Another clip which tells me a lot,

This is a rig which is producing BIG sound, but the audiophiles don't like it - the walkouts are constant. It doesn't have a nice, polite sound, but the essence of a live music performance is there. Once you have this, you then refine whatever is not "perfect", and fully competent playback is experienced.

And here, by comparison, you have some typical, audiophile approved, 'squashed' sound ...

Ahhh, relief!! Proper stuff again, throwing up a lovely deep sound; plenty of, ahem, brass doing it nicely ...

I'll use this place to post clips of the latest Munich show, 2023, when they turn up, which may show that SQ has advanced, as compared to just 5 years ago ... .

I expect that it will be better - I was pleasantly surprised by how far the general standard had lifted over 8 years, locally, the gap between my last 2 shows. This post triggered my interest in following this theme,

Note the thoughts,

Quote

 

The DCS room with their Apex referance setup, is setting the standard for digital without signs of [any] digital aberration.

 

The Living Voice room with its analogue front end and Living Voice speakers are knocking it out of the park on musicality, a high dwell time in there again for the second year.

 

The Actual HiFi room using Avalon's top of the line speakers - Dynamics on scale that is extreamly hard to credit coming from a hifi system and where did the speakers go sound staging. Just give the room a go, wow !

 

This is a nice combination of the qualities of competent playback - simply aggregate all the good stuff here in one rig, and then you're cooking with gas! Next step, drop the cost of doing so by a couple of magnitudes, and we will be finally getting to where audio should have been, decades ago ... .

And lo and behold, a very solid compilation,

A good standard, I didn't come across a real dud anywhere in the bunch - useful, again, because the same recording device was used throughout. Very similar to how it came across in the better rooms at the just gone Sydney show - only niggle is that the volumes are somewhat timid; in Sydney, generally more willing to push the accelerator a bit ...

Does really big money give you everything?

Okay, some things are pretty good - but the tonality is not quite correct; the sweetness of the string section is missing, and there are a few giveaways to weaknesses in the rig ...

This setup was mentioned in the current Munich thread,

Yes. Ticks the boxes - the qualities of live sound are present, especially the impact of instruments being struck, notes produced - this is a very good standard of reproduction; I find nothing to quibble about here.

This is a peculiar one ... the SQ appears to be of a good order, but there is some sort of 'break up' in the sound - quite disturbing. I wonder if this is an artifact of the streaming chain not being in good shape ... hmmm,