Personalized Concert Sound

I don't go to as many concerts as I used to - the last "rock" concert I went to was the Richard Thompson Electric Trio last December. The sound for that one was about as good as live sound gets in a smallish venue, reasonably loud and clean enough that you could hear the lyrics. But I've been to big concerts in the last couple of years (Rush and Arcade Fire), where the sound was a wall of mud.

That's where Peex comes in. Peex is a set of headphones with a microphone attachment that pick up a broadcast of the concert soundboard feed and allow you to mix it yourself with a phone app.  The built in microphone is used to determine your position in the hall and synchronize the soundboard feed with the sound reaching you. You can up the vocals, turn down the drums, or boost the bass to suit your preferences.

In my testing, the power of Peex became immediately apparent once the first lines of “Bennie and the Jets” hit. With my earbuds out, the audio sounded just as I thought it would (even in the sparkling new Chase Center in San Francisco): A mushy wall of noise reverberating in my skull, lyrics comprehensible only because I already knew what they were. But when I popped in my Peex earbuds, the experience was immediately transformed. Even before I started fiddling with the equalizer settings, I found all the instruments were tighter and scrubbed of echo, and, critically, Sir Elton’s voice rang out above them all, accompanied by his crisp strikes of piano keys.

Once you start fiddling with the equalizer settings it’s hard to stop. By “Tiny Dancer,” I had found the experience benefitted even further by pumping up vocals a few notches along with keyboards, while leaving the other instruments dialed back. As John has a whopping three percussionists on stage, comprising half the band, I quickly realized this powerful trio could be safely leveled down a touch.

Obviously this has to be done with the permission of the performer so you won''t find it available at every concert. Currently, you can try it out on Elton John's farewell tour.

This is a genius idea and I hope I get a chance to try it out sometime.