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Wall of Sound

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Re: Wall of Sound

#51

Post by dekhn »

wishinghand wrote: post #48
dekhn wrote: post #31

Wrong wall of sound. Actual wall of sound: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_of_Sound_(Grateful_Dead) The grateful dead bankrupted themselves bringing a revolutionary approach to sound reproduction to their touring kit. Unlike every system before and after, it directly routed the audio of each individual player to a unique cluster of speakers. Many of the reproduction qualities are still not easy to achieve today (p…

Is there any advancement in technology that could make it more feasible today?

no, transistor-based technology means that these days it makes more sense to capture each input audio stream and mix it before sending it to speakers.

Here's where things ended up: https://meyersound.com/news/fare-thee-well/ Almost everywhere you go, you'll see stacks of meyer sound speakers.

Re: Wall of Sound

#52

Post by xattt »

Lendal wrote: post #35
jl6 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, after reading that legendary endorsement, I listened to it for the first time. I don’t normally think of myself as a philistine, but I’m afraid it didn’t speak to me at all. Maybe you had to be there.

It's too late to listen to it for the first time in 2021. You had to listen to it in 1963, or with that frame of mind, because before then there was nothing else like it. Everything after was influenced by it. And now it's normal. Just like Dylan, or the Beatles or any great influencer. They don't sound that great today. If you weren't alive before them, it seems normal and pedestrian, like a standard that was always…

Is there a contemporary equivalent to that song? Is democratization of production and commoditization of delivery stifling “breakthroughs” in music?

My thesis is that when every piece of music has a clever gimmick, nothing sounds unique.

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