UFO's Among the Flying Saucers

When the Albert Hall was remodelled, so were the 'flying saucers'. For a while, anyone who went up into the gallery could see what these things looked like from close up.

The acoustic effect was, I thought, reasonably successful, though not without some disadvantages. On the plus side, I believe it improved the sound, particularly, of second violins: they appeared to acquire more 'body' Bass strings, too, became a little fuller, as well as, I think, becoming a little drier with less 'bloom',  enhanced by some conductors' experiments since with placing lower strings at stage right, instead of stage left.

It also seemed to me that the new arrangement improved the brass too, in both clarity, separation and dynamics: most observable, perhaps, if you listen in the hall to any piece where a bass trombone has any prominence. It certainly serves early instruments much better  than it did years ago; and has improved the clarity of small ensembles, too.

But there were some disadvantages. In some seats in the Circle, you could hear an echo that I didn't recall being there before; and there were places in the gallery (particularly at the organ ends where stewards once tended to usher people with disabilities to seats) where again, one heard the echo, or the orchestral sound became noticeably unbalanced. I've been avoiding that part of the Albert Hall now for years, ushers' solicitude notwithstanding.

This season, the flying saucers have been joined by other UFO's. Among them, the circular lighting rig we've seen before, though I haven't really noticed that causing any particularly notable deleterious effects, though acoustically it's hard to credit there can't be any.

This year, though, there are other interlopers. I've no idea what they are: they look like huge flat screens, though up there obstructed by all the microphone and lighting cables, one presumes only people in the gallery would have anything like a decent view of them. Now I can't really believe that anything that big isn't going to muck about with what the 'flying saucers' are supposed to do. Though I shall have to listen to a few more live concerts this season before I can decide one way or another.

I've noticed, too, that the microphone arrangement is getting distinctly more complex. Long gone are the days when you could just about discern a fundamental stereo pair. Some of this year's arrangement, I suspect, is for the benefit of broadcast listeners, the better to pick up the more enthusiastic—and often, not really very discriminating, stamping and whooping from the higher seats and the gallery? Or would that be unduly cynical? Listeners at home. I know, can often be a little misled over the enthusiasm of a Prom audience, which can often sound rather more generous than it actually was. And more than some presenters would have you believe . . .

I shall try to have a closer look. Even—though I don't hold out much hope, technical information on Prom broadcasts has never been easy to come by and very much harder the last decade or so—try to get some inside info from the OB vans . . .

I'm old-fashioned. All my hi-fi is connected up with proper wires. Worse, the listening set up in my living room is all wired up back and forth to my audio editing system in my bedroom. All of which somehow get into a tangle—as any collection of more than two cables inevitably will, it's a law of physics—which constantly needs the kind of attention the Gordian knot did until Alexander got impatient. An approach, however tempting sometimes, especially this week as I'm trying to fathom why one of my cabling systems between one system and the other seems to have decided to become partially defunct, isn't really advisable if I want to carry on actually listening . .

Pity the outside broadcast engineers. Who, a few seasons back, I noted with some amusement, had abandoned their own attempts at understanding what had gone wrong with one of their cable runs, and just tied a label to it in obvious despair that said "Fu'd".

This is just one part of this year's cable spaghetti leading out of the Albert Hall. All, as far as I could see, 'unfu'd'. So far.

(Had to censor that; the whole word apparently got search engines' puritanism filters engaged. Oh, ffs, grow up!)