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So we wandered along to hear a bunch of show tunes (mostly opera and musicals), by 4 singers. Whenever they started belting the songs out fortissimo to my (adjacently professional) ear there was a lot of distortion. So is it when singers sing loud they introduce distortion, or do the audio guys deliberately set it up that way for reasons, or are our local sound guys just idiots?

I've never heard the Flower Duet live, it was lovely. A great song from a stupid opera (lachmae, Delibe). The first time I heard it on the radio I pulled over to the side of the road.

warshipadmin wrote: ↑Wed Jun 03, 2026 1:17 pm So we wandered along to hear a bunch of show tunes (mostly opera and musicals), by 4 singers. Whenever they started belting the songs out fortissimo to my (adjacently professional) ear there was a lot of distortion. So is it when singers sing loud they introduce distortion, or do the audio guys deliberately set it up that way for reasons, or are our local sound guys just idiots?

I've never heard the Flower Duet live, it was lovely. A great song from a stupid opera (lachmae, Delibe). The first time I heard it on the radio I pulled over to the side of the road.

If it's opera, and the singers are mic'ed and amplified, they're not doing it right in my opinion. A world-touring professional opera singer should be able to fill a fairly large hall with just the power of their voice. Granted, some of them do have some variation, and they do have off-nights. But you should be hearing just the voice, and the audio technicians between the singer's ears, not some guy or girl on a sound board.

Source - Been going to the local very major opera company since the 80's, and season tickets since 2011. They occasionally do have mic'ed performances, but those are almost always when they're doing a musical instead of more usual opera and some of the cast, typically non-operatic singers, need the help. I still don't like it. The symphony, also season tickets since 2011, hasn't used amplification for the concerts with vocalists and is a bit bigger hall.

These weren't world class, never heard of them. In Australia I don't think I've seen an acoustic opera or musical, they always mic up.

I'll put it down to incompetence by the sound desk.