Mussorgsky (Orchestration: Revel): Pictures at an Exhibition; Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti (London Records)
These pieces were recorded at two fine venues in Chicago, ‘Pictures…’ at Medinah Temple and ‘Concerto…’ at Symphony Hall.  I have performed in the auditorium at the Medinah Temple, back when I was in college, but it is now gone.  A victim of commercialism, it is now a Bloomingdale’s; damned New Yorkers.  Seems everything can be bought and sold anymore.  Another piece of history lost.

As a subsidiary of the Decca Record label, this London recording may well have been recorded and mastered on B&W speakers.  The music did sound comfortable on the CM1’s.

The CM1’s sounded bigger than they were, recapturing the majesty of these grandiose pieces in good measure, handling dynamic swings from solo instruments to full orchestra well.  The slightly more laid back sound of these speakers put me at mid hall with the orchestra slightly below, consistent with where it should be with the slope of hall seating.  Ambience and decay were reproduced with sound staging good enough to recreate the envelopment of the hall from the actual event.  At the detail level, inner parts were discernable as well as nuances of detailed interplay between instruments.

‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ opens with the trumpet fanfare of ‘Promenade’.  Full brass and the life of the hall came to my ears.  We segue into ‘Gnomus’ were the inner details of the flutes could be heard.  The character of bow on string and the musical flavors of the wooden bodies of the violins came through the CM1’s.  ‘Promenade – Tuileries’ allowed the CM1’s to show off their ability to resolve fine detail with light and delicate reproduction of the interplay between oboe, flutes, and pizzicato strings.  With ‘La Cabane Sur des Pattes de Poule’, the CM1’s supported the depth of the opening tympani and low string section.  Transients in the brass were clean and instrumental timbres were natural.  Sudden jumps between sections of the orchestra tested the CM1’s ability to handle macro dynamics and flittering instruments behind the flutes gave a good showing of micro dynamics, the CM1’s did well throughout.  ‘La Grande Porte de Kiev’ was able to close with majesty and bombast without being cramped by the CM1’s.

Bartok’s ‘Concerto for Orchestra’ also was presented well by the CM1’s.  Sound rich with the details of inner parts and hall ambience came through the speakers on ‘Introduzione’.  Delicate micro dynamics between low strings to the flutes and upper strings were preserved in quiet sections while fanfares carried dynamics and separation while sounding full.  Interplay of dissonant trumpet chords in ‘Presentando le Coppie’ was delicate and detailed.  The ‘Finale’ also displayed the CM1’s ability to present detail, hall ambience, and separation simultaneously handling dynamics and transients while providing a full sound.

Conclusions & Recommendations

The B&W CM1 loudspeakers may definitely be considered a successful design that can suit a number of different usage goals.  The build quality of the CM1’s is excellent: the construction is solid and the finishes are of high quality.  The sound quality is notable with a character that is at ease and warm, yet still detailed.  The CM1’s will fare well against similarly price competitors.

My opinion is that the midrange warmth, often attributed to Kevlar drivers may perhaps be artificial but it is well implemented by B&W.  This effect is uniform in nature; it does not hover around particular frequencies coloring them.  I find the effect to be more along the lines of enhancement rather than of distorting or editorializing.

I will get off the audiophile high horse long enough to say this: absolute reproduction accuracy is an ideal that should be pursued, but realistically, it is not achievable.  No equipment is perfectly uncolored and most recordings are less than ideal.  For whatever reason: artistic intent, equipment limitations, bad studio acoustics, or technical incompetency, few recordings fit well within the ideal.  With bad production, what can we realistically expect from reproduction?  Many bad speakers add content in a non uniform fashion that skews the sound; for those rare cases where sound can be enhanced in a uniform way, it may not be all bad.

The ideal is also part of a double standard for if the sound is edited before the speakers, by say digital processing … Dolby Pro Logic IIx, DTS Neo6, stadium, club, etcetera… then it seems to be considered acceptable by many listeners.  But these are not part of artistic intent unless the music was actually recorded as multi-channel and one is listening in the studio or a room with identical acoustics, on identical electronics, through identical monitors, then even the most dead on accurate speaker system is part of an editorial of the original production.

These speakers are an excellent choice for a satellite/sub arrangement or for use as surround channels in a home theater.  And, if one enjoys orchestral music, it was likely recorded on B&W monitors; so to get as close to the actual recording as possible, one should consider owning some B&W’s.