Soundstage and explosive dynamics?

@kosst_amojan

I agree a lot has changed in the market - Meyer, Nexo and Funktion One make great gear for PA. IMHO EAW Anya has the best portable array system currently for stadiums. These days, it is as much about an easily setup and controlled computerized adaptive sound management system as it is high quality transducers. Anya from EAW is the most impressive I have heard - it turns lousy venues into qood to excellent acoustics. Incredible ability to tune the sound in all directions.

It is just Buellrider97 specifically mentioned the sound from the Supertramp tour as being something he has been looking for. Supertramp like Pink Floyd were very careful about sound quality. Crime of the Century MFSL version is probably the most dynamic range pop album ever released! Supertramp were famous for their live sound too and especially the bass response.

That said not much has actually changed in terms of low distortion and high SPL. It simply takes lots of clean power and very expensive good quality drivers (large motors, large underhung voice coils and large woofers with high Xmax). At that time, the ATC 12 inch driver was the best in the entire PA market. Other large PA speaker manufacturers no doubt copied ATC higher performance designs (and made them at lower cost) and meanwhile ATC continued improving their design far beyond what is necessary for a PA setup and entered the high end studio market (where users were willing to pay for costly incremental performance improvements at high SPL for their showcase Main Monitors)

So to summarize, my last two comments are really directed at Buellrider97 and I am not suggesting anyone start building there own speakers to achieve "explosive dynamics" - although that is probably the cheapest solution!!!

+2 Hddg - large Tannoy is another good option.

Costs less than $10k. Sorry only horns can do Explosive dynamics with force and surprise. I know so many are sold on undersized cheap to build sell thin towers with far to small over worked wee mid range woofer combos installed in thin baffles requiring compensation in networks to correct it. But if one really wants what the threads poster demands only a fully loaded horn system will deliver it.

Wow thanks for the info . Glad I didn’t mention ZZ Top or Green Day “ American Idiot Tour “.  As far as “ Crime of the Century” , if you want to see a system stumble , play it LOUD ! BTW , I saw” Dark Side Of The Moon “ at the Cow Palace in SF , makes sense what you guys are sharing . Also +3 on the Tannoy’s , great suggestion. If I remember correctly Manly Labs , has them scattered around their shop . I’m glad  there is not a -#5 Wife Factor restriction at play 😝. Thanks again, Mike B , Clovis , Ca. 

+1 @johnk

kosst_amojan --

Yeah.... That’s why nobody uses systems like that anymore, right? Because it just can’t be done any other way? Step into the 21st century.

Stepping into the 21st century audio-wise has little if anything to do with replicating or even approaching core traits from the horn speakers of yore, but more to do with maintaining a paradigm of much smaller, more inefficient and less space-intrusive speakers. Those may have admirable qualities in regards to dynamics relative to their specific type and inherent limitations, but as poster johnk implies will fall short of much bigger and radically more efficient, fully horn-loaded speakers here.

That few (again, few, not "nobody") are using big horn speakers today could have a variety of reasons, some of which may include the impractical nature of sheer size (more on that later), and that the virtues of this segment of speakers are simply less sought after or appreciated today. It’s also a matter of priority; horn speakers usually requires of one to re-think overall system implementation, adjust to what’s typically a different kind of sound, and make a more conscious choice in the way they’re going to inhabit ones living-/listening room space.

Later decades of "advice" (i.e.: protocol, even) concerning the fitting speaker size for ones listening space seems to dictate small speakers for small(er) rooms, and by this token big horn speakers in particular would likely not fit until you had a literal barn to house them in. Personally I find this approach to be, diplomatically put, overly schooled, but of course this way the industry can find ways to cater to and justify its small-size speaker paradigm, and numb or lull the buyers into a more or less trained behavior. In effect the range of bigger speakers, the ones who are really beginning to approach live dynamics, are pulled out of reach to most buyers - if nothing else, and in addition to the reasons mentioned earlier, simply for being too expensive. Should achieving more realistic sound be an elitist boon? That would be a rhetorical question.. Sounds a bit too much like conspiracy? Well, lets not forget we’re up against an industry where catering to space constraints (and spousal acceptance) weighs in heavily, and where cost cutting of material quantity and quality comes into play, so to speak.

So, because it just can’t be done any other way? In large terms, yes - because it can’t be done any other way. As has been stated already, you can’t cheat physics.