multiple speakers and SPL

[nevetslab]

Then, as a bass player, there's the effect of room size and the stage/back wall/side walls effect on being able to hear yourself well. It used to drive me nuts getting a setting out of my rig so I could hear myself well with the rest of the band, only to be told to turn way down as the bass is just thundering in the room. That always gets into having your bass cabinets near a back wall (not a problem in clubs with a small stage), and not at cancellation zones that attenuate rather than accentuate you how you hear yourself.

In-ear monitors didn't exist decades ago. They sure help these days in combating those issues when everything is mic'd, and all of us have our own mixes that can be dialed in at our vocal mic positions or standing positions.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Brian May's guitar sound all by itself was HUGE ! I realized his stacking 9 Vox amps on the stage was no accident, and the sound men complimented his "Spread" of sound.

Yes, huge indeed. And his playing ability is superb. However... only 3 of those Voxes in use at any time. Knowing their propensity to break down, Brian was always prepared. No dummy, him! The other 6 are the backup rig, and the backup backup rig. Oughta be enough to make it through a show, ya think? But I must admit, that phalanx of 9 AC30's does look impressive!

U2 carry around 20+ AC30's, plus a full time tech to keep enough in working order to make it through the tour.

Wretched excess? "The show must go on!" Without the audience knowing anything's amiss. The watchword on Bowie's 1987 tour: "Just act as if nothing's wrong." No panic, no shouting & running around. Just get on with it. That's showmanship.

[nevetslab]

Had that ready to post last night but for some reason it would not upload. So thanks Juan for mentioning it! Besides F-M, when you're trying to hear something relatively quiet, there's the masking effect of ambient noises in real world listening, and it gets worse with the age of the listener. Presbycusis is the fancy name for it. Plus tinnitus, which plagues many folks as age advances, masking quiet sounds from within the hearing system. WHAAAAT?



Also very true:

Seeing that 'gentleman' standing there with the two hoses from the long horns, wearing a military uniform.....this must have been before the days of radar, and his job was to stand there to listen for the enemy's airplanes heading towards their location? And yes, I too have put my ears to various HF horns to hear what it sounds like. Does it look like the mounting structure allows the horns to rotate some? Never seen this image before..........very intriguing!

[nickb]

Seeing that 'gentleman' standing there with the two hoses from the long horns, wearing a military uniform.....this must have been before the days of radar, and his job was to stand there to listen for the enemy's airplanes heading towards their location? And yes, I too have put my ears to various HF horns to hear what it sounds like. Does it look like the mounting structure allows the horns to rotate some? Never seen this image before..........very intriguing!

It works just great until some wag stands 100 yards away and goes BOO!

[J M Fahey]

It was *really* used, there´s more where that picture came from:
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/air...dar-1917-1940/

count on the Germans on having the most technologically advanced and precise built/calculated ones :



and on the Japanese "losing something on translation" from European Languages, so when the Emperor (who´s seen on this picture) heard about the "Technological News" and ordered "get the best and most experienced horn builder in the Empire" ... this was the result:

[The Dude]

2 sets of headphones. So it was quadraphonic?

[Leo_Gnardo]

count on the Germans on having the most technologically advanced and precise built/calculated ones

Those are some mighty impressive receiving units. Now hear this - a sending unit.

[J M Fahey]

2 sets of headphones. So it was quadraphonic?

No.

* One set / operator / vertically arranged horn pair for elevation (angle above the horizon)

* One set / operator / horizontally arranged horn pair for azimuth (compass indicated angle)

These guys were *precise* , could locate a plane with **two degree** error.

They did not rely on "I guess it´s louder that way" which is coarse, but sending one horn to each ear and detecting phase difference ... we are very good at that to detect sound origin in, say, the dark.

Japanese were developing a very advanced self guidance system for their rocket powered gliding BAKA bombs, placing one microphone at each wingtip, detecting phase/time difference and directing bomb towards heavy warship cannons bombarding Japanese coast.
They just started too late so had to rely on suicide pilots.

The split elevation/azimuth technique for higher precision is used even today on radars.

We all know the classic 2D radar showing target position but for complex situations, specially antimissile defence, "nodding" height finder radars are added to have a better 3D idea about a menace source:

[Chuck H]

2 sets of headphones. So it was quadraphonic?

No.

* One set / operator / vertically arranged horn pair for elevation (angle above the horizon)

* One set / operator / horizontally arranged horn pair for azimuth (compass indicated angle)

First, Dude was having fun. I don't figure he believed they were ONLY listening to four sources at random.

And B, doesn't your description somewhat qualify as quadraphonic? As in four way imaging?

Otherwise a super boss post and fantastic science trivia. I'm stunned at the accuracy they claim to have achieved and I think it's a perfect example of how todays technology is pretty much on par with yesterdays in many ways. Our big brains have been the same size and shape for about 200,000 years. Sure, we have different technology that is more important to us today. And there's built knowledge from study research that is only made possible by our ability to record and symbolize since about 70,000 years ago. So we may be more "advanced", but are we actually smarter now, as is typically implied? I don't think that's necessarily so.

[glebert]

So we may be more "advanced", but are we actually smarter now, as is typically implied? I don't think that's necessarily so.

What I have read from evolutionary science is that we are getting dumber. Hunter/gather lifestyle makes you remember where every source of food is, when they will be ripe, which things will kill you if you eat them, how to kill a mammoth, etc. Oh, and a simple infection might kill you so you better be careful and not get one.

[Chuck H]

What I have read from evolutionary science is that we are getting dumber. Hunter/gather lifestyle makes you remember where every source of food is, when they will be ripe, which things will kill you if you eat them, how to kill a mammoth, etc. Oh, and a simple infection might kill you so you better be careful and not get one.

Oh yeah. I think it's a "this stuff" vs. "that stuff" thing as far as what we know rather than how much. If you dropped the "smartest" guy you know in the middle of a prehistoric band of people in paleolithic Europe he would be the village idiot.

[Enzo]

Nope, not getting dumber. Used to be you learned and remembered every leaf and twig that was useful or poison, and how to track deer. A million things. Today we don't learn THOSE things, but you know the words to thousands of songs and can play them on cue if asked. You know of foods from the entire world that cave man never did. We aren't dumber, we just know and focus on different stuff. Cave man know Ohm's Law? Doubt it.

But are we smarter than the old ones? No to that as well. I see shows that decide the ancients "couldn't possibly" have done whatever on their own, so Space Aliens must have helped. Bull. Those ancient Egyptians were every bit as smart and resourceful as we are, they just had to do it with different technology and resources. Technology builds on itself, it accumulates over time. We made color TV in the 1930s, all with tubes, there were no transistors. Nowdays TV fits in your phone. Those tube guys were pretty smart, they just came before micro silicon circuits came along.

[Tony Bones]

Our intellect is like a muscle in that the more you exercise it the stronger it becomes. I was definitely at my peak in grad school. With that in mind, are people exercising their intellect more or less than they have in the past? It's easy to be the old man and say "kids these days have it easier than ever..." But I'm not sure that's actually true. Life is more complicated today for people of all ages. Does that translate into a more fit brain?

[eschertron]

fit brain?

OK, I'll belly up to the bar. The reason homo is/was so successful is that our brain is wired to learn more than it is to react. Almost everything a cat knows is instinctual. Almost everything homo knows is learned. And we learn much different 'stuff' now than we did 50,000 years ago. If we dropped the "smartest" guy into a prehistoric setting as a grown adult, he'd be at a distinct disadvantage. But if he was inserted into village life as a baby, he'd grown up to be the smartest guy there as well. A brain with the capacity to learn about human physiology at the cellular or chemical level is just as fit as a brain that can learn about human physiology at the leaf-and-mushroom level. Ain't that right, oh mighty mushroom-hunter?

[nevetslab]

Our intellect is like a muscle in that the more you exercise it the stronger it becomes. I was definitely at my peak in grad school. With that in mind, are people exercising their intellect more or less than they have in the past? It's easy to be the old man and say "kids these days have it easier than ever..." But I'm not sure that's actually true. Life is more complicated today for people of all ages. Does that translate into a more fit brain?

Well, it was shocking to me having come across a Trigonometry Work Book from college a few years ago, repacking my storage locker, and in reading thru what I had evolved in the equations, I said to myself "I was definitely smarter back then than I am now". Of course, not having used the long form of the manual equations to solve those problems for decades, I've lost touch with the methods. I just know a lot of different stuff now, actively being used.