Hall’s sound off

Your article “A ‘Plugged In’ Problem” by Louise Roug (April 18) circled around the truth about the acoustics of Disney Hall, but eventually settled for analyzing the messenger (Keith Jarrett) rather than heeding his message. Everyone who works in the sound and audio industry knows that Jarrett is an extraordinarily perceptive judge of acoustics. He is quite right about the acoustics of Disney Hall. The hall sounds weird and in many ways rather bad, not just for amplified music but also for unamplified orchestral music.

There is no point in trying to paper over this weirdness by describing the sound as “refined” and making claims that the hall needs special treatment to bring out its supposed sonic glories. As I hear it at least: (1) The hall is bass shy in all but a few fortunate locations, to the point that the double basses are disembodied, if not completely inaudible. (2) The hall is uneven in the middle bass and lower midrange. (3) There is a nasty, excessive resonance in the upper mid-range/lower treble. This is obvious on such a familiar and standard sound as (hands clapping) applause, which has a peculiar and unpleasant edge, an edge also apparent in music of course.

Robert E. Greene

Pacific Palisades