Best Place For Best Sound

[musky]

14 hours ago, Tommy Dickfingers said:

Surely it’s common sense if the sound is coming out of some speakers on the left and some speakers on the right, you stand in between those speakers as centrally as possible facing them as close to said speakers the louder. 
You can literally see and hear the source of the sound!

We were in quite a big group for Radiohead at Pyramid the other year and stood close to one of the repeaters at the back. Half of our group decided it couldn’t possibly sound as good as closer to the stage and got caught between the PA and repeaters. They all came back after the gig saying the sound was shit. 

You’re right that dead centre would usually be the best place, but as your mates discovered the multiple arrays and repeaters can throw a spanner in the works. If you’re in a position to hear more than one array and aren’t equidistant between them (which is going to be most places) then the sound from each of them is going to arrive at your ears at different times. The slight echo this causes isn’t really a problem but the phase issues I mentioned above will cause a reduction in sound at certain frequencies. They do their best to minimise this by building in a delay to the repeaters, but it’s all a bit of a compromise. 

They undoubtedly model the design of the PA so they can see how the setup is likely to affect the different parts of the field. I know it’s never going to happen but that would be something I’d love to see. 

[Madyaker]

Walk up to the sound desk, ask them if you can climb in and have a look around

[Smeble]

I don’t think you go to big outdoor gigs for sound quality, most systems seem to mistake volume and bass for quality. 

best place for sound quality is sat in your living room watching it on the beeb.

obviously the overall experience of being there in person makes up for the lack of sound quality.

[Tommy Dickfingers]

4 hours ago, musky said:

You’re right that dead centre would usually be the best place, but as your mates discovered the multiple arrays and repeaters can throw a spanner in the works. If you’re in a position to hear more than one array and aren’t equidistant between them (which is going to be most places) then the sound from each of them is going to arrive at your ears at different times. The slight echo this causes isn’t really a problem but the phase issues I mentioned above will cause a reduction in sound at certain frequencies. They do their best to minimise this by building in a delay to the repeaters, but it’s all a bit of a compromise. 

They undoubtedly model the design of the PA so they can see how the setup is likely to affect the different parts of the field. I know it’s never going to happen but that would be something I’d love to see. 

Would you agree best place is generally in front of the PA central to the stage about mid way between PA and stage?

[Johnnyseven]

I always go with the idea that the sound is going to be best just in front of the sound desk, as that is where the people making it sound good are situated and you'll be hearing the closest to what they are hearing. Seems to work well.  

[Wooderson]

On 1/4/2020 at 9:46 AM, stuartbert two hats said:

Woah, woah, wish, hold your horses!

From 2019 onwards, WH has vastly increased the parts of the arena where it sounds good, but it's still not everywhere you can see the band. Time was it would sound awful if you were much behind the mixing tower. Now it sounds fantastic on the benches at the back, but you do still need to make sure you're actually "in the arena".

I saw Lizzo from the right hand side, near the food stalls and whilst it didn't sound as bad as it used to when you were further back, it was clearly lacking some oomph. Given that I know how the records sound and I know what that system can do when you're in the right place, I'm reasonably confident that it was down to my position. Lizzo's charisma made up for it, but the sound wasn't great.

The rig they have in WH is very good, but is tuned to aggressively cut off the sound when you're elsewhere in the festival. This is great for sound bleed and off-site dB levels, but does mean you have to be careful about where you stand. The recent repeaters were as much about being able to better control the arena perimeter as they were about pushing out more sound. For a field the size of WH, it would have been easy to fill the whole arena with a single set of speakers, but you would be able to hear it at The Glade (this indeed was the case in festivals gone by).

I would advise to be the other side of the path, rather than chilling out at a food stall.

Good postage here...

Justice and Hopkins both epic on the WH rig in recent years.