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Review: The Chicago Symphony Orchestra playback system.

Posted by Paul Eizik (A) on April 2, 2007 at 21:04:29

Greetings

As the high end audio magazines drive the trends of the audio industry, and turn-about is fair play, it's only fair to review a live symphony orchestra by the same standards developed by these magazines. In this spirit ( ; ) my wife and I attended the March 25 2007 3 PM performance of the CSO. Here is my review.

Transducer type: Variable, with 32 drivers per side.
Crossover: Acoustic only.
Interconnects: Conductor (Charles Dutiot) with union contract.
Playback format tested; Paper score only (!).
Music selections used: Ravel: Le Tambeau de Couperin; Prokofiev Piano Concerto in G Minor, Op 16; Rimsky-Korsakov Sheherazade Op. 35.
Price: If you have to ask...

Those considering purchasing a symphony orchestra as a reality test of their high end speaker system might well consider the CSO. There are a number of caveats to be considered though. Firstly, no measurements are provided, and the manufacturer of said system vigorously resists these measuremnts! I could have brought a pocket digital storage scope to the audition, but this was not allowed! So what are they afraid of? It's not like any of the drivers are even remotely capable of making a square wave. Well, read on... The various drivers in this system are not even time alligned^TM! That's right, the very yardstick some would hold up as the most basic requirement of a multi-way reproduction system is absent form the very start! This problem could be easily addressed by time allingning^TM the drivers by means of seating them in a scaffold similar to the way the Hollywood Squares TV show are seated. But no, they just place the drivers in a manner dictated by tradition! Leaving this aside, no attempt is made to damp euphonic colorations of the various instruments! This author has made modest proposals in this direction (i.e.: make the string section out of MDF, or at least fill them with sand) to no avail. Various other modifications to the other drivers will seem obvious: dip the brass drivers in tar and stuff them with Hollo-Fill^TM; wrap the reed section in sheet lead; use sheet lead coated with tar in the percussion...these obvious solutions to a more neutral sound go obliviously unheeded. Forget puting all the drivers on heavy brass spikes, or using tube traps. Ah well, you get what you pay for, and the result is a very colored presentation with vague imaging. Any good high end playback system can present a better soundstage with better localization of idividual instruments by comparison, and to paraphrase HP "...if the system can't do the soundstage...". I'll finish the thought: what good is it? Now to the final problem: the primitive technology of this system allows, by it's very nature, for "interpretation" by the conductor! This goes against one of the basic tenets of high end audio reproduction: that the audio transducer should merely reproduce the music, it should add nothing, it should take nothing away. This goes completely out the window! What if we were to allow typists to "interpret" the text of what they were typing? How would any business get transacted? How would laws get written? How could anyone write a novel or a news article? But this is accepted for business-as-usual in this primitive type of system. Given all these considerations, I cannot recommend this system due to it's high degree of euphonic colorations and fair-to-poor degree of sound stage imaging. As a side note from the program notes, that N. Rimsky-Korsakov was a damn fine looking man!

P. Johnathon Skull-Eizik
Reviewer for The Absolute Stereo

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Atma-Sphere Music Systems, Inc.

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