Hats off to Mike Pyle's skills (skilz?) as a DJ. The man reads the crowd like a hawk and selects the right song every time. He never puts it on autopilot so he can take a break. Nope! He doesn't get on the mic between songs to encourage the crowd; he lets his tunes do the talking.
This crowd doesn't need further encouraging... they clearly enjoy both the familiar and the more unusual tunes Mike throws at them. In case you don't know what West Coast Swing is, it's not retro swing craze stuff. It's a wide mix of rock, pop and blues songs chosen especially for their stretchy rubberband swing feel. Lots of the latest songs were in the rotation. Very fun.
Thanks for the peek into your world, Mike!
On to ADRaudio speakers... Mike usually uses the venue's Yorkville NS200 for sub and brings his RCF322a speakers for tops. I heard him getting warmed up last month and he gets a fine sound of the RCFs. This time, Mike thought it would be interesting to set up four tripods instead of two so that we could alternate between RCF 322a and ADRaudio U103 to get a sense of the differences. Mike opted to use only the ADRaudio ATA118 subwoofer and gave the house's sub the night off. All the speakers were fed from Mike's JBL DSC260 so that we could use its front mutes to select which speakers were working.
It was clear to us that both speakers were suited for this gig. The RCFs had some added low end in the 100-160 range (just guessing, no RTA this time) and the U103s were quite linear. The U103s also had a little cleaner HF horn sound, where the RCFs had a bit of sizzle or something added. Mike used Ultimate stands with his own (hefty!) welded angle irons and I found it much easier to put the ADRaudio boxes up on the tripods. The RCFs handle is too high and only on one side. Also, the RCF xlr is very high up and tough for me to reach when on the pole.
When setting up we alternated between boxes so we could dial in a crossover setting and balance the apparent loudness. When the gig started, Mike chose to go with the U103s. Two or three times during the dance he/we changed to the RCFs for comparison and we heard the augmented bass porting of the 322a boxes. Out on the floor it was fun to get the clarity of the U103 but the 322a didn't disappoint the crowd: basically it was just Mike and I who could hear the higher quality in the U103.
My gig's about to start so my post ends here. More thoughts as they come!
-Bink