ICE Amps for classical music?

Weseixas, ever been in a concert hall where 130 musicians are performing Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. . . or simply a soloist digging into his instrument? . . . Quite an experience! . . . "heavy volume" indeed! G.

"How can classical music sound natural at a heavy volume ? "

The answer to this interesting question lies in the attendance of classical music concerts parrtucularly orchestral, choral and operatic ones. You will be surpised to find out that SPL at your ear varies from zero to about 115 dB (if you happenn to conduct the orchestra during this attendance as well).

This variation is not in the form of the since wave (as most of amplifier manufacturers try to convience us with many useless specs) but according to the capricious imagination of a composer and even more capricious interpretation of a conductor.

"You will be surpised to find out that SPL at your ear varies from zero to about 115 dB"

Yes, but recorded music is compressed - tailored for average audio system.

Guidocorona..

Yes many times and i tend to get seats that are no further back than the 8 th row as most are recorded no further back than row 3-5 .

A symphony as most anything that comprises live un-amplfied instruments , goes from soft and delicate , to large and powerful, they never sustain high volumes.

Whenever a statement is made about playing symphony music loud, it tells me their system is compressed and lacking in low level details and dynamics, noted due to the system's inability to swell like live music.

Listening to a symphony on a system like that, would be nothing like a live symphony, no matter how loud you turn it up.

Dob,

In the past , many moons ago , i used to measure avg usually 82-88db , crescendos sometimes hit a peak of 109 db from row 7.

Even with compression, you can get a pretty good imaginary symphony to scale ...