www.psneurope.com August 2013 l 41
Speakers in 7.1 configuration at the Despacio event during the Manchester International Festival earlier this year
livereport UNITED STATES/UNITED KINGDOM Dispatches from Despacio By Steve Harvey
SINCE DISBANDING LCD Soundsystem in April 2011, James Murphy has been taking things relatively easy, producing records, building a studio and, according to his social media postings, drinking a lot of coffee. But Murphy, who was a live sound engineer before he started the DFA record label and spearheaded the dance-punk revival, has swapped LCD for a new sound system, a monster of an old school disco PA that debuted at Despacio, a three-day event held during the biennial Manchester International Festival in late July. Despacio (“gradually,” in Spanish) featured Murphy with brothers David and Stephen Dewaele of Belgian band Soulwax/2ManyDJs fame spinning vinyl through equipment reminiscent of the late 1970s/early ’80s Manhattan club scene. Murphy designed the system with John Klett, a veteran New York audio technician who built the DFA studio and has been working with Murphy since about 1995. “We’ve been talking about
speakers and speaker systems for a lot of that time,” says Klett. Debating whether to refurbish old gear or assemble new equipment for Despacio, the pair knew one thing for sure: “James and I both like McIntosh power. They did and still do some unique things,” he says of the amps, which are perhaps best known as the power behind the Grateful Dead’s notorious ‘Wall of Sound’ PA. In a recent Facebook post,
Murphy wrote: “[W]e’ve been complaining about sound systems for years – it’s about time we made our own...we’re putting so much into this system it’s insane.” The numbers are indeed mind-
boggling. A ‘7.1’ set-up of seven identical stacks of five-way speakers (the subs associated with each stack provide the ‘.1’) surrounded the dance floor, with an eighth stack available “for auxiliary fill or if the system is split into two ‘quad’ systems”, according to Klett. Four McIntosh MC1.2KW monoblocks and one MC452 2 x 450W amplifier powered each stack. McIntosh Laboratory
(L-R) Stephen Dewaele, David Dewaele and James Murphy with the “monster school disco PA”
retailer Jordan Acoustics is supplying the amps. Klett recalls that in the 1970s
and early ’80s he put a lot of Klipsch and JBL components into Manhattan clubs. For the Despacio rig: “We have a mix of drivers, mostly from Italy. It seems the Italians are as serious about loudspeakers as they are about sports cars. The large flare horns are from JBL; their horn technology has always been very good.” Each stack, measuring
approximately 9ft (2.7m) wide by over 10ft (3m) tall, comprises two dual-15 direct radiating cabinets with large, low-velocity vents. Centred above those are two double-12, vented, direct radiating boxes aligned vertically. The amps are located either side of the 12” cabs. A large high-mid horn, positioned between two pairs of bullet tweeters, tops off each stack. McIntosh’s technical specifications tend to be conservative. “Their amplifiers typically run 2dB of dynamic headroom over their rating,” says Klett. Even so, including the active subwoofers, the amps in each stack is capable of generating over 9.7kW. “The whole system of eight stacks totals 77.6kW, which is a frightening amount of power. However, we are going to be running this system at around 10% of that; the rest is there for clean headroom.” Then there’s the weight. “Each stack will weigh a little over one
tonne,” he says. For ease of transport, and since there may be plans to tour with the rig, everything is road-cased. In fact, the off-the-shelf, 21”
subwoofers, with their lightweight Class D amps, were a practical necessity, he adds: “Because adding two MC2KW amps to cover the subs would have added 48 more road cases with another 1,300+kg of amps in them.” Klett continues: “The last
time I built a system even close to this the palette was different, as far as the basic components, but the McIntosh part of it was easy. They make new amplifiers that do exactly what they have always done, but more refined and with more power.” Perhaps most importantly, he notes: “McIntosh amplifiers have matching transformers, called autoformers, that maximise power transfer by matching the amplifier to the speaker impedance.”
He concludes: “This is a new
adventure in seeing what can be done using today’s speaker technology in simple vented boxes, and the new horn flares and a pile of new McIntosh amplifiers. It’s new technology applied with an audiophile approach to the more minimal, or elemental, old school disco sound system. It should be a lot of fun!”n
www.mcintoshlabs.com
All photos: Rod Lewis/Jordan Acoustics
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