Well, here we are again.
I'm at the House of Blues in Houston, TX tonight. This time last year, they had a pretty slammin' poorly installed vertec rig in the house. It covered the venue just fine, but half of the PA was firing into a balcony wall. You can see the old thread here:
http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/38909/6178/Anyway, they decided to "revamp" the rig and get a Soundbridge PA. I'll start off with the positives this time around instead of going straight to the bad. The good news is, the PA was at least installed better this time around. They have it split into 2 sections:
The top 4 boxes hit the balcony, and then bottom 6 hit the floor. Well, it's better then before, but sadly, still doesn't sound great. it really thins out up toward the top of the balcony. I wish I had control of the top boxes so I could mellow them out some and make it less piercing up top... Those 8's just don't keep up with the rest of the box.
Down on the floor, coverage is pretty good. The box few boxes could use a little more downward angle to hit the first few rows though. In the middle of the crowd there is no coverage from the PA until about 10' out from the stage. I'd be screwed if I wasn't carrying front fills. Down front, it's just a muddy mess. There needs to be something done about that, otherwise the people up front are not going to be able to hear anything except stage wash...
Now, I will say that my experiences are more positive then last time I had an SB rig already. But, the upper mid range of this box is out of control. This is the EQ curve it took to smooth the boxes out:
I mean, come on guys. The boxes are so bright that they burn. I could not listen to them at any level without pain. I don't know anyone that would tune a box like that and be happy, unless they're almost deaf! And yes, I asked the house guy "has anything changed in the DSP since this system has been installed?" His answer: no. So, this had to sound good to someone...
But, on a good note, the low mid side of the boxes sound decent. They're a little thin below 130hz, but the low mid gak and "mega phone" effect I had on the last SB rig is not nearly as present with this system. It gets a little honky when you start to really lay into it, but that seems to be be tamable.
Sub wise, they have 8 of the "quad focused" sb1000 rip offs under the deck. They're good from about 90hz to 40hz. Above that they really start to sound boomy, and below that you hit driver excursion very quickly. They work fine for what I'm asking out of them. My B2's are taking care of everything below 60hz, so the house subs have a fairly easy night...
I've done 2 sound checks on the PA, but will report back at the end of the show once I've really gotten to give it a good run.
Evan