There probably hasn’t been a single aspect of live concerts that has changed more than the FOH main sound system.
Evolving from the old Altec Voice-of-the-Theater systems and tiny tube amps, today’s flying vertical arrays and all of their sophisticated processing is a sight to behold.
We have watched the transition through stacked cabinets in a 3 or 4-way system, through tall column speakers, and now to the flying arrays and subs found in the biggest outdoor shows. We’ve seen center clusters, quad systems, delay-towers, and everything in-between. In this section we take a close look at every type of system across the board.
We’ll look at small self-powered speakers mounted on a speaker stand, and larger house systems, powered speaker columns, passive cabinets, powered cabinets, cross-over options, and sophisticated power amps and speaker control systems. There is a lot to look at here, and a huge variety of venue installations. We’ll look at power amps, speaker cabinets, drivers, processors, and power distribution to the whole thing. We’ll look at frequency response, distance, DB, and how all these things work together for the best result.