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Author Topic: Community S-218s? Any experience with it?  (Read 14865 times)

Kevin McDonough

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Re: Community S-218s? Any experience with it?
« Reply #20 on: January 06, 2013, 04:07:55 PM »

Then how come they aren't cracking-down on nightclubs in this country?  They are continuous no-dynamics techno music that can probably be equated to a continuous machine/manufacturing type noise.  The staff at these place do receive damaging levels!
I ran one for a while and it was a constant battle to keep levels down and I wondered why it was such a fight to convince people that quality not quantity was our goal -until I checked out every other club in town and they were just screaming loud.

They took away smoking in bars predominantly for the benefit of the staff, wait until the authorities start regulating our volume levels from a health standpoint! (not just the because the neighbors complaining)

The manufacturers aren't helping with ads like the one I attached (from Bassmaxx's site) -I know those RTA's can easily be out-of-cal, but to even desire, strive to, and brag about wanting to expose anyone in a small room to 130dB or higher continuously is just wrong!
(I guess it's no different than people doing drugs or booze until the point of death or damage -except I'm I don't want to be the pusher!)


Having been at various times as a club manager, club DJ, and a regular club goer as well as a sound engineer, the answer to this has several facets.

Firstly from the customer side, they DEMAND the music be his loud. With the prevolence of high volume, relitivly cheap hifi equipment and car audio, as well as the loud volume of personal equipment such as MP3 players etc, even at the start of the night they want the music at the very least as loud as they are able to create on their own (in their much smaller room/car or in their ears), they feel that is part of the experience. Once they become used to the level they are being exposed to and they start to desensitise, they only want it pushed further, particularly the bass. Alcohol accelerates this further, as do other substances they may be taking.

It was very a apparent in a Club I used to DJ in who, thanks to false noise complaints made by someone who's nephew had been (justifiably) sacked from working the bar, had their sound system limited to an extremely low level (to the point when I could hear conversations maybe 7 or 8 metres away across the dancefloor). Within just a few months their nights were noticeably less busy, as much as 50% so.

From the venue side, the majority want to create as much volume as they can with as little expense as they can. Rather than spec'ing a proper system with plenty of headroom, limited at an appropriate point, they will spend the minimum they can get away with and run it balls to the wall, adding all manner of damaging harmonic content and distortion to the already high volume.

This is pushed even further by DJ's who in general have no real appreciation or knowledge of the sound system they are currently abusing and insist on redlining the mixer and adding further distortion into the signal.


In theory, it is already the law here in the UK that staff exposure should be taken into account. There were several laws brought into place regarding noise at work here, and the entertainment industry, having noise as their product rather than bi-product, received a stay of execution and a grace period of 2 years or something to asses their situation and implement changes.

As the grace period was expiring I put on my sound engineering hat and wrote to several bars and clubs in the area, explaining the situation and offering to provide a measuring service. I was going to invest in some metering equipment including a handful of small dose metres that staff could attach to their clothes and wear for the night, that would measure their exposure and plot it on graphs etc when linked back to a PC. They could then have an official, calibrated report to base any action on that they wanted to take (or prove none was needed).

However not a single venue was especially interested as no one was putting any pressure on them to comply and even now, while I am somewhat more removed from that world, I have yet to hear of a single bar or club being prosecuted or even measured/tested by whomever would enforce this.

k
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Ivan Beaver

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Re: Community S-218s? Any experience with it?
« Reply #21 on: January 06, 2013, 04:52:07 PM »




Firstly from the customer side, they DEMAND the music be his loud.
There are also people who "DEMAND" that they be able to driver faster than the speed limit.  Sometimes they get caught-other times not.

Not everybody demands that the music be that loud.  In fact most people would "demand" that the music NOT be that loud.  But they don't go to those types of clubs.

So not everybody/club will be up to law suites-but some will.  Once the first one has lost a case-there is a precedent-which opens up the path for more.

And the fines will not be like speeding tickets.

Until it is law-and there are people who will actually enforce it-loud levels will continue.

If every venue in town has to comply-there will be a more even "playing field".

I think things are going to change-it is just a matter of when.

Over my many years in this business-I have run into quite a few people who have lost a lot of their hearing (both level and HF response) due to loud levels.

It does happen.

It will be interesting to see how things will change in the future-not only regarding levels, but also intelligibility.  Once systems are required to meet a certain STI-I wonder how many contractors will still be in business trying to get their system up to the minimum.  MANY systems in larger rooms will not pass.

When these thing start to become law-there will be a market for real sound system designers-who design with a specific goal of performance in mind-NOT jus turn it up loud and impress the client with SPL.
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Ivan Beaver
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g'bye, Dick Rees

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Re: Community S-218s? Any experience with it?
« Reply #22 on: January 06, 2013, 05:02:22 PM »

There are also people who "DEMAND" that they be able to driver faster than the speed limit.

"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"

......Vroomfondl, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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Craig Hauber

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Re: Community S-218s? Any experience with it?
« Reply #23 on: January 07, 2013, 12:36:08 AM »


Within just a few months their nights were noticeably less busy, as much as 50% so.


Trust me I learned that one the hard way,  (We just made up for it with burlesque shows :-)

But seriously, I new how to get it loud and very full-sounding yet actually metered quieter than all the other clubs on the street.  Kind of like a good band-mix where you have the vocals sitting in a really fat mix and they still are clear -Instead I had the "vox" being the people ordering from the bar staff and the "band-mix" was the DJ sound.  I am a sound tech who has always loved loudness, so when I feel it's to loud it's not just "get-off-my-lawn you young whipper-snappers"!

It just blows me away how much mids and highs DJ's can pile on the house sound (just a blaring hash if you let them follow-through unencumbered!)  -That is what I saw driving people out of the club more than any underpowering going-on.
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Kevin McDonough

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Re: Community S-218s? Any experience with it?
« Reply #24 on: January 07, 2013, 02:49:17 AM »

There are also people who "DEMAND" that they be able to driver faster than the speed limit.  Sometimes they get caught-other times not.

Not everybody demands that the music be that loud.  In fact most people would "demand" that the music NOT be that loud.  But they don't go to those types of clubs.

So not everybody/club will be up to law suites-but some will.  Once the first one has lost a case-there is a precedent-which opens up the path for more.

And the fines will not be like speeding tickets.

Until it is law-and there are people who will actually enforce it-loud levels will continue.

If every venue in town has to comply-there will be a more even "playing field".

I think things are going to change-it is just a matter of when.

Over my many years in this business-I have run into quite a few people who have lost a lot of their hearing (both level and HF response) due to loud levels.

It does happen.

It will be interesting to see how things will change in the future-not only regarding levels, but also intelligibility.  Once systems are required to meet a certain STI-I wonder how many contractors will still be in business trying to get their system up to the minimum.  MANY systems in larger rooms will not pass.

When these thing start to become law-there will be a market for real sound system designers-who design with a specific goal of performance in mind-NOT jus turn it up loud and impress the client with SPL.

haha

no this was generally my point, I wasn't suggesting it was right they demanded it, just that they do. And that no one bothers because it isn't enforced and no one will pay any money or take any account until it is.

 :D
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Ivan Beaver

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Re: Community S-218s? Any experience with it?
« Reply #25 on: January 07, 2013, 08:00:01 AM »

haha

no this was generally my point, I wasn't suggesting it was right they demanded it, just that they do. And that no one bothers because it isn't enforced and no one will pay any money or take any account until it is.

 :D
What people "demand" and what they say they want can often be very different things.

A while ago I did a little dub step tour.  Professional level dub step has a reputation for being very loud.

SO I provided a system would get really loud-and go really low.

I let them do what they wanted with it-and what THEY really wanted was a really deep response and a good clear sound.

Since most systems can't com close to going as low as the system I provided-this was a totally new experience for them.

They did not run it anywhere near as loud as I thought they would.  Yes it was "good and healthy" but not stupid loud.  Really deep lows and clean highs.

I told them they had plenty of room if they wanted to turn it up-but they were happy.

I got all kinds of comments from the various artists about how they had never heard anything like that-how it was a "religious experience" and so forth.

What there were looking for was the deep lows (20hz and below) that was in their music.  In the past-the only way they could come close was to simply turn it up to try to get those freq.

So sometimes what people ask for-is not what they really want.  But they don't know how else to describe it.

Just sayin'---------------------------------
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Ivan Beaver
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Tim McCulloch

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Re: Community S-218s? Any experience with it?
« Reply #26 on: January 07, 2013, 02:23:43 PM »


So sometimes what people ask for-is not what they really want.  But they don't know how else to describe it.

Just sayin'---------------------------------

Yep, like when folks come up and say "I can't hear the pastor/singer/etc."  The offending source is usually loud enough (or more)... what they really mean is "I can't UNDERSTAND the pastor/singer/etc.".
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Ivan Beaver

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Re: Community S-218s? Any experience with it?
« Reply #27 on: January 07, 2013, 06:41:05 PM »

Yep, like when folks come up and say "I can't hear the pastor/singer/etc."  The offending source is usually loud enough (or more)... what they really mean is "I can't UNDERSTAND the pastor/singer/etc.".
EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So an operator who doesn't understand what is going on (of course that could be the problem in the first place??????) will simply "turn it up".  Which might actually make the problem worse.  But it is what they "asked for".
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Ivan Beaver
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Onlin Barna

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Re: Community S-218s? Any experience with it?
« Reply #28 on: January 08, 2013, 05:24:31 PM »

Haha this topic became quite popular :D
Thanks for your answers, very interesting.
Back to topic, if I want to make an outdoor event with electronic music, is it possible with these subs (if I buy 2 more), or I should forget it and buy much more bigger subs (I looked Cerwin-Vega folded horns). Im not talking about big festivals, maximum number of people is 4-500.
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Ivan Beaver

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Re: Community S-218s? Any experience with it?
« Reply #29 on: January 08, 2013, 06:14:44 PM »

Haha this topic became quite popular :D
Thanks for your answers, very interesting.
Back to topic, if I want to make an outdoor event with electronic music, is it possible with these subs (if I buy 2 more), or I should forget it and buy much more bigger subs (I looked Cerwin-Vega folded horns). Im not talking about big festivals, maximum number of people is 4-500.
I think that question was answered pretty early on in the thread.
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A complex question is easily answered by a simple-easy to understand WRONG answer!

Ivan Beaver
Danley Sound Labs

PHYSICS- NOT FADS!

ProSoundWeb Community

Re: Community S-218s? Any experience with it?
« Reply #29 on: January 08, 2013, 06:14:44 PM »


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