Berghain Soundsytem

JonasEdenbrandt · Post by **JonasEdenbrandt** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:20 pm

Took a quick trip to berlin this weekend and visited berghain for the second time (was just as amazing as the first time). One thing made me think; at berghain the sound is so loud the hairs on my arms move with the bass it's actually windy in there just because of the bass, but even though it's so loud my ears didn't ring when i left and they normaly do when i visit a club for example in sweden and also your ears hardly ever hurt when your at the club. I think a planetary assault system made me twitch once during ten hours of dancing.

So to get to the point, how can theire sound system be so fcking amazing? What kind of speakers are those monsters at berghain? Is it just that they spent the money or do they have some kind of godly technican, I'm guessing it's a combination of both.

Any ways thanks to all the people that danced with me this weekend (some of them have to be on this board) I had a blast.

Themis · Post by **Themis** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:42 pm

First, with the best soundsystem in the world your ears will ring after 2-3 hours.
because they play at 100 db and thats not manageable for the ear over a long distance

but you are right, with bad soundsystems you will notice it earlier

Second, they spend a lot of money, the speakers are Funktion One speakers if im correctly informed, but the speakers are not the really expansiv part in a club.

you could have the best speakers in the world if you dont have a technician who adjust them every night again, they will only sound average.

and they dont just put speakers in every corner as in many small clubs, they adjust them to the room acustic, and for that you need again a technician.

So you could say they spend one time money on the speakers and then pay a lot more to the people who adjust and service the system.

erdbeerschnitzel · Post by **erdbeerschnitzel** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 5:18 pm

Berghain has a 4-way Funktion One system. Prices for these are... high

Der geile Ami · Post by **Der geile Ami** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:48 pm

msrp for a dancestack is a bit under 20k. add extra for dsp and amps. It's no small piece of change, but realistic for a dancefloor of it's size.

Berghain has 4 stacks of 4 2x18 folded bass horns (standard are 3 or 2 plus one infra), 1x 1x15 straight kick horn, and 2x 8or10/1 resolution series tops in the corners. A kick horn and double resolution top fly over hte dancefloor midpoints by teh stairs over hte dj and above the pit. 2 2x18 infra bass and hornflare extender sit under the lighting console next to the darkroom.

The panorama bar has 4 hangs of martin w8lc's in its corners and somethign like 8 or 10 2x18 reflex or hornloaded subs on the wall across from the windows. sticker price on that system could be around 100k.

if any of that reads cryptic, jsut visit the websites from martin and funktion one

hotpace · Post by **hotpace** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 2:44 am

Der geile Ami wrote:msrp for a dancestack is a bit under 20k. add extra for dsp and amps. It's no small piece of change, but realistic for a dancefloor of it's size.

Berghain has 4 stacks of 4 2x18 folded bass horns (standard are 3 or 2 plus one infra), 1x 1x15 straight kick horn, and 2x 8or10/1 resolution series tops in the corners. A kick horn and double resolution top fly over hte dancefloor midpoints by teh stairs over hte dj and above the pit. 2 2x18 infra bass and hornflare extender sit under the lighting console next to the darkroom.

The panorama bar has 4 hangs of martin w8lc's in its corners and somethign like 8 or 10 2x18 reflex or hornloaded subs on the wall across from the windows. sticker price on that system could be around 100k.

if any of that reads cryptic, jsut visit the websites from martin and funktion one

upekah · Post by **upekah** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 8:52 am

same goes for Robert Johnson I'd say... My Ears hardly ever get hurt when I'm there..

PsyTox · Post by **PsyTox** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 10:31 am

I'm lucky to have a friend who rents out Funktion One soundsystems, must say I'm always impressed with just how amazing those sound. Especially those infrabass units are awesome

Also like the system of Fabric, think they have Martin Audio custom fit for the place.

But as Themis said: a technician with knowledge is just as important. A good technician is vital to bring the maximum potential out of a system whether it is a F1 or a more simple setup. You'd be amazed how much a system can improve after some care and time from a good 'soundman'. We had a party a few weeks ago with a very basic setup of Ecler and we spent two hours placing them, finetuning the eq's etc etc. But it was worth it because it sounded better than most club systems in Belgium, much to the delight of our dj's.

Chris Crompton · Post by **Chris Crompton** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 6:23 pm

This past year at Ultra Fest, I was in the Carl Cox and Friends Tent, and they had a phenomenal Funktion One system going on! That was the loudest sh!t I ever heard though. I was probably 30-50 feet from the subs, and I lit a cigarette and the flame pulsated to the bassdrum beat.