ResonantLive Sound Archive

Equipment file · Source-dedicated concert reinforcement system

Wall of Sound

Alembic / Grateful Dead · March 23, 1974

Evidence status · verified

Claims in this file are tied to item-specific sources.

Separate arrays for musical sources, located behind the band, assembled into a single monumental structure.

Introduced
March 23, 1974
Category
Source-dedicated concert reinforcement system
Intended use
Grateful Dead concerts with the PA behind the performers
Production
Full system used March–October 1974
Elevation drawing of the Grateful Dead Wall of Sound showing stage, vocals, piano, bass and lead arrays

Ron Wickersham's elevation drawing identifies the stage and source-specific loudspeaker sections.

Wall of Sound elevation drawing, 1974·Ron Wickersham·CC BY-SA 4.0

Why it mattered

  1. 01

    Assigned instruments and vocals to separate arrays and used the entire system as stage monitoring.

  2. 02

    Pursued low distortion, source localization, and enormous headroom as one integrated experimental system.

Engineering record

Architecture
Eleven channels served six functional systems; sources including vocals, guitars, piano, bass, and drums received dedicated loudspeaker paths.[1]
Scale
Published component and power totals vary; Resonant therefore does not collapse them into one uncontested number.[2][1]

Original pricing

No reliable total build cost located

2026 equivalent

Not calculated without a reliable original price.

Conflicting figures circulate without a sufficiently complete primary accounting.

Use in the field

The complete structure debuted at the Cow Palace in 1974 and was retired from regular use after October because its transport and operating demands were unsustainable.[1]

Professional reactions

Later recollection · Interview originally mid-1990s; republished 15 May 2011

Healy recalled the Dead’s crew wanting to go beyond the basic public-address rigs then available. They used the Wall of Sound to investigate distortion, distribution and dispersion because reliable information about large stacked arrays was scarce.

Dan Healy, Grateful Dead longtime sound engineer; successor to Owsley 'Bear' Stanley on the band's live soundEarlier Frank Doris interview quoted in FOH’s 2011 Stanley retrospective; not a surviving 1974 launch interview. · Independent firsthand source · Paraphrased account[3]Front of House (FOH) Magazine · Owsley "Bear" Stanley's Long, Strange Trip

Manuals & original documents

Sources

  1. 1Wall of SoundGrateful Dead historical reference · reference
  2. 2McIntosh and the Grateful Dead's Wall of SoundMcIntosh Laboratory · reference
  3. 3Owsley "Bear" Stanley's Long, Strange TripFront of House (FOH) Magazine · interview · Interview originally mid-1990s; republished 15 May 2011

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