Speaking of lousy live sound, I was involved in a shoot out the other day. 
No, no, no. A pro-sound bar system shoot-out.
The contenders were: Yorkville sound: Elite Series of boxes.
                      JBL Array and other stuff.
                      Bag End.
First, the Club:
Solid concrete floor. Stage end of room is untreated at this time. The 
building is being carefully sealed and damped to make sure that there are NO 
complaints and the pressure waves have a chance to build up enough to excite 
people.
The stage is centered on the end wall, and is built out of solid poured 
concrete, 3 feet high. About 20 feet deep and 25 or so feet wide. The side 
walls are about 6 feet away from each side of the stage, and the ceiling is 
about 12-14 feet up. All in all, a nice uncluttered area, that is at least 
symmetrical in outlay.
The AC power comes in to the stage on dedicated 20 amp lines, and is 
terminated with Hubble hospital grade AC receptacles. The whole AC system is 
star grounded to a single point for consistency of ground and lowering AC 
noise. This is all connected to the DJ booth, which is open and adjacent to 
the Dance floor/monitoring/listening position. Floor subs with flown 
mid/highs.
In stereo.
The DJ booth is floored out of poured concrete to the same height as the 
stage, and the Turntable Stand is a poured curved block of high grade 
concrete. It sits upon cement blocks that are mortared to the DJ booth floor. 
The blocks are filled with a lead/sand mixture. The equipment racks are flown 
from the bottom of the curved Turntable stand (which is about 6" thick) on 
steel rods that are embedded in it. Each shelf is damped at it's flying point 
to mechanically damp and separate it from the vibration of the floor and 
om.
In case of nuclear attack, hide in the DJ booth.
The AC at the booth is star grounded to the stage system at the same point as 
the other. The dj booth will double as the monitor point for stage mixes and 
also serves as the main point of AC power for any stage system. I think there 
is going to be a 24 channel VLZ mackie board on permanent install. Snake is a 
digiflex, and so are microphone cables and speaker cables. The mics are a mix 
of shures. This is the house/band reinforcement system.
Yorkville sound is up first.
We listen. We stop listening. We shoot them in head and toss their useless 
bodies in the back alley. We are a tough crowd.
Next is Bag End.
Much better performance. Sealed box Subs, with Custom EV drivers. Same in the 
mid/high boxes. The mid/high are ported. 115 DB, average slow. Flat to about 
15 hz. SERIOUS subsonics. Punchy and as controlled as you could ask for. My 
personal favorite.
The last is the JBL.
The dammed things are LOUD. 125db+!! The Array are pretty nice, but, too 
screechy for me. The standard series of high end gear form them is more 
intergrated and punchier. They mix better with the giant double 18" sub box.
The woofers have the same cone and basket design.
The digital crossover ain't bad either, but at $6700 CDN, it's a little too 
much. JBL/QSC amps are pretty good too.
There were two 15" mid/high boxes and the single double 18" sub. We threw 
about 9000 watts a the trio and ended up with that obscene volume. The scary 
part was that this was a HALF SYSTEM. The owner likes it loud..... I think 
JBL is his choice. The only problem for me is that there is no REAL bass. It 
is all rolled off at 40hz. The Bag End was MUCH better in this regard. No 
Ported box can produce real bass anyway. It can do sine waves but it can't do 
no drums.
It's a' gonna be a loud alternative club, fer sure......
Oh yeah, the room is acoustically treated to a .9 sec decay, even frequency 
response. A recording studio would be green with envy about the sonic 
characteristics of this room. To bad the regular participants won't notice or 
give a damn. All they will know is that it is LOUD and the room REALLY, 
REALLY ROCKS. It'll be their favorite place to go deaf at.
Later
Ken Hotte
> Netmail: 1:249/146    Email: ken.hotte@serpents.crp.kingston.on.ca   <
... Who is Harry Krishna and why is he in my airport?
--- GoldED/2
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