Does the Manchester Arena have awful acoustics?

ToneControl

I just saw U2 there, I can't remember hearing such awful acoustics, er. since  I saw Sheryl Crow and Page/Plant there in the 90s
When Bono was talking, you could only hear half of what he said, and many songs were hard to follow, the drums and bass were drowning out the horribly distorted vocals

I thought line arrays could fix anything?

Emp_Fab

You should claim a refund... seriously.

If you went to the cinema and the picture was out of focus and stayed like that for the whole film, you’d complain and insist on a refund,  This is no different.

Iamnobody

ToneControl said:

I just saw U2 there, I can't remember hearing such awful acoustics, er. since  I saw Sheryl Crow and Page/Plant there in the 90s
When Bono was talking, you could only hear half of what he said, and many songs were hard to follow, the drums and bass were drowning out the horribly distorted vocals

I thought line arrays could fix anything?

Sounds like a result to me!

usedtobe

I’d say that was unacceptable, especially at U2 prices!

gringopig

.

richardhomer

I saw Peter Gabriel there about 5 years ago and the sound was stunning - every other time, it’s been awful. Bass seems to be a real issue - it seems to get rolled off to avoid boom, leading to a ‘loud transistor radio’ sound at most gigs.

Unless someone’s playing there who I absolutely ‘have’ to see, I avoid the place.

ToneControl

I've been avoiding it for years, also because of the distance to the performer. My Mrs saw U2 in Croke park and said the sound was good, so I thought with their kit and the big screen stuff and multiple stages, I thought the arena scale and acoustics would be ok.

It wasn't even that loud, but I had a lot of hissing in the ears last night, mostly gone now. That's indicative of lots of distortion. I know it's got a metal roof, but surely they can do better

rlw

No different to the O2 then which I have vowed never to return to.