Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions AV receivers driving 4 ohm speakers - Manepan webs

Bwaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh.... I want one of THOSE!

Masa, you mean that Meyerson compares favorably with the halls architect Yanagisawa designed for the National Theatre and Opera City in Tokyo?

I wonder what the resonance frequency of the organist's bench is??? I also wonder if he/she tries to avoid that note or seeks it out...

John,

I've been to the concerts at the Tokyo Opera City several times, although the hall was completed several years after we moved to Texas. The entire art-district complex in the New Capitol district of Tokyo is one of the numerous culturally-positive leftovers of Japan's bubble economy in the '80s-early '90s. Indeed, Tokyo built a number of truly magnificent facilities in the last 10 years -- all planned during the late bubble era but only after numerous delays due to economy.

And yes, the Opera City is another hall that I know has outstanding acoustics -- arguably the best in Japan. Both the Meyerson and Opera City are so good that I need a double-blind test in order to decide which is better. Personally, though, I always felt that the Opera City hall had kind of a peculiar visual atmosphere, which I wasn't sure I liked much...

Anyway, I didn't know the name of the principal architect. Hmm... Takahiko Yanagisawa was from the exact same district of Japan where my father was born and this last name is quite common. Perhaps I might be distantly related to him. HAHAHA...


For those who are curious about what we are talking about, here is a photo of the Tokyo Opera City concert hall...

I had to play my last jury on a fisk. Very nice instruments.

Masa, this brief discussion of Opera City and some folks idea of the top halls might be of interest .

My senior year at the University of Oklahoma, we had a Fisk organ (Op. 111) installed in our brand new music center, in a hall that was basically created to mimic the acoustics of a cathedral - a nice 5(ish) second decay. It's quite a sight to see all the work that goes into putting together and tuning an organ. I went to some amazing inaugural concerts for that organ, and got to sing some choral/organ works in concert, too.

Hi Sushi,

Great pictures. Even the CD recordings that I own made in Meyerson Hall sound wonderful. I think the consultants on the acoustics were Artec of NYC, who also did a wonderful recital hall in Toronto, and the Glenn Gould studio at the CBC broadcast headquarters in Toronto. It's used for live recital broadcasts.

Incidentally, if you like pipe organ recordings, there's a label out of California (Gothic) that makes some of the best organ recordings I've heard. There's a Gothic CD of the Skinner (I think) organ in Woolsey Hall, at Yale, that I use for subwoofer tests. It's called "The Transcriber's Art" (Gothic G-49054) with Thomas Murray at the console. I use cut 9, a transription of a virtuoso violin bon-bon by Fritz Kreisler. The pedal notes are awesome.

I still have an open-reel tape of the Casavant Freres (pipe organs from Quebec, very popular in Canadian churches) organ in the church (my mother was giving a violin recital accompanied by pipe organ) that I attended as a kid.