[Audio Empire]

On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 08:51:26 -0700, Scott wrote
(in article ):

On Aug 30, 5:37am, "Arny Krueger" wrote:
"Audio Empire" wrote in message

...

Here we are in complete agreement. Why go to hear "live musicians" when
all
you are listening to is a set of PA speakers. If I want to listen to
speakers, I'll stay home where my listening chain (amps, speakers) is far
better than those of even the most elaborate of public address systems. I
have attended so-called live concerts where I've turned around and left
because I saw a bevy of microphones on stage and stacks of speakers near
by.
And you're right, it's only a matter of time before the PA craze hits
symphony orchestras too. In fact is some locals, it probably already has.
Bah!

Good point. Someone took me to a concert of *name* artists. The alleged
concert was composed of live segements, karoke segments and video segments.
In no case was the sound or video as good as my home stereo which is itself
not elaborate.

Was this a classical concert? If not then this is nothing new. Rock
and pop concerts have suffered from bad sounding PAs since the
beginning of the genres. Fans don't go to these concerts to hear
better sound. They go to *see* the artists, who are often celebrities,
in the flesh perform what will hopefully be a unique live experience.
It's a lot different than the live classical music experience. Well,
not including concerts at The Hollywood Bowl or other such venues.


Well, I have yet to hear a "sound reinforcement augmented" symphony
concert but I have seen classical chamber music concerts so augmented.
It's just not necessary. I've been to the Hollywood Bowl and heard
chamber music played on stage. The acoustics of the place made them
easily heard in the proverbial back row. Back in the 40's and 50's
night clubs would feature bands playing and the only "PA" might be the
announcer or perhaps the band singer. The musicians playing
instruments needed no such crutches. A few years ago I went with some
friends to a Brazilian nightclub in San Francisco. They had a great
brazilian jazz band playing all the familiar samba favorites from that
country, along with Bossa Nova, Lambada as well as selections that I
had never heard before. They were using this huge PA system and
playing it so loudly that patrons had to cup their hands around the
ears of those next to them and yell at the top of their lungs into
those cupped hands to make themselves heard. It looked like there was
a war going on between the band, who wanted to be heard, and the
patrons who wanted to talk. Before the current sound reinforcement
craze, people would go to night spots and listen to unamplified music
playing while they politely whispered to one another. Now the band
turns up the volume on their sound reinforcement in order to be heard
over the talk and the people talk louder in order to be heard over the
sound reinforcement. Loudness wars.

OTOH, you are correct about rock and some other forms of pop. These
performances were created in the studio where they were recorded, and
essentially only exist as an electronic waveform. For recordings, this
waveform is "cut" to some physical media and is not a performance
again until it emanates from the listener's speakers. To have this
"performance" occur as a "live concert", the studio conditions must be
reproduced. The difference between the concert and the recording is
that the middle man, the physical media, is eliminated and the output
of the "studio" electronics is fed directly into large scale speakers
designed to play loud and cover a large group of people. While not my
cup of tea, that is a legitimate reason and use for sound
reinforcement because, without it, the performance couldn't exist.