How to get the impact of a live concert?

Everyone has an opinion, some not as good as some others, but I have been doing this a very long time, (40 years), and I would ask first: what city do you live in? If you are in St. Louis I would invite you over to my house to hear my system:It takes me to a place where all I do is enjoy the music, whether I'm playing acoustic or electronic jazz, rock, or trip-hop, (Pandora Radio gets it done!),. I would suggest you: 1) Talk to someone you already know about building you a pair of his 15" 3-way speakers w/o the mid and high frequency horns (approx. $750.00), these would then become your sub-woofers. 2) Then order an XM-9 3-way cross-over from Marchand Electronics (Approx. $750.00),
Hopefully, your amp has pre-out, amp-in connections, if so then you can insert the cross-over between them and send 100hz and above to your Fortes, and everything below 100 hz to the subs. Use the amp in the integrated to power the Fortes, and use another (VERY, VERY, CLEAN) amp to power the subs. The Marchand crossover has adjustments to smooth out the transitions between frequencies, and even though it a 3-way cross-over, you can use it as a two way ,(Phil Marchand will tell you how when you order it), and you won't have to buy another unit when you get the itch to upgrade!
You can get inter-connects and speaker wire, (Canare), from that store in New York, (what's the name of that place?)Canare is used by studios to wire their mikes when they record music, as it is extremely open and neutral, and will transmit the detail you have paid all that money to hear. You should not need to buy any more monitors as some think that the Fortes out perform the Heresys in the bass. So, Give all the components at least a couple of months to start breaking in and call me, I will gladly and humbly accept your thanks. Concerts are generally bi-amped because monitors sound much better when they don't have to swing low bass notes, and the Fortes should give you great detail through their horns and woofers. This is how I have my system set up, and I am in concert every time I turn it on, (again, Pandora Internet Radio gets it done, kid!)I hope you have a good cd player or streamer, I use my computer for Pandora, but I still spin cd's . Hit me back, I would be interested to know what you think of my suggestions.
My system:
Audio Alchemy ACD-II cd player
Lite Dac-AH D-A converter
Jolida 3000-B preamp: tube
Musical Design SP-1 preamp: prototype,tube
Marchand Electronics XM-9: 3way cross-over
Crown Straight-Line Two preamp: solid state
Jolida 3000A power amp, 200 watt/ch:tube (monitor amps)
Musical Design D-75 amp:solid state, (sub amp)
Sound Dynamics 300Ti: monitors 8 in. 3way
Custom 15" subs from your friend (who shall remain nameless: when I asked him to build mine he replied "I hate I ever started building speakers!"); so under no circumstances use his name ON THIS SITE, or NO HI-FI FOR YOU!!!(LOLOLOLOL)
I cross my system over @ 80 hz, you may or may not prefer 100 hz.

Wolf, the SPL meter would probably work fine, just place it near the speaker so you don't have to run huge volumes. If you are really intent in this borrowing a sine/square generator should not be that tricky.

BTW, a sine generator does not do this test nearly so well as a low-distortion sine oscillator. Sine generators don't put out a perfect sine wave.

I went to a guy’s house to listen to his speakers a couple of months ago. He had some old Jensen pro speakers. When we played my Salk demo disk the first half of the songs sounded a lot like a live concert. There was little image, boomy bass and a live music sound. The sound was arguably better than my Salks. When we played the last half of the disk the sound just fell apart. The first half was mostly amplified music that sounded a lot like the amps used on a stage. The second half was mostly natural music that could be listened to with little amplification. You can imagine what would happen if you put a live symphony orchestra on stage amps. LOL

Bob

I agree with an earlier post in this thread by Wolf Garcia that it is virtually impossible to get that explosive quality of a kick drum right over a home system. I use very efficient horn speakers which have a self-powered dynamic subwoofer system and that in part is the biggest failing of the system. The dynamics of a live performance can be startling- not just loud.
But, in most halls of any size, you've got a much bigger room, high SPLs (too high much of the time in my estimation) and in rock concerts, very heavy, powerful bass that is taking advantage of a big room. You also notice how the sound of the room changes as the venue fills, and it seems, at least to me, once the seats are filled, the sound board guys usually crank it up more.
I don't like listening at ear shattering levels in my room, which is not terribly large anyway. So, even though I can get some serious dbs from my system, even with modestly powered SET amps, I choose to get the noise floor as low as I can first, so I can make out as much 'nuance' at low levels. With a good quiet record surface of a good, dynamic recording (keep in mind I'm a vinyl only guy, so I have to contend with record surface noise, among other things), I can get a very good approximation of 'lively' through my system. But, if I go to the club about a mile down the road, not a big room, it holds a hundred people, so it's a good bit larger than my listening area, you hear that kick drum, and you know you've failed. (Oh, yeah, I can make my bass slam if i crank the crossover settings and gain up on the woofer, but that sounds unnatural). This is one of the reasons I'd eventually like to migrate to a larger horn loaded woofer system in my next, larger room.

Because of their transmission line frequency dependant manner of sound wave propogation via wave bending, good walsh drivers might have a design advantage when it comes to delivering percussion dynamics at certain frequencies with minimal effect on others resulting in less distortion in that different freqencies leave the cone at different locations unlike a conventional dynamic driver. My ohms are scary good with percussion and dynamics when the recording presents a challenge.