Just a comment in general.
The best sound rig can be rendered unlistenable by a poor sound engineer
!
I've heard some very mediocre sound systems really come to life in the hands of a good sound man.
For example:
A while ago I attended a smallish concert by some of our local bands.
The sound was terrible.
One of the artists brought his own sound-man (not me). It was as if a heavy curtain had been removed from the speakers and the venue suddenly came to life.
By the way, this was a very reputable brand of equipment.
thesoundman
The best sound rig can be rendered unlistenable by a poor sound engineer
!I've heard some very mediocre sound systems really come to life in the hands of a good sound man.
For example:
A while ago I attended a smallish concert by some of our local bands.
The sound was terrible
.One of the artists brought his own sound-man (not me
). It was as if a heavy curtain had been removed from the speakers and the venue suddenly came to life. By the way, this was a very reputable brand of equipment.
thesoundman
THE best sounding show I have worked was a 20,000 audience AC/DC concert (mid nineties).
FOH PA was all Meyer active cabinets....I forget how many cabinets, but semi-trailer loads of FR cabinets, and subs.
Backline was 8 Marshall quad boxes per guitarist....all plugged in and working.
Wedges, side fills and drum monitors powered by around 50kW of Amcrons.
I had a yarn with the FOH engineer.....with stage going full tilt and the FOH PA turned OFF, he has measured 125dBA !....this figure was confirmed in a magazine article a month later.
During roadie sound check, one of the guitar roadies stood centre stage and strummed/played some stuff while the foldback engineer got his mix/levels happening.
Then the guitar roadie played a chord, got it to feed, and kept it feeding for the next two minutes or so while he moved over every inch of the stage....impressive.
The concert sound was clean, clear, full range....and huge !.
Despite the concert spl levels, no ear bleeding, no ear ringing, just great, real rock'n'roll.
One week later was a KISS concert.....dummy Marshall amps, and dummy Marshall quad boxes stacked 12 high each side of stage.
Local crew consensus......a mob of tossers.
Dan.
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The Eagles have long been a Clair account and thus (unfortunately) use their latest and largest array, the i5. While perhaps on par with some current offerings, the reality is that at present no system comes close to the D&B J-series. The Germans are so far ahead of everyone else across the entire product line that it's not even close. One great advantage of J's is that they are a great deal more forgiving than most arrays in terms of focus, shading, and time alignment. In short, it's much harder to screw them up, while it's quite easy to take a fine PA from L'Acoustics, Meyer, or JBL and mangle it with poor systems engineering. At the end of the day, Clair is a relatively low production proprietary box, and while better than your local clubs home brew, it's this audio professionals opinion that they will never compete with D&B. Ironically I say that while currently carrying a Clair rig on my own tour, but then lowly sound engineers don't often get to make financial decisions. In your case, I'd attribute the shortcomings of the show to failures on the part of the FOH engineer but especially the systems tech in charge of tuning and time alignment. In a club or theatre environment, we generally have to make compromises, but at the production level of the most overrated classic rock band in history, there is really no excuse for not having a high fidelity experience in every seat in the hall.
. In your case, I'd attribute the shortcomings of the show to failures on the part of the FOH engineer but especially the systems tech in charge of tuning and time alignment. In a club or theatre environment, we generally have to make compromises, but at the production level of the most overrated classic rock band in history, there is really no excuse for not having a high fidelity experience in every seat in the hall.
Hmm...wonder if they were an ex BMS employee. Annular diaphragm compression drivers and triple demodulation rings in the woofers are their traits.
That is a popular "set dressing" to feed those ego maniacs on stage..
Say "hi" to my beloved daughter Victoria
Hi Victoria !
Here's a fellow ( ?!? ) member from Florence, IT
I'm vegetarian and I suggest you to eat less meat, or not at all.
And go and hear at natural instruments in good auditoriums!
Ciao
Edit: it should be auditoria, plural
....
That was fairly normal even back in the '80s.
For the support act part of the PA was simply not switched on plus they got fewer channels on the FoH console and restricted access to outboard gear like reverbs, compressors, limiters etc (that may be less of an issue since the advent of digital consoles).
Also if the support act failed to bribe the main sound guy they got some roadie (most PA roadies were kind off trainee sound engineers) to do it.
For the support act part of the PA was simply not switched on plus they got fewer channels on the FoH console and restricted access to outboard gear like reverbs, compressors, limiters etc (that may be less of an issue since the advent of digital consoles).
Also if the support act failed to bribe the main sound guy they got some roadie (most PA roadies were kind off trainee sound engineers) to do it.
over several years of touring i've had the opportunity of hearing the likes of Kim Mitchell,The Barenaked Ladies,Burton Cummings,Blue Rodeo,Great Big Sea and many many more through all types of gear Martin,Adamson,JBL,Heil,Apogee,and again so many combinations it's hard to list them all.
in many circumstances all things aligned to allow for the "turtles to dance" and make for a great show right down to the little details like audiophile audio,but in a "live" situation all to many times things go south and everything snowballs into a trainwreck.
a subjective evaluation of "who" played through "what" and "what did you think" in my opinion is of little value other than to make foundations for criticism.it's not a proper evaluation of the gear used or the people involved without including venue,attendance,adequate setup time/sound check and a whole host of factors that can affect the end result.
p.s.: a pet peeve of mine is some audiophile out of the audience come up and says:"my stereo at home sounds better..." or "can't you make it sound more like the album"
in many circumstances all things aligned to allow for the "turtles to dance" and make for a great show right down to the little details like audiophile audio,but in a "live" situation all to many times things go south and everything snowballs into a trainwreck.
a subjective evaluation of "who" played through "what" and "what did you think" in my opinion is of little value other than to make foundations for criticism.it's not a proper evaluation of the gear used or the people involved without including venue,attendance,adequate setup time/sound check and a whole host of factors that can affect the end result.
p.s.: a pet peeve of mine is some audiophile out of the audience come up and says:"my stereo at home sounds better..." or "can't you make it sound more like the album"
P.A. systems...
Greetings folks - A newbie to DIY here.
I'm old school audio, and I couldn't pass up this thread. To understand the unpleasant audio experience of current commercial touring and fixed sound systems, one must consider the genesis of such contraptions.
A time long ago in a galaxy far, far away, ALTEC Lansing, Electro-Voice, and JBL were slugging it out with their theater and stadium systems. It was the little DIY guy who bought raw frame components to build systems that never existed before. Some of them were relegated to using A7's and Shure Vocal Masters, and yes, even Dual Showman cabinets with a Bogen mixer and microphones that were best suited for a radio announcer, while others were starting companies like Tycobrahe, Showco, Stanal Sound, Clair Brothers, and the trail blazers at Alembic who are best remembered for designing the Grateful Dead Wall of Sound. Why it took the big three nearly fifteen years to finally catch on to the trapezoidal enclosure is a real mystery.
Dig this, the high frequency components in the Wall of Sound system consisted of 224 JBL LE5 mid-range speakers, and 72 EV T350 tweeters. No long throw horns were to be found. The FOH system at Woodstock appeared to be ALTEC manufactured horn enclosures, but they weren't. They were designed and built by Bill Hanley.
The components for the most part were the same ones used in consumer audio systems. Low power handling, and high efficiency. Enter the high powered amplifier. The DC300 served it's purpose between smoking drivers, and even the MC2300 and MC2500 for those with strong backs who were intimate with a fork lift. Then Bob Carver stunned the audio world with his game changing Phase Linear 700B power amp. Excuse me, I meant Flame Linear! The name says it all.
Soon after, speaker manufacturers decided to up the game by designing higher power handling drivers, then the amplifier manufacturers began to, well, you know the rest. Now we have 4000 watt cigar box sized amplifiers, bass speakers rated at 2000 watts, and high frequency ring radiator tweeters rated at 600 watts. I shake my head at the thought of a super tweeter designed to handle 600 watts. One watt through one of those things will drill a hole in your head.
Now to the crux of the biscuit. The function of the sound system dejour is less about high fidelity, and more about sound management. By it's very design, the Constant Directivity Horn has two problems; phase coherency and reduced high frequency response. The folks who designed those horns knew this in the beginning, namely Don Keele who is the father of the CD horn, and Cliff Henricksen and Mark Ureda. The objective behind the CD horn was not high fidelity, it was about sound management.
Now to the Line Array. The Line Array effect was known of at least 70 years prior to the introduction of the current systems. Perhaps even Lord Rayleigh new of the effect. They are an amazing mechanism for pattern control, where not long ago pattern control in a linear P.A. enclosure and Bessel Array could be attained by creative wiring between drivers, now it's all done on the fly in real time with microprocessors.
That's all fine and dandy, but from what I've been told by engineers who run those systems, and audience participants, is the sound quality of Line Array systems promote aural fatigue. Some might describe the quality as low fidelity. The moment some engineer evolved the 130A into a 2226, was the end of high fidelity. Thank goodness Bill Hanuschak at Great Plains Audio is still manufacturing the same speakers ALTEC did sixty years ago.
The End
Greetings folks - A newbie to DIY here.
I'm old school audio, and I couldn't pass up this thread. To understand the unpleasant audio experience of current commercial touring and fixed sound systems, one must consider the genesis of such contraptions.
A time long ago in a galaxy far, far away, ALTEC Lansing, Electro-Voice, and JBL were slugging it out with their theater and stadium systems. It was the little DIY guy who bought raw frame components to build systems that never existed before. Some of them were relegated to using A7's and Shure Vocal Masters, and yes, even Dual Showman cabinets with a Bogen mixer and microphones that were best suited for a radio announcer, while others were starting companies like Tycobrahe, Showco, Stanal Sound, Clair Brothers, and the trail blazers at Alembic who are best remembered for designing the Grateful Dead Wall of Sound. Why it took the big three nearly fifteen years to finally catch on to the trapezoidal enclosure is a real mystery.
Dig this, the high frequency components in the Wall of Sound system consisted of 224 JBL LE5 mid-range speakers, and 72 EV T350 tweeters. No long throw horns were to be found. The FOH system at Woodstock appeared to be ALTEC manufactured horn enclosures, but they weren't. They were designed and built by Bill Hanley.
The components for the most part were the same ones used in consumer audio systems. Low power handling, and high efficiency. Enter the high powered amplifier. The DC300 served it's purpose between smoking drivers, and even the MC2300 and MC2500 for those with strong backs who were intimate with a fork lift. Then Bob Carver stunned the audio world with his game changing Phase Linear 700B power amp. Excuse me, I meant Flame Linear! The name says it all.
Soon after, speaker manufacturers decided to up the game by designing higher power handling drivers, then the amplifier manufacturers began to, well, you know the rest. Now we have 4000 watt cigar box sized amplifiers, bass speakers rated at 2000 watts, and high frequency ring radiator tweeters rated at 600 watts. I shake my head at the thought of a super tweeter designed to handle 600 watts. One watt through one of those things will drill a hole in your head.
Now to the crux of the biscuit. The function of the sound system dejour is less about high fidelity, and more about sound management. By it's very design, the Constant Directivity Horn has two problems; phase coherency and reduced high frequency response. The folks who designed those horns knew this in the beginning, namely Don Keele who is the father of the CD horn, and Cliff Henricksen and Mark Ureda. The objective behind the CD horn was not high fidelity, it was about sound management.
Now to the Line Array. The Line Array effect was known of at least 70 years prior to the introduction of the current systems. Perhaps even Lord Rayleigh new of the effect. They are an amazing mechanism for pattern control, where not long ago pattern control in a linear P.A. enclosure and Bessel Array could be attained by creative wiring between drivers, now it's all done on the fly in real time with microprocessors.
That's all fine and dandy, but from what I've been told by engineers who run those systems, and audience participants, is the sound quality of Line Array systems promote aural fatigue. Some might describe the quality as low fidelity. The moment some engineer evolved the 130A into a 2226, was the end of high fidelity. Thank goodness Bill Hanuschak at Great Plains Audio is still manufacturing the same speakers ALTEC did sixty years ago.
The End
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