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The Pass Pub: The High-End Off Topic Thread - Page 76 - diyAudio
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Massive speaker array. - Canon Digital Photography ForumsQuote:
Originally Posted by Cal Weldon
http://www.hostboard.com/forums/hbmc.../2011/06/7.jpg
Rupp Arena in Lexington, KY
Lots of multicells. How many? It's a bit like the contest for guessing how many jelly-beans are in the jar except the layout is geometric and should enable the correct result to be determined by the determined.
Well let's see. Each of the eight 210 bass cabs seems to have four associated horns above and two below, so that would be 48 803B horns right there. Hanging lower there appears to be two more 803Bs for every other bass cab, adding eight more horns and bringing the number to 56. Then there are more horns pointing more or less straight down, hard to tell but perhaps two more bringing the total possibly to 58. If so there would be a total of 464 cells pointing most every damn place, with what would seem to be all sorts of coverage overlaps and arrival time errors. Looks like a bit of an acoustical nightmare to me, but then I haven't heard it. Has anyone had a listen to this? There should be plenty of clean power delivery, no doubt about that.
On second thought, minor quibbles about overlaps at mid and high frequencies might not matter much in a huge reverberant space like this. Perhaps more important is the virtual single point origination of sound, the "pulsating sphere" approach. The clarity of voice is probably better than could be achieved with multiple speakers in distant locations; we have all heard such systems.
Holy Smokes one could retire off that cluster ! :) I don't think it would sound too good musically though,not enough woofers and too many horns.I'd like to be the one who salvages/dismantles that beast one day ! :p
Drool! Me want. Reminds me of the time that Buddy Rich played at our Collage's spherical dome and was placed exactly in the center. He would do a rim shot on his snare drum and about 3 seconds later, an echo would return, almost as loud as the original. He laughed and played around it, but I think that he had to change all of the tempos to keep time with the echos.
I don't know, my A7s inside 12 feet away, need a ton of bass and treble boost which I play at about .5 volume with my Stax preamp and Crown DC300A, but outside on my deck, overlooking the lake, with no EQ, sound great at about .75 volume 200 feet away, floating on innertubes, sipping rum drinks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Altec Best
Thanks AbG, that's a nice picture of it.
It wasn't hard to find. I could see in the other picture it said "Big Bertha" on the side of it, so I started Googling. The picture I found, shows that it's been remodeled a bit, as the spaces between the 210's is now flush, along with the new logos.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cal Weldon
It is a pretty good picture....... of course I found it on a photography forum :-)
1. I wonder what the estimated street value of that boulder is!!!
2. That would make an excellent chandelier.
3. I want my coffin to look just like that.
Tha's a whopper for sure. I wonder how how much smaller a Danley equivalent would be?
I'm guessing about the same area as the 210 ring.
Me too but to no avail. No surprise though since GM and I did that little test and found what you google in one location does not give you the same in another.Quote:
Originally Posted by Audio_by_Goodwill
I assume you meant does not. Google is set up to give local-ish links first. I assume it determines that through your IP address. Kentucky isn't exactly local to me, but I'm a lot closer than you are.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cal Weldon
Quote:
Originally Posted by cradeldorf
one of a kind.
http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/5...nagamehigh.jpg
Thank you, post edited.Quote:
Originally Posted by Audio_by_Goodwill
Great Picture Tom ! ;) From that picture (Big Bertha) looks tiny.Easily a 10,000 seat arena I would think.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomt
Double that, plus some........ aparently it's the largest purpose built basketball arean in the US.Quote:
Originally Posted by Altec Best
Rupp Arena - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Built in 76, which kind of surprises me given the parts list of the system....... I thought multi-cells were well on the way out by then. I was just a kid then, so my timeline or perception of things from that timeframe is often not accurate.
This beast was assembled by a small (out of business) Lexington, KY company called Engineered Devices Company... aka EDCO. I actually worked there right out of high school... 2 years after Rupp Arena opened. They were located off of Old Frankfort Pike adjacent to the inner loop of New Circle Road between Old Frankfort Pike and Leestown Road. There is now some kind of Heating company there I believe. While I wasn't there when this sound system was originally put together, it was the biggest thing this company ever did and thus it was the talk of the place... probably until they closed and went out of business. The people who worked there always had a lot to say about it and it was their pride and joy. Here's what I remember them saying: It was designed by someone who did sound engineering for the Rolling Stones. It was built on the property of the small plant, and tested there. They tested it with "2001, A Space Odyssey" They talked about how the sound bounced off of the buildings on the other side of New Circle Road. They actually assembled it on a mobile crane. Since Old Frankfort Pike turns into Manchester Street... and Manchester Street basically dumps right into one of the Rupp Arena parking lots and side entrances, they transported it on the crane to the arena. I never could figure out how they would have got it under the railroad overpass on Manchester Street but, that's what they said anyway. It seems like I remember them saying it weighed something like 9000 lbs. I can't imagine that over the 36 years that it was in service that the original Altec drivers and amps weren't replaced. If my memory serves me right, it was powered with 14, 800 watt Altec amps which in 1976 was some pretty impressive power for a house sound system. Not long after Rupp Arena opened, I attended a concert there (Roy Clark, from Hee Haw) with my parents and siblings. they used "Big Bertha..." which was on a track and could roll down to one of the floor over the stage... and the sound was probably the most pristine, clear sound of any concert I ever heard in Rupp. I saw lots of rock shows there and all you could hear was echo. I'm kind of sad to see it go but 36 years is a pretty long run for a sound system.
Thanks for bringing this post back up - I had forgotten about that giant cluster. Hope to get by to see and hear it some day. Amazing.
Just spent 3 days in Cameron Arena, which is the Duke basketball court. Much, much smaller and older. Built in 1940. Gawd, the sound is awful! The acoustics are some of the worst I've ever heard, just super live. The least little sounds goes everywhere and covers up all conversation. With a full crowd it can top 120dB, easy. Glenn Miller played a concert there in 1940, wonder that that sounded like?
Politics and bureaucracy play a big part in what gets installed. The system in Cameron isn't great, and it would need to be amazing to deal with the dreadful acoustics.
so -Quote:
Originally Posted by cjrman
it's gonna go?
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looks like some crooks are going to ' leverage ' this facility -
http://www.kentucky.com/2012/02/01/2...ask-force.html
Cjrman "Welcome to the Altec Board" Thanks for that little bit of history on "Big Bertha" Bertha Butt and the Butt Sisters ! :wink2:
That is an Awesome piece of Altec History ! Big Bertha reminds me of this old 70's tune.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNS42...&feature=share I'll sock it to you Daddy ! :biggrin2: Troglodyte..
Tom. The link did not work.
They have a much smaller cluster here at the pavillion here in Columbia, SC. It's loaded up with 828's and multicells too..... I'll take a pic next time I am there, unless it has been replaced since 2008.