Sat front row at the symphony...

I go to live concerts all the time. I think it's all a different sort of listening experience. Vinyl. Digital. Cans. Big speakers. A big concert hall, club, small chamber hall. Each one has its own merit. You cannot go to a hall and hear Leonard Bernstein, but you can listen to him on your system. The atmosphere of the live venue is nearly impossible to recreate. But, then there are the recordings that were made to be recordings. I head Karajan's final concerts with the Berlin Phil in Carnegie Hall. I have never quite heard an orchestra sound like a small chamber group, with every single player seemingly connected to one another. So, true, that will have to live in my memory, but I do love being able to listen to Karajan on my big rig...

Thank you Mahler123 for your comments on this subject.  Good ideas well presented.

@clearthinker Vanessa Mae does not wear long dress and often is standing up as a soloist :)

Flame on!

Vienna is the Mecca of Music.

Sat in the back corner of the Musikverein beside the organ. Could not even see the musicians. Brahms Double Concerto with the home team. The music was rich, opulent and just as good as in the stalls. That hall is magic.

* The first chairs of the Vienna Phil are on par with any soloist in the known universe. (They were the soloists in the Brahms Double.) Their former first cello had tone production that put Rostoprovich and Yo Yo Ma in the shade.

When you get two diametrically opposed opinions, there's only one way to settle it. Go to Vienna and decide for yourself. For the price of a pair of interconnects. The Vienna Opera House is another great sounding hall. Sat in the front row and it was so loud. So very very gloriously loud. And yes, you can reproduce that sound in your room. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. They're just repeating accepted wisdom.

Daytime attractions in Vienna include the Art History Museum (Kunsthistorische) which has the largest collection of Breugels outside Holland. The MAK has Klimt and you'll have the place to yourself. For the horsey set, there's the Spanish Riding School. The food is pretty good. The coffee sensational. And the Munich Hi Fi show is four hours drive away. Still time to get organized and go.

My 50 year career in music was pretty well divided into 25 years as a symphony musician and 25 years as a recording engineer.  The major orchestra I performed in played in some of the world's best concert halls.  Two of the best were the "Musikverein" in Vienna and Theatro Colon in Buenos Aries.  As an example of the use of sound reinforcement, Royal Festival Hall in London is outstanding. They quietly, over the period of more than a year, gradually introduced the system until critics praised the hall as becoming more and more refined, like the ageing process of a fine violin.  They were enraged to find that they were duped when the secret was revealed !  My first encounter with the hall left me with the impression that it was impossible to fill that huge hall with sound, but on another visit a dozen years later, when the system was activated, it was a very comfortable hall in which to play.

    Just as properly placed microphones that provide a sightline to all parts of an orchestra give an honest sonic description of the ensemble, so does listening from a vantage point in the hall from which all instrumentalists are visible.  Though there are a few exceptions, most venues place the orchestra above the level of the main floor's audience.   Listening from the front row of any hall requires the listener to accept that three-quarters of the orchestra is being "filtered" through the first few rows of instrumentalists.  Not an ideal listening situation although it might appeal to some.  

    A reasonably well known reviewer often was critical of the orchestra in which I performed.  It wasn't until an unusual circumstance forced him to sit in a different seat that he realized that his longtime seat was at a "null" point in the hall.  His criticisms were correct when made from HIS seat !

   This is a good place to quote Duke Ellington : "If it sounds good --- it IS good" ! There is a seat in every hall for every kind of listener and the quest to find it is worth the price of admission.   Keep buying those tickets !!