Delivering great tone at low volume.
One of our system designers is working on an article entitled "How Loud is Loud Enough?". It will be published in the next week or two.
We find, especially in smaller churches with contemporary worship, that the battle between what we'll call stage volume and overall volume in the house is often an issue. Instrumentalists need more volume in order to feel their instrument or to get the best tone from their amplifier. And there's truth to that. And that need for volume drives listening sound pressure levels higher than they need to be for worshippers. It's a very real conflict in smaller rooms.
In order to get that full tone, many musicians build or buy isolation boxes for their amps and/or place the amps in another room so that they can get the tone they want and to not overpower the house sound system. There's an easier way, and a less expensive way.
The Radial Headload is a combination load box and attenuator that handles up to 130 watts RMS of continuous power and peaks of 180 watts. To use the Headload, it gets placed between the amplifier head and the speaker cabinet, allowing the guitar amp to be driven hard while reducing the output level - thus quieting the stage.
The headload utilizes Radial's JDX Reactor direct box which captures the signal from the head plus the reactive load from the speaker cabinet for a more natural tone. The Headload is also equipped with a Radial Phazer – phase adjustment tool. This lets you time-align the JDX direct feed with the microphone to deliver natural tones, or when pushed to extreme, create over the top effects. The JDX direct output may also be tailored to suit with a 6 position voicing switch to select from various cabinet emulation presets and fine tuned using a 2-band EQ to tame overly bright amps.
The Radial Headload V8 (8 Ohm version available now) can be used with or without the guitar speaker cabinet to help you get the precise balance of tone and volume that you need. $899. It might just be the product that allows everyone to have what they need.