Setup circa 1985

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If it was the Atus AM300E, I had several and I loved that mixer:
View attachment 52013

Those mixers came in a lot of brand names I had the identical one with a Rostech branding on it. I actually still have it somewhere around here
 
If it happens during testing, would it be a test-tickle?...and left or right?
I'm not sure the Mistresses are available for testing .. usually it's cash up front .. :)
 
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I started in Clubs, so by 1985 I already had complete access to Turbosound, Bose, and Yamaha speakers, Meteor, Rane, and Biamp mixers, Technics SL1200s, NAD, TriLite, Altman, and Ultimate Support Systems for lighting.

But, gear was proportionally far more expensive and harder to come by than it is today and working with other mobiles in the state was always an adventure, If I was using someone else's gear it was often a garage sale of ideas to make it happen and it was always consumer grade audio in which the "dual RCA" cable reigned supreme. (Rest in pieces.)

The only DJ mixer's in those days (USA) with balanced connections, monitor outs, or light sends were Rane, Biamp, and Meteor. Numark's first foray into XLR was a "pseudo-balanced" connection prone to nasty ground loops. Very different world once the "Mobile DJ" became a consumer trend in prosumer audio.
 
I started in Clubs, so by 1985 I already had complete access to Turbosound, Bose, and Yamaha speakers, Meteor, Rane, and Biamp mixers, Technics SL1200s, NAD, TriLite, Altman, and Ultimate Support Systems for lighting.

But, gear was proportionally far more expensive and harder to come by than it is today and working with other mobiles in the state was always an adventure, If I was using someone else's gear it was often a garage sale of ideas to make it happen and it was always consumer grade audio in which the "dual RCA" cable reigned supreme. (Rest in pieces.)

The only DJ mixer's in those days (USA) with balanced connections, monitor outs, or light sends were Rane, Biamp, and Meteor. Numark's first foray into XLR was a "pseudo-balanced" connection prone to nasty ground loops. Very different world once the "Mobile DJ" became a consumer trend in prosumer audio.
To be fair .. there weren't many self-powered speakers, so amps ruled, and in a mobile environment, the distance from device to device was generally small enough that a balanced connection wasn't really needed for noise purposes. Pro output levels (+4dBu) might have helped those devices using balanced though.
 
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To be fair .. there weren't many self-powered speakers, so amps ruled, and in a mobile environment, the distance from device to device was generally small enough that a balanced connection wasn't really needed for noise purposes. Pro output levels (+4dBu) might have helped those devices using balanced though.
The distance to the device is not really the issue. There's no RF noise cancellation in an unbalanced line of any length, so it can be easily affected by an adjacent device. There's also no ground lift and hence no easy solution to a ground fault originating in or between devices. Turntables and DJ mixers of the time were notorious for ground issues.

Distance is a factor with Hi-Z connections because they are only good to about 20Ft before serious signal and frequency losses start to occur. This is why cheap Hi-Z mics have attached cables that are at best 6Ft long.
 
The distance to the device is not really the issue. There's no RF noise cancellation in an unbalanced line of any length, so it can be easily affected by an adjacent device. There's also no ground lift and hence no easy solution to a ground fault originating in or between devices. Turntables and DJ mixers of the time were notorious for ground issues.

Distance is a factor with Hi-Z connections because they are only good to about 20Ft before serious signal and frequency losses start to occur. This is why cheap Hi-Z mics have attached cables that are at best 6Ft long.
I don't disagree .. just that distances in "most" mobile setups have gear within a few feet of each other. I agree about the ground lift, though I've had more issues with XLR grounds than RCA ones (both shield grounds and signal grounds).
 
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I don't disagree .. just that distances in "most" mobile setups have gear within a few feet of each other. I agree about the ground lift, though I've had more issues with XLR grounds than RCA ones (both shield grounds and signal grounds).
RCA - RCA is usually fine because the two components are precisely matched (tape deck - receiver, example.) There's absolutely no variation in that connection standard.

I don't think the XLR is to blame for more issues - you're probably just doing more complicated things than you every attempted with RCA. There's also internal equipment faults with a given piece of gear that can fool you into thinking you have a ground loop. (You do - but it's with the internal circuit board, not another branch of the system.)
 
Please explain what's the problem with that picture? That was 35 years ago. How many DJs do you know at that time had a setup like that? For that time that was probably was one of the best setups out there.
 
How about how much has changed since then. They now have moving heads that cost over 2k. That's more than a lot of DJs back then paid for their gear. Now DJs get to use computers to DJ with. So a lot of things have changed. Some for the betterment for the business and some not so. Just making adjustments to stay in business.
 
Please explain what's the problem with that picture? That was 35 years ago. How many DJs do you know at that time had a setup like that? For that time that was probably was one of the best setups out there.

How about how much has changed since then. They now have moving heads that cost over 2k. That's more than a lot of DJs back then paid for their gear. Now DJs get to use computers to DJ with. So a lot of things have changed. Some for the betterment for the business and some not so. Just making adjustments to stay in business.

The point of the thread was seeing the "novelty" of how things used to be...
and comparing it to what we have now.