In-Ear Monitors and the Death of the Wedge

Sun, 18 Apr 2021 13:24:00 +0000

Watch a big touring band from side-stage and you will notice the floor is emptier than it used to be. No wall of speaker boxes angled up at the singer’s face, no monitor engineer sweating over a separate desk trying to keep six wedges from howling into feedback at once. Most of what the band hears now arrives through a small wireless pack on the belt and a pair of custom-moulded earpieces, sealed tight enough to double as hearing protection. The wedge — the loud floor monitor that defined how a stage sounded to the people standing on it for the better part of fifty years — is still around, but it has quietly gone from the default to the exception. That change happened for good reasons, and it cost something too.

In-Ear-Monitors - vo.rs

In-Ear Monitors and the Death of the Wedge