In article ,
Iain Churches writes:

sunnuntai 16. heinäkuuta 2017 15.04.09 UTC+3 Mike Fleming kirjoitti:
Down in Cornwall last week, my other half dragged me along to the
Minack Theatre to see a performance of La Traviata. As it's open air
and has quite a large and very steep auditorium, there's some sound
reinforcement both for singers and for the mini-orchestra, which used
Bose speakers. My word, they're ****poor. Horrible boxy sound. Don't
know why they didn't go for higher quality sound and lower cost and
use Behringer instead. Just reinforced my feeling about Bose, having
heard the PA things that look like black stoves in use at a couple of
gigs. Are they perceived to be good because they're expensive?

Remember it is not just about the speakers, but also the audio being fed to them. Small personal mics that may be fine for pop concerts probably will not do justice to Verdi. And getting your "mini-orchestra" to work for an outdoor event, is quite a challenge.

There were some front-of-stage mics for the vocals too - the vocals
had exactly the same boxy sound to them. Couldn't see how the
orchestra were mic'ed, they were tucked under an awning (kept the
blazing sun off them, the chorus and soloists were strutting their
stuff in clothing which would have kept them warm in the Arctic).

Agreed with you about Bose. In my opinion Behringer are even worse!

La Traviata is wonderful. Hopefully the poor sound reinforcement did not spoil your enjoyment.

I still enjoyed it, it was just irksome to hear the poor sound
reproduction. And given my cloth ears, it has to be pretty bad for me
to notice.

--
Mike Fleming