Partnered for 30 years with the most wonderful man in the world. Married for 6.

My father played French Horn for 65 years of his 87-year life (passed away 11/18), so I cannot count the number of music venues that I've visited in my lifetime - not arrogance or conceit, just a fact. Ranging from what is now the Brady Theatre in Tulsa, in the 1960s and home of The Tulsa Philharmonic, to venues in Raleigh, Greensboro, NC, to the wonderful Meyerson here in DFW.
In the house, I grew up on the multi-mic'd recordings from Columbia, Deutsche Gramophone, and London Decca with my Sennheiser HD-414's. My impressions as a youth listening to these recordings, always contradicted what I heard in my seat at the concert. Most of the time, sitting below the horizontal plane of the orchestra, and behind adults sitting in front, 'direct' sounds were few and far between, whereas the recordings, with their multi-mic'd precision, oboes were just a few degrees left of center, flutes were dead-center, and violas were always right of center, blah, blah... Even in concerts given for youth, and I had direct eyesight to all the musicians, the "direct" sound, or localizing effect was such a little piece of the overall sound, there wasn't really much of a case for precise instrument location - so much for 'imaging'.

I lived with this "lie" up until my early teens when I began to learn about acoustics, sound, propagation, and the like. It was in the late 70's when I heard my first minimally-mic'd recording from Telarc and was awestruck when for the first time, captured in my head, was the closest sound to a concert hall I'd ever experienced with my Senn's. They called it the 'bass drum heard 'round the world'. I've been a big fan of minimalist mic'ing ever since. Telarc, Reference, Delos, and also discovered Mercury Living Presence and RCA Victor.

Sources/Amps Home: PC Beast > Built-in HD audio > TOSLink > RME ADI-2 FS, Black > Sennheiser HD-800's
Current Sources/Amps Portable: A&Kfutura SE-100 > Sennheiser IE900 / A&K T8iE MKii