the sound of massed violins in classical orchestral recordings

So many great posts on this one. You’ve all given me a great sense of relief as you report experiences that parallel mine.
After a virus-driven (bored) series of updates, cables and tweaks, I still get the orchestral hash under extreme volume passages. In 50 years of hifi, I always blamed my gear, or the recording, or some unknown soprano. I’ve got it down to a dull roar by treating my room and re-cabling, but still . . . .
What most of us are talking about here is IM distortion that is originating at the instrument. Darn harsh cellos! 
I watch many of the youTube classical videos (especially those originating in the Netherlands), so I suffer through the string problem often. These videos span a few years right up to today and the mics used and their set-up is evolving fairly rapidly. The sound improves—and then it doesn’t. Never fear, this blog has enough good ideas to keep me spending and tweaking until I get it right.

glevinson : Watcfed the wonderful video. I was surprised by how clear and listenable the sound was though the tiny speakers in my laptop! The beautiful playing, the articulate discussion.Very interesting about the old and new mics and their spacing and the eye opening description of the roles of engineer and producer in recording classical music. I hope that many of the posters here will watch this video. Thank you very much.

Have have a hard time calling anything related to the normal sound of an instrument IM distortion. Of course an instrument sounds different from afar as it does close up. Hopefully the recording engineer knows how to capture this so that what we hear on playback is at least close to the truth. Having lived with a violinist I can say with reasonable assurance from the recordings of soloist violins I have heard that it is easier to get a solo violin right than massed strings. But, given a good recording and the right playback system it is possible to get a reasonable facsimile.  

6119: Many thanks on your kind words. As a fellow audiophile, my intention was to demonstrate that great results can be achieved by making sure that every link in the recording and reproducing sound equipment is on a high level. While there is some thought and commitment involved, it is so worth it. 

Finally, as we live in the age of covid, where we may have more home time, we can search out small companies which are creating some of the finest tools for us to listen to our favorite music. They are worth searching out and auditioning with your equipment to discover how they fit in your life. 

I just reach my final goal: Controlling the sonic performance of my room...

Passive materials treatment being only half of the solution, active controls device(different resonators, with active diffusors playing the main role in a balanced equilibrium between reflective,absorbent, and diffusive surface).
The key to room enhancement controls(i prefer this concept than correction and treatment) is listening with your ears to the tonal instruments accuracy for feed back.... Treating room in function of some frequencies correction only is not my way at all and sometimes erroneous because many variable conditioning sound in a particular room are not reducible to frequencies ...It is more a synchronization, a timing of waves of sound than only correction of the waves....

This recording of solo violin is particularly good and the playing interpretation very impressive, not the best tough (for me it is Henryk Szeryng spiritual endeavour) but soundwise very amazing and you will listen to the micro texture of the string....If not, your audio system+room is defective or not enough refined....

These tonal material microstructure of the strings are like a crowd singing together and you will  listen with each note to a crowd of events or voices....Each note is a universe.....

All audio is mainly 3 embeddings of the electronic components....(mechanical,electrical and acoustical)
Speakers are only a part of the room/ear system...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2a9IY3UtU4