I have ISA sound card AWE 64 with 24 MB RAM
extention.
This way I can load the sound font "8mbgmsfx.sf2".
This is the one and only MIDI sound for my ears.
All other techniques for instance software synthesis with
TiMidity++ sounds terrible to me, as if the
orchestra plays in a stock pot.
People seem to go for softsynths still.
google for "fluidsynth" from Peter Hanappe (right spelling?), which loads .sf2
files.
BTW, I think timidity ok.
cheers, tobias.