a Violectric V281 because it puts out tons of power no matter the impedance of the headphone, and I own many headphones.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Portable CD/digital music players simply aren't big enough to support beefy amps. This is why as their popularity increased, pop music started mastering music louder (see: "loudness wars") so they would play at acceptable volumes on such devices. Classical has, by and large, not done this. Classical is mastered at a relatively low level to allow for wide dynamic ranges similar to what you hear live. In order to make that low-level audible, you have to turn your amp up, sometimes all the way up. When you do that and the music gets loud and hits a peak, it's very likely the amp will clip/distort. The only solution is to get a better amp. I own a Violectric V281 because it puts out tons of power no matter the impedance of the headphone, and I own many headphones.


Can you recommend a good portable CD player?


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Can you recommend a good portable CD player?


I haven't used a portable CD player in years, but back in the day I never found any with decent enough amps to play classical. I doubt things have changed because, again, most people listen to pop and pop these days is mastered so loudly these portable players don't need big amps. There probably isn't much of a market for classical fans wanting portable cd players with decent amps. There are, however, portable digital music players marketed to audiophiles and many of these will have RCA-outs so you can connect them to a portable amp. This isn't my area of expertise, though.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

I attended a great concert by Christ College Choir when they came to NZ the only seats we could get were on the front row, to be just a few metres away from the Sopranos was an experience I will never forget, such a wonderful choir my ears were ringing all the way home and then for a couple of days.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I haven't used a portable CD player in years, but back in the day I never found any with decent enough amps to play classical. I doubt things have changed because, again, most people listen to pop and pop these days is mastered so loudly these portable players don't need big amps. There probably isn't much of a market for classical fans wanting portable cd players with decent amps. There are, however, portable digital music players marketed to audiophiles and many of these will have RCA-outs so you can connect them to a portable amp. This isn't my area of expertise, though.


What if I put some of my CDs on my iPhone 8 for playback, do you think that would help with sound quality?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Those high pitched portions always distort on playback, even at low volumes and I find that quite irritating. That is why I conclude it is best live. What do you all think?
> 
> :tiphat:


High pitched vocal portions should not distort on playback. They aren't on most CDs or something is wrong. But voices can distort on bad uploads, questionable headphones, poor speakers, bad recordings, or some other technical problem. 'Distortion is the alteration of the original source of something.'

Good distortion test!


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Captainnumber36 said:


> What if I put some of my CDs on my iPhone 8 for playback, do you think that would help with sound quality?


Depends on whether the amp in your iPhone 8 is better than the one in your portable CD player. I can't really answer that. With the iPhone, though, you could hook it up to an external DAC/Amp, something like this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B077TRH39D/


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

I have experienced high pitch distortion and each time it is due to the source being of low quality say [email protected] and at a high volume even when played through a quality set up. With a standard CD through a decent system it should be crystal clear.


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