Mid cabs at MI grade?

[Dark Ice]

I see 3 way systems all the time when i go to concerts locally, normally they're old unmarked jobs that look like they're home made, or in some cases they're old scoop designs. Suffice to say, I dont get to see a lot of big scale PA stuff that wasn't made more than 10 years ago around here

The smaller systems that I see though are often quite modern, either moulded 15/12" + horn on a speaker pole, or mounted on top of compact subs. My question is this: whatever happened to mid cabs? Are they simply not sellable at MI grade? Or has technology pushed to a point where they're simply not necessary?

 

I did see a system last weekend though that insterested me. The band had their speaker stacks rigged with a 1X15 sub on the bottom, a 2X15 top in the middle and a 1X12 top at the top, I'm assuming they had it crossovered to be a 3 way system. Do you think there would be an advantage to doing things this way, over having a top on a pole on a sub? Wouldn't the horn on the top run out of steam (as I've read described as being characteristic of 2X15 cabs) in this configuration? Would it be beneficial to uprate the tweeter and/or bi-amp the tops?

 

Overall the system sounded pretty good , kick drum was nice and punchy, not boomy or overbearing, the sound was quite clear and the guy was mixing from the side of the stage!

 

Any thoughts?

 

Steve.

[agedhorse]

Where are you located to have that kind of inventory around? Those have to be some pretty old "pro" boxes!

[Dark Ice]

I stay in a town some 40 miles north of Aberdeen, scotland

 

Is it the older systems you're reffering to? I dont know if scoops the right term actually...

 

One of the systems I saw was for a 'drummers day' that featured the sensational alex harvey band, or some of their members or something, that system featured boxes all of more or less the same configuration but in two sizes, 5 on the bottom and 3 in the middle with 2 horn boxes on top of that, and a wierd looking smaller box to the left of them. They were all black square boxes, with 3/4 of the front side open and a piece of wood slanted back into the box so you couldn't see the speaker. The whole system was driven by 4 PLX series amps (didn't catch model) and a soundlab (I could be wrong, memorys hazy) desk.

 

Theres another system in one of the local hotels which features the same design of cab but in three or four different sizes (the subs look to be too cumbersome to move around), one of the bigger music bars in Aberdeen uses some rather large unmarked subs and a front loaded midrange box, with 2 DAS moulded cabs at either end on top. I havn't been to the AECC(biggest music venue around here) but I saw Idlewild in the music hall once, they had about the best system I've seen, which appeared to be a pile of rather random mostly unmatched JBL speakers at each side of the stage. Sounded terrible.

 

So uh, yeah I dont get to see a lot of new sound gear round about here...unless its a small peavey or mackie rig

 

Steve.