"America Rocks" - OUCH!

I will bring my db meter next visit. I will definately talk to someone when I see it spike at 140.

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Blue people fly sideways when it rains....

Hearing an overdriven audio system grates on the ears almost as much as someone calling a Sound Pressure Level (SPL) meter a dB meter….;) You measure sound pressure with a SPL, a dB is a unitless, logarithmic scale. SPLs also do not have much meaning without a distance reference to the sound source. For example, I run JBL SR-X rated at 135dB at 1m, and EAW subs rated at 132dB at 2m. That does not imply the room is in excess of a jet takeoff, because a sound dispersion pattern is closer to conical geometry and falls off VERY quickly. Common sense, the closer you are to the speakers, the more concentrated the sound pressure. Additionally for the whole picture, you have to study Fletcher-Munson curves since human auditory response is not a linear function with respect to SPL. At that point I would have to say you are starting to get too technical and loosing sight of the goal – making every thing sound good.

From personal experience, perceived loudness does not even relate to SPL. We are conditioned to associate signal distortion, clipping, overdriving, etc. with loudness. A good closed-loop servo controlled system can generate high SPLs and not even sound loud unless you are impinging on the pain threshold. Sometimes I need to add a touch of digital distortion in the effects loop so the sound is perceived to be loud, but is not actually blowing out everyone’s eardrums….;) Most likely, the saloon had some technical issues to deal with, and the monitors probably had a lot to do with it. -j
*** This post was edited by jmen 5/15/2003 9:26:20 PM ***

It sounded fine when I was there. Although, I must admit I was paying more attention to the showgirls shaking their booty's then listening for sound levels.

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Eric Morrison (Coast)
Drag Races: 6
Point Hype
http://www.pointhype.com

You don't have to tell me that Jmen, but it doesn't really help my arguement to say that someone yelling in your ear (which is clearly not as loud as a jet plane) can be just as damaging as being in a room with big 'ol speakers. I guess I was trying to pass along an understanding in the least complicated manner.

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Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure Ride-Ops Crew 2002-2003! Have fun trying to find me!

Hahaha! You got me there, my right ear is shot from trying to cue songs, left ear bad from dealing with requests out shouting the PA at 3 inches from my head -- everything in between mush.

-j

A quick update...

I went to the show again on Saturday 5/17. Glutton for punishment, I guess...

Anyway, for that show they were having major microphone difficulties in that >1 transmitter batteries died during the show. Fortunately they do have a spare floating around, and they handled it well; most people probably didn't notice.

The more important bit, though, is that the show was a whole lot quieter, and sounded a whole lot better. This time around, the vocals were (when the mics were working) the loudest part of the mix, f'rinstance, and I could actually hear all of the instruments.

So either the problems I noticed a week ago were early-season jitters, or somebody got the message that something was wrong. Or a little of both. In any case, it sounded great on Saturday. Oh, and when I say it wasn't as loud as it was a week ago, I should qualify that just in case you don't understand...it was still enough to shake the foundations of the building. It's a @#$!ing rock, concert, after all...it's SUPPOSED to be loud. But last week it was so loud it was drowning itself out. That's fixed. Volume has been reduced only a little, but it sounds a whole lot better.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.