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Hill Audio Speakers and amps

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tommysb View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote tommysb Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 August 2008 at 8:57pm
If you want any more info, contact RockTech, based in York. Had a couple of friends work for them, I believe that the guy who designed the amps is there, or definitely has something to do with it...
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Ian Colville View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ian Colville Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 October 2008 at 12:21am
I had the pleasure of working with Malcolm between 1979 and 1992 and would like to hear from anyone else was were doing the same. You know who you are!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ian Colville Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 October 2008 at 12:23am
Oopps, typo!
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colint View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote colint Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 December 2008 at 8:20pm
HILL M-4 for sale on soundbroker (usa)
don't see any for ages then 16 come along all at once?
 
 
 
 


Edited by colint - 10 December 2008 at 8:36pm
Never criticise another man until you've walked a mile in his shoes. Once you have, call him what you like, you're a mile away and you've got his shoes!
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Deadbeat View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Deadbeat Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 December 2008 at 8:31pm
The deep jungle that is known as a lock-up...you never quite get to the bottom of it.


Edited by Deadbeat - 10 December 2008 at 8:32pm
Away on extended leave.
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colint View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote colint Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10 December 2008 at 8:35pm
Originally posted by Deadbeat Deadbeat wrote:

The deep jungle that is known as a lock-up...you never quite get to the bottom of it.
 
I know what your saying there? I'm still getting rid of the dregs of install done 20 years ago, it's taken me over a year to get rid of it all and I'm still finding stuff!
Never criticise another man until you've walked a mile in his shoes. Once you have, call him what you like, you're a mile away and you've got his shoes!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Grumpy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 January 2009 at 11:39pm
Originally posted by Robbo Robbo wrote:

No--the 2x12" bins that I was on about are like the Full Range Live Aid boxes just chopped in half so you end up with the bottom two drivers in a forward facing cabinet which measured 4ft wide by 2ft 6" high by 2ft deep when laid on its side.
 

Got a pair in the shed, ex Omega Sound / Paul Harvey, loaded with ATC PA75 LC’s lovely warm sound with plenty of kick, and the horn coupling when you get four or more a side is amazing.

 

Mid-Tops were 2 off Tannoy 10”s and 2” JBL in the middle powered by Hill TX 800’s

 

Still got a Rack of  Hill TX1000’s going strong and an old Hill J Series desk, the desk goes out a couple of times a year for a treat.

 

The Hill DX & TX amps are a great design with transformer coupled driver stage using a TDA2030 chip if my memory serves me right. Only problems we have had with the DX’s or TX’s are bias thermister’s going out of spec and earth’s on the PCB’s, I know they have had some bad press over the years but most of the repairs to these amps we have dealt with over the years has been due to under cooling.

 

I’ll dig out some pics when I have chance.

 

Originally posted by Ian Colville Ian Colville wrote:

I had the pleasure of working with Malcolm between 1979 and 1992 and would like to hear from anyone else was were doing the same. You know who you are!

Ian very long time no speak - think I still have a hand drawn schematic of yours for the DX700 somewhere


Edited by Grumpy - 02 January 2009 at 11:44pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote dannyxb70 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 January 2009 at 3:46pm

Haven’t seen those for a while! I know a bit about these so here goes...yes they are Hill M4’s, which was a 3-way active, HF passive 1000 Watt flyable cabinet weighing 350lbs.

As someone has pointed out, the bass section comprises three 12” ATC long-coil drivers (PA74-314 BLCR) with a rubber surround, which give an excellent bass response. (I think Malcolm discovered the ATC on a visit to Dave Martin’s warehouse). These are electronically crossed over to the cone parts of the two modified 10” Tannoy speakers (there is resistor-capacitor network inside the cab which passively bypasses the HF over to the 1” tweeters of the Tannoys.) then electronically crossed over to the 2” high-mid horn. I think these were usually a mix/combination of Renkus-Heinz or Emilar compression drivers - probably whatever was available and serviceable at the time, bolted onto Renkus-Heinz or Emilar flares.

 

They put in 52 of them per side for Live Aid, plus some for side-fills, and at the rear of the FOH position/delay tower there was a small array of M3 cabinets with additional mid/top cabs, the whole rig being approximately 125kW. I believe the M3 was basically the same as the M4 but with a silver glassfibre radial hornflare instead of the aluminium constant directivity flare on the M4, plus the M4 was fitted with the steel bars you can see in Jazomir’s photo, these were to enable the cabinets to be used in a flying system.

 
 
 

 

The M3’s predecessor was the M2 which utilised the same bassbin design but with 2 bass drivers, then some odd arrangement with a 9” ATC midrange driver, four (SEAS?) 4” or 4 ½” speakers and a 2” horn. (Someone once told me that the M2’s or B212 cabinets may have been Gauss loaded before Malcolm discovered the ATC, don’t know if that’s true though).

 

I guess these were derived from the original modular systems, the bassbin of which I assume is what one of the other members is describing. Oddly enough, I owned some of these until the last year or so. A typical 2k rig would comprise (PER SIDE) two 2x12 bassbins on their sides, with two horn-loaded 9” ATC mid drivers on top, then on top of the mids two 2” compression drivers in individual enclosures. They would have probably been driven by Hill DX700’s throughout. A good old fashioned 3-way rig at about 4’ wide by about 7’ 6” high. But that’s why I had to get rid of them, just too big to store and transport (for me anyhow). Someone from a small pa company in Dorset or somewhere bought them so maybe they’ll see action again.

 B212.jpg B212 picture by dannyxb70
 
There should be 3 pics on this reply but I think I've cocked it up. First time I've tried to do it...
Hussar!
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Ian Colville View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ian Colville Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 January 2009 at 1:57am
Hello Grumpy! Sorry, your nom de plume doesn't narrow the field much these days! LOL I'm impressed by the collective recollection of the technical details of these products. The thing I find (still) quite disconcerting is that nearly 25 years later, modern sound systems still struggle to achieve the same degree of musicallity that (in the right hands) Malcolm's systems managed. Perhaps it is, after all, a black art? Ian x
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jazomir Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 January 2009 at 10:39am
I must admit that the only time I heard a Hill system at a large venue was with Robert Palmer at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park many moons ago, and I wasn't impressed with it - everything was muffled (and un-musical). However, I don't ever remember hearing anyone sound good there - IIRC the coverage of the circle where I was sitting was from cabs stacked on top the proscenium arch (no flying points?) which may have caused the problem. As has been mentioned before, you can't judge a system by one experience and there could have been so many (of the usual) reasons for the poor sound.
At the Live Aid event, the system was set up and tuned day before the big day, but the heavy, painted scrim was a late addition to the stage set and apparently took out all the top end from the system, much to the operators annoyance as they had no time to add extra HF units.


Edited by jazomir - 04 January 2009 at 10:43am
For sidefills, can we have two enormous things of a type that might be venerated as Gods by the inhabitants of Easter Island, capable of reaching volumes that would make Beelzebub soil his pants.
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4D View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote 4D Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 January 2009 at 11:27am

I think if I was the drummer I'd be bloody nervous








sorted 4 u _m8 Nice pic's


Edited by 4D - 04 January 2009 at 11:29am
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Ian Colville View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Ian Colville Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 January 2009 at 10:03pm
Jazomir - you're correct about the sequence of events at Live Aid... The scrims were added during the night before the gig and therefore all the setup/soundchecks took place without them!

I would personally single out Marillion mixed by Chris 'Privet' Hedge and Frankie Goes To Hollywood mixed by Mike Scarfe as two examples of this system (M4/6) firing on all cylinders. Compare these shows to... well, any number of festivals that I have done in the last 10 years and they sounded pretty good.

I'm talking about what the SYSTEM is capable of...

Also, consider these were FULL RANGE systems - no additional subs. I was involved in the Pyramid Stage system this year where we installed 56 2 x 18" subs in addition to the arrays! So when you consider that the bass section of these cabinets also handled that 'difficult bottom octave'...
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