Ladies and Gentlemen, start your shufflers! As promised, here are samples done with Blumlein-style 22 cm AB omnis and Gerzon array cardioids.

This was my school district strings festival where the main purpose is for elementary, middle, and high school students to perform for each other. The younger students get to perform on the big stage, and to see/hear where they are headed in a few years, etc. We had a similar concert a few weeks before for our choirs.

The excerpts I am including are two pieces from a high school ensemble, and one each from two different middle school ensembles.

Mics were as you see in the photo. Preamps for the 4006 pair are Rens Heijnis modified; 4011 pair has stock preamps. Direct into my 788. There are almost a dozen different groups and only one stand location is possible, at the traditional behind the podium spot. I would have chosen different locations and heights for each of these arrays had I the freedom to do so. Mics were about 3 m high, and angled only very slightly down to aim above the heads of the last row of players in the largest group.

There are 3 versions of each excerpt for each array. DRY is self-explanatory, but still has a peak limiter on the master. Shuffle Only adds EQ according to the attached screenshots. MIX adds some reverb and compression but it is preliminary. All versions include RX Spectral Denoise to banish most of the HVAC noise.

I have a definite preference between the two setups, although there are some problems with each that cannot be shuffled away. I'll wait to share my opinions until others have listened.

https://samply.app/p/jcNlUgG3PFm7B8BGnxR6

I've found that Samply sometimes won't play at all in Firefox unless you manually disable Lossless in Audio Options, but it works fine in Chromium browsers. Either way, downloads are enabled for you to tinker with these. If Samply doesn't cooperate, here is a share that will be up for 7 days:
https://send.monks.tools/download/5e...KL9neFleIE1IIQ