Last night my wife and I attended a concert of The Persuasions at the
Beckman Auditorium at Cal Tech in Pasadena. The sound was horrid.

Basically, the sound reinforcement level was set so high that whenever
the vocalists hit a crescendo, it sounded like the system was
clipping. The sound was pretty good at moderate levels, but on the
peaks it was really bad. Also, although we were seated front-center of
the balcony, most of the sound appeared to be coming from the right
side speaker.

In speaking to the sound tech, he assured me that the system was not
clipping. I asked why it sounded so bad. He first babbled about a
"comb filter" that could make the sound appear to come from different
directions in different places in the room. (What is he talking
about?)I told him I know that reverse phasing on one of the speakers
could cause the sound to wander, and he acknowledged that was
possible.

At this point another member of the audience seated nearby commented
to me, "I don't understand what you are saying, but I agree with you
(the sound is terrible).

The tech then said that well the Beckman is really a lecture hall, not
a musical performance hall. That makes some sense, but it still
sounded good at moderate levels so I think the system was just turned
up too darn high and unbalanced to the right.

I gave up taking with the tech shortly thereafter and returned to my
seat. The sound appeared to improve a little after my discussion with
the tech, but still seemed to clip occasionally. He did get it
centered better also. There were probably 600 in the audience and four
on the stage (one of the normal five out sick), and I felt that the
tech did a gross disservice to all of those persons.

Any comments or advice? I intent to write a letter to the manager of
the Beckman, but want to consult the "Pros" and be sure to get my
technical facts straight first.

Thanks for any advice,

-Harry