Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra as conducted by the composer
tests a system's ability to focus solo instruments and groups in space, to accurately
represent in true proportion the dynamics of a soft solo and a full orchestra plus
everything in between, and to transmit faithfully the exposed voice of every instrument.
Engineer Kenneth Wilkinson's characteristic stage layout is so clearly mapped you could
draw a picture, from the four horns in the left rear, not far from a woody xylophone, to
the trumpets in the right rear, to the woodwinds spread in the middle distance from center
left to center right, tympani and bass drum center rear, high percussion on extreme opposite
sides of the stage (those sides well beyond the edges of the speakers), a harp in the right
center front, second violins behind the firsts on the left, and so on. The whole orchestra
is right there before your eyes and ears, from the tiny tweet of a solo piccolo to ail the
percussion going full blast to the whole ensemble letting loose at the end. The Decca mike
tree puts the bulk of the orchestra outside the lateral distance- a few feet- covered by the
tree itself, and I actually heard this arc of continuous sound arrayed behind and around
the speakers rather than clumped claustrophobically between them.