Sat front row at the symphony...

drbarney1, right.  Low mass planar drivers. like Magnepans are uncolored compared to expensive dynamic speakers.  Dynamic speakers can play louder than Maggies, however their coloration and veiling at 100 dB aren't worth listening even below 80 dB where Maggies and electrostatics shine.

davidvicek,  yes, classical music is very complex.  That's why it is important to obtain as much detail as possible in order to fully appreciate the music.  Playing opera or pieces like Russian Easter Overture by Rimsky Korsakov, the violin parts contain hidden passages that are only audible by the violinist.  When I listen to recordings or at a concert, these passages are totally hidden.  That's why only a close seat has any chance of revealing the full complexity.  Despite the visual advantages of more distant seats, the basic laws of physics say that details are absorbed by greater distances, esp at high freq.  To illustrate, the wavelength of a 10 kHz note is about 1 inch, while the wavelength of 20-100 Hz is 10-50 feet.  At a distance of 100 feet in the front balcony, there is much greater absorptive loss at 10 kHz compared to 20-100 Hz.  The perceived tonal balance in the balcony is therefore akin to a speaker without a tweeter, compared to close seats.

I sat front row center for Hiromi "The Trio Project" in the concert hall at Lafayette College and it was one of the best concert experiences ever for me.  I prefer to sit close for smaller groups so I can hear the actual instruments rather than the sound coming out of the house PA.  I've never been to a symphony concert but I can imagine that the front row would be rather intense.

Also  at the Chicago Symphony Hall the FOH mix position happens to be at the center rear of the balcony also if you look carefully above the musicians heads you will notice the condenser mic's placed there held in place with transparent fishline.

I played in many orchestras and jazz groups and my preference is to participate in creation of the music and the sound is quite awesome from this vantage Point.

Most sound you hear from your system is heavily produced and subject to substantial manipulation by the sound engineer. The quality variations are quite extreme and you never know what's been done to it.  My personal view is that sound quality for a lot of recorded classical music is not that terrific.  It's very good but lacks the openess that is most desirable.

It was purely by accident, but one of the best things that ever happened to me was attending large-scale classical concerts and opera performances well before my obsession with high-end audio, and continuing through the years when I had the most gear. It was transparently obvious that no audio system could possibly replicate the experience of a live orchestral or operatic event in a large hall with good acoustics. Accordingly I never expected that from my audio gear, then was often pleasantly surprised by how well it did with classical LPs.

In ’74 or ’75 I somehow landed a gig as an usher for the Boston Lyric Opera Company’s weekend performance of an opera (whose name I forget) starring Beverly Sill. This included rehearsals and evening performances in the Boston Opera House. Given the work, I was able to hear all of this from an ever changing assortment of spots in the hall. I wasn’t yet immersed in audio then, but I was immersed in music of all kinds, and this experience was unforgettable--especially the opportunity to meet the gracious & friendly Beverly Sills and tell how beautiful I thought her voice was...