Ayone know the wattage used at a Rock concert?
the loudest sound NASA has ever recorded was the first stage of the Saturn V rocket, which clocked in at 204 decibels.
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In the late 60s it was fashionable to use a pile of Altec A7s driven by whatever…Altec amps maybe, Macs…and the sound was friendly and sort of warm. (My bands in the early 70s to mid 80s dragged a pair of A7s around, albeit with heavy duty bass drivers). A corner was turned in the 70s to things like JBL loaded boxes from Tycobrahe and Clair Brothers with maybe Phase Linear amps, and the new normal was REAL LOUD and somewhat less warm and friendly. I'm currently a live sound mixer for smallish shows (jazz and folkie stuff mostly) and use both powered and passive speakers that sound modern and clear, careful application of powered 18s for subs, etc., and can actually get a warmish sound…but I do miss the A7 days. |
Ah yes, the A7. The band house I lived in back in ’71 had a pair of them (the bands PA, of course) in the living room as a hi-fi, powered by a Fender Showman head. Had to be careful with the volume control---the A7 was so efficient, the 65 watts of the Showman could drive them to insane SPL at the flick of a wrist. Those A7’s plus a particularly nasty Fender Twin Reverb (with a pair of JBL D120 drivers) really did some damage to my poor ears. |
I could (and sometimes did) hook my trust A7s to my KLH Model 20 (the one without the tuner) compact system that had a mighty 24 watts or so per side, and it sounded great. For years we used a biamp thing made by Kustom (a non tuck and roll item) that had 200 watts for the bass bins and 100 for the horns…worked great and certainly shredded some ear balls. |
