Sat front row at the symphony...

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...

I'm not sure I'm being accurate as to what fleschler is saying here, but to me he's saying there are a whole bunch of absolute sounds. There's no "the" in TAS. I have to agree, too. In any case, the question is now whether your sound system can grant you at least a glimmer of actually hearing those many Absolute Sounds. If the system does get satisfyingly close to this, then stop beating yourself up over it for a while.😂

fleschler,

I agree with nearly everything you said, but differ only about very close rows.  Like you, as a performer, there is nothing like stage sound for detail, direct immediacy.  Using that criteria, only the 1st row is the next best thing to the stage.  Even the 2nd row is veiled by comparison.  Another reason is the absorption of sound from anyone sitting in front of you.  If I were a sitting giraffe with my head way over people, then the 2nd row might be nice.  

At the last concert I attended, I was sitting in the 1st row center.  The first piece was a piano concerto.  The orchestra was moved back, with the 1st violins and cello section at an equivalent 3rd row distance.  The next piece was pure orchestra, with the 1st violins and cello section moved forward to the usual 1st row distance.  There was a tremendous increase in detail from violins and cellos.  Many audiophiles change cables and find worthwhile differences, but the difference in direct brilliance between rows 1 and 3 is orders of magnitude greater.  That's why I can't stand the loss of brilliance further back than row 1, despite the visual advantage of greater distances.

I did some recordings.  My best work was with small ensembles on a shallow stage where my close mike placement could still yield good balances.  Even my cardioid Neumann KM 184 mikes picked up enough ambience to let the sound breathe.  I realized that why I disliked many commercial recordings was because of the addition of distant mikes to pick up more ambience.  I found that this excessive ambience mixed with the close mikes was responsible for smearing of details.

Yes, performance first, sound second.  I would rather listen to 1928 recordings of legendary violin masters like Fritz Kreisler on youtube, than today's violinists in pristine sound.