I continue to be amazed at the increase in online offerings available and the meteoric rise in quality.
I can get the BBC via my link. The quality of this years Proms was excellent. The online offerings continue to expand. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra goes from strength to strength. Mathow Pons their engineer does a fabulous job of these live streams on Saturday nights. The DSO has been on top form and drawing full house enthusiastic audiences. The quality of these streams is really helped by the fabulous acoustic of their hall.
There are some streams form our Minnesota Orchestra, and one this Friday at 8:00 PM which is free.
The sound this year from the Metropolitan Opera is fantastic and I would site the recent Gounod Romeo and Juliet. The picture is excellent and the sound two channel loss less.
Organ offerings online increase at an exponential rate. The recitals from Truro, Leeds and Norwich need particular mention and are of high quality. There are recitals though from all across Europe and now the US. There is a huge amount of talent among the young generation of organists and even some preteens.
The Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall continues to explore the boundaries of the possible. They have by far the highest quality streamed 4K picture I know of. It compares with the best available on disc.
This season they seem to have taken a break from issuing all streams in Atmos. However they have added a couple, and these show a massive increase in audiorealism. I notice a new mic layout with the augmented Decca tree, ala University of Sheffield, and other experiments.
One recent addition is a concert under Sakari Oramo. Two works, the Debussy Nocturnes, which also has a female chorus, and the rarely performed Busoni Piano concerto which has a male chorus in the final movement.
This recording shows that the Atmos image location works. The instrumentalists locations are rock solid in all dimensions. So much so that in close ups where a musician is in close up, but the wrong side of the screen for instance the effect is actually jarring. In two channel the mind follows the picture, but not here.
The realism of all instruments is astounding, and the bass especially natural. But the astounding achievement is that my room sounds huge. The orchestra and chorus are realistically laid out way beyond the front and side boundaries of the room. Now you can really hear the ring of the Philharmonie which had been lacking before. I was absolutely dumbfounded at the realism this rig could achieve with that Atmos Stream
They have also solved the problem of the system reverting to two channel between works. This was a problem previously as the two channel is at a much higher level and blasted you out of your seat. Atmos streams have to be normalized to EBU streaming/broadcast levels, by order of Dolby. At first I was not in agreement with this, but I now realize Dolby are correct, as it allows for huge dynamic range. I would say the dynamic range of recent Atmos stream was at full concert dynamic and I listened to what I judged to be realistic full concert level.
I am astounded at the progress being made over such a short period of time. It is a wonderful time to be a classical music enthusiast.
I did message the BPO engineers to congratulate them on their achievement.
