Following the installation of a £2M speaker system, the sound is now equal wherever you are seated.
My one and only experience of amplified music in the RAH was the Human League years ago and the sound was awful. I hope it has improved since.
RAH sound now ‘equal’
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My theory is the RAH can’t do rock. I saw Patti Griffin/Emmylou Harris and Jackson Browne and it was great. Jeff Beck though the sound was terrible. There was an orderly queue at the interval waiting to complain.
The end of that article is the crunch:
The newly equal sound would not signal the end of cheaper seating for those less close to the action, chief executive Craig Hassall told me.
“It’ll stop the complaints,” he said.
I always thought it was excellent on the lower level, but got worse the higher up you were.
I think that’s the idea of the installation.
I didn’t think it was that great in the first place but, as I say, it was so bad* I vowed never to return. Same with Wembley Arena, and I stayed away for 32 years, so I’m due a RAH return visit in about 2027.
(*) I looked it up – it was 1995!
Always better than Wembley Arena which was appalling, uncomfortable seats too. Haven’t been to Wembley since 03 and RAH since 05 though.
There was a line array in there previously, installed I think in 2013 but the new install has a lot more speakers around the venue.
Old spec: http://emacoustics.co.uk/docs/latest-news/EuVyFAFkEZDxHpDcKH.shtml
New spec: https://thirdlight.royalalberthall.com/file/26506910637
I liked it when the Wembley Arena was known as “The Empire Pool, Wembley”. Grandstand used to show boxing from “The Empire Pool, Wembley”, as I recall.
Yep, I still refer to the Empire Pool.
When I went the other week with my daughter I pointed out that the floor was over the pool, and that the acoustics were similar to those of our local swimming baths because that’s what the Arena really is.
Not that it stopped my daughter from enjoying the gig, but I thought it sounded horrid and was amazed it hadn’t been improved since 1987.
Sgt Harry Trubshaw of the medical corps…
Arf! I recall the sign on the wall:
No Stage Diving In The Shallow End!
No Runr*g!
No Bombing The Bass!
No Coldplay!
No Heavy Pet Shop Boys!
No pushing pineapples!
No shouting shouting let it all outing!
Hull City Hall, another concert venue, is like that. I saw Richard Hawley there, and in my cheap seat up in the gods everything was booming around as if we were in an aircraft hangar.
In her book Bedsit Disco Queen, Tracey Thorne complains that people at one of their gigs in the RAH didn’t like the change of musical direction, so were shouting for the drums to be turned down.
I was up near the top for that gig and can reveal that the real reason people were shouting for the drums to be turned down was because that was all that could be heard.
It probably sounded fine from the mixing desk in the Arena, but up in the Circle drums ruled.
Gigs at RAH for Explosions In The Sky and Steven Wilson’s H.C.E were fine sound wise but the last time for SW’s To The Bone the sound was all bass and drums where I was, which was downstairs at the side. I hope it improves.
Agree with your points on the Steven Wilson gigs. The HCE sound was astonishing .. but I was front and just off centre (right in front of Dave Kilminster). For the To The Bone gig .. the one they recorded for the live album and Bluray .. I was in one of the fancy boxes stage right. The view was decent but the sound was rubbish .. not enough punch and indistinct. Imagine my surprise when I got the Bluray and found out how good the gig actually was! Almost as if I went to a different concert.
I was right at the back for the TTB RAH gig and whilst they were a fair way away I could see them fine and the sound was really good where I was. There were a few spare seats next to us so my two mates, who had seats on the side, joined us and said the sound was much better.
I’ve rarely enjoyed the sound quality at the RAH gigs I’ve been to. At the front downstairs and up in the gods at the back. Consistently mediocre.
I do recall seeing Mark Knopfler there in the early 2000’s and for the first twenty minutes it was the usual woolly thud. Then, the sound desk found the magic formula and it cleared into lovely loud balanced crispness.
Never again though.
The trouble is, the sound techs get it all set up nice during the sound check, but that’s with the hall empty.
Once the audience are in their seats, the characteristics of the space have completely changed and a lot of the work has to be done all over again.
Some venues are just wrong for some types of music. I’ve yet to hear a drum kit sound good at Union Chapel, especially upstairs, but for just about any other instruments, especially vocal ensembles, strings and brass instruments (and the chapel’s own organ of course) it’s great.
I have only been to RAH thrice. Once, standing the gods right at the top, for Claptons so-called final tour/live performances 3 years ago, it was OK, at the side for Natalie Merchant it was also OK. For Michael Kiwanuka, behind him, it was terrific. (The view? Less so.)
I can imagine Cream’s farewell gig in 1968 was probably awful sounding! A stack of Marshall amps echoing into the roof, ugh!
I was at one of those (there were two) and don’t recall it being terrible. Mind you, the sound at pretty much any gig was rough in those primitive days. They had recently installed a load of mushroom-shaped baffles hanging down in the top, to try and improve the sound for rock concerts. Us punters didn’t know any better about sound quality in those Dansette days, so all was fine and dandy.
Talking of horrible echoey venues, the O2 Academy (formerly the Carling Academy) in Glasgow’s southside is notoriously bad. BUT it works for some acts. I remember the White Stripes really suited it – minimal and bass-light, with a cavernous shimmer to every snare hit and power chord, they sounded majestic.