In the spirit of the Home Listening Setup thread, I thought I’d open a club/PA version to highlight some of the soundsystems owned or experienced by TP members, and also photos of beautiful looking systems used in bars, clubs and festivals. Sound system reviews/experiences welcome too.
Some photos to start:
Beautiful small stack from Mo Yasin system from NY
The very giant horn system Of the French crew Suave sound, Haven’t heard this yet but apparently it’s quite HiFi in terms of listening quality. Just look at the DJ monitors alone, holy fuck.
This is my old rig for Free Up sound. It still lives within the Free Up family, but I’m working on a different design now. It was an extremely open and musical sounding rig. Free Up play House, Disco, Soul, Jazz etc.
The Suave set up representats some serious financial outlay, even in a field that is eyewateringly expensive. It’s very nice to see people taking their rigs away from the now standard reggae type stacks and experimenting with other designs.
Couple vids of my humble system. Three-way with Sunn Model 15 tops in stereo and, in mono, Altec 1215a horns for bass and a Fitzmaurice Tuba HT for sub-bass. Eliminators used as speaker stands only.
I’ve had a chance to hear the Sun Palace rig in Liverpool-it really fills the room with smooth, punchy bass. Mo Yasin’s little NY stack looks gorgeous and sounds tight for its size.
Myself and Barney of Sun Palace are kind in cahoots with all this stuff. I’ve posted elsewhere on the forum regarding this. Theres potential for many a nightclub and listening bar between us, been doing this for decades.
JBL alnico components are the currency of this scene. I do regret all the bits I have sold, when I started the factory would support products from the 60’s. TAD is pretty good also. Bryston is go to for amps on the used market, I’m seeing that market is strong now.
Listening system is a proper Bozak (three phono cards) with a 3BX expander and DBX 500 in the loop.
I picked up a Wohler Meter that list for crazy money but aren’t as pretty as a Dorrough, a meter is good resource though, it monitoring on preamp side and after output gain master.
The Bryston branded Sonics is ex IMAX and was speced by the designer who had an unlimited budget for the original installs. It has a sublime sonic character and doesn’t even get warm putting out a few watts into the 16 ohm speakers.
The speakers are pre 4320 era with S8 spec. So the cabinet and drivers were specced for a studio install and hung on scaffold tube probably into a sofit mounting. I’ve been told possibly Abbey Road and know they did have some there. George Martin was a fan of the brand.
The speakers use a LE15a 15 inch driver that has been regaussed and reconed in Orange County USA at enormous cost 20 years ago. (taxed both ways on shipping). The mid range is a 375 2inch compression driver which is a very sought after part and sounds amazing. The top is a classic 075 or 2402 ‘Bullet’ again sounds amazing and can’t be matched by anything else. Measurement wise they are likely to all over the place but I don’t know, we don’t drive them hard as we aren’t coked up DJ c**ts. They are irreplaceable and unservicable, I say we do about 95db max with them but the sound is very very intense, characterful and clean. The majority of modern pressings and productions are exposed on these, it’s why I went backwards looking for the best of the productions 25 years ago across genres. It’s possible they could play PCM, flac, WAV or such well if the production quality is there.
It’s pretty refreshing to do the job with what is a pair of speakers an amp and a mixer. The Bass bins aren’t plugged in, we just use them to elevate the speakers.
Sun Palace Is four stacks of RLA. The design is similar to the original MOS but that was a copy of RLA. The original MOS used six stacks, so Sun Palace is a considerably hefty system. The Berthas which are the sub bass speakers on the bottom do not have the ‘Levan Horn’ which extends the throat of the horn and was a classic spot to dance on. Each Bertha uses two 18 inch drivers. The Bertha design is also used in a single 18 version here. I am not a expert on all the versions of Richard Long cabinets.
Up from that is a horn 15 inch bass section that is using a JBL 2225.
The mid section is two 12 inch e120 drivers with the ‘dildo’ phase plug.
The plate horns are 2395 with a 2440 driver which is the professional driver 375 version.
Top Sizzle is done by a 2405 slot tweeter, very good.
Amps are Bryston and BGW, I bought a batch of Crown D75 for the tweeter, everybody loves the D75 for slots and bullets.
The sub bass and tweeters are controled directly by a RLA X-3000 , mega sought after core component for this, it’s very high on gain needs a gentle touch. Same DBX 3BX and Boombox in the chain. The console is a Phazon three deck unit, the floating aspects give sublime sonic quality given a quality pressing. This is actual Paradise Garage spec bits here and the sonics are even better than I could have imagined. The best sound in the world, not the best soundsystem, the best sound, full stop.
A lot of this stuff was inspired by the Wave forum and a guy called Scott Fitlin, we have saying that ‘Scotty was right’ and he was on a lot of the stuff we use and the way we do. Scott ran the Eldorado Bumper Car Ride in Coney Island that was a RLA type (although not actually a RLA system) that used this kit.
Oh, it only needs a handfull of watts to go plenty loud enough. I don’t do hearing damage, so It’s not working with old DJ’s with hearing drift.
I’ll just add a bit. Theres a lot of crossover between studio and soundsystem and the fact the components were the same between monitoring in a studio or mastering suite and playback in clubs. Gear tended to be very high spec back then and sonically pleasing, so my references have to be with the sound where money plus time was not a issue, to make something special. We are dealing with 2 inch tape, output transformers on the desk, Urei monitors all that, even after coming into the DAT era and pressing vinyl or CD there are still standout productions that sing on the great systems. I’m thinking it had gone south by the mid nineties which is probably as it moved more into a home studio setting.
I have a mate that is just starting his vintage JBL journey, and what a start it is. He picked up these cabinets for 300 quid. He has plans to re-configure these with other components and build a nice rig.
They already sound great, and he’s going to end up with a great set up.
Not as pleasing on the eye as the handbuilt horn stuff but I can fit this in the van. Still very flavoursome and efficient. Not much to be gained building bass reflex from scratch but I have done in the past, this stuff is quality ply.
I have a Lab Gruppen on the top cabs now. It’s three way active, eight JBL bullets on the top. The Urei crossover uses output transformers which give the top end a shimmer, top end with a 680 EL or Pickering XV DJ sounds unbelievable.
Mids use JBL E130 type driver so need no watts at all, sound is so much more exciting and lively than later high power handling stuff. Mid is a 2425 compression driver, the same driver we have used in our home and studio systems and we can get good results from it.
The Bass is 4 x JBL 2241, there might be better stuff out there but I love the tone.
