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Cold, rainy gig=3dB fatter mix?


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A rare rainy night gig last night. It didn't keep people away. I mostly kept dry, umbrellas, garbage bags, towels. Popular 80s hit band, 1500 people. The PA was FAT sounding. I can maybe attribute to temp and humidity? It seemed like I had an easy 3 dB more headroom and thick bottom end. I've done 50+ shows on this same PA so I'm used to how it sounded. I'm used to the evening changes in sound and inversion layer refracting, etc but this was the first rain gig I've done there. Interesting

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I would suspect so... as the transducers I'm guessing couple with the denser air better... kind of like prop airplane pilots saying that the prop gets a better bite on colder air.
The term is "density altitude". Colder air is more dense -- similar to a lower elevation and planes like that. I'd suspect a similar response from speaker coupling with the air.
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Now i've been investigating all kinds of temperature, humidity and inversion layer sound affects. Interesting stuff.

 

this Rane article is pretty thorough

 

http://www.rane.com/pdf/ranenotes/Enviromental_Effects_on_the_Speed_of_Sound.pdf

Outstanding! I've only had time to scan the article (I'm at work presently) but I love it when science turns (my) common sense on it's head. So increase in temperature decreases air density as expected but increases the speed of sound? Wow! I've done a lot of seismic studies for ground-water exploration in the past and nothing in that experience would suggest such a relationship. Now increasing humidity causing increasing high-frequency absorption does make sense and I'm aware that humid air is less dense (being a pilot and all) but increasing speed with decreasing density is a mind bender.

 

Thanks for sharing...

 

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Outstanding! I've only had time to scan the article (I'm at work presently) but I love it when science turns (my) common sense on it's head. So increase in temperature decreases air density as expected but increases the speed of sound? Wow! I've done a lot of seismic studies for ground-water exploration in the past and nothing in that experience would suggest such a relationship. Now increasing humidity causing increasing high-frequency absorption does make sense and I'm aware that humid air is less dense (being a pilot and all) but increasing speed with decreasing density is a mind bender. Thanks for sharing...
I have not read the article, but as a cyclist, it makes sense. Less wind resistance means more speed for the same power expended. Probably an imperfect analogy, but I'm not a real scientist. Mark C.
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Check out the impact of sound underwater... Totally impressive!

 

If you blow any bomb underwater the sound wave impact is devastating.

 

I have read about humid air and dry air and temp effect on sound waves.

 

That rain cools the edge on those hot highs! Just kidding actually!

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