Adriaan, it all went past you!! The rest of the band was just getting broiled but you couldn't hear yourself. You NEVER needed a direct box in any reasonably sized room, and if the room even thought it had a standing wave in it somewhere, you'd sure as hell find it with those rigs.
I'll never forget I made a biamp rig one time using a Peavey folded 18 (the size of Coke machine, like they all were). I'm not much good at hearing 'fast' amps or speakers, etc. But you could sure hear this: Hit a note, hear the top pass NOW then the bottom would fill in kinda like a bathtub filling up behind it!
Like Keith said, you really needed some front-loaded cabinets in tandem to get a little articulation.
But remember, this is back in the days when a 300 watt amp was a rare and wondrous thing. The idea was that the higher efficiency of the W-bins was needed, as you were down on horsepower to start with. This is a world where a Shure head and a couple of Voic-of-the-Theatres was the living end for a high-tech PA, and a Dual Showman was too much amp for most gigs.
One of my childhood heroes (Russell Fontana, bassist with Louisiana's Boogie Kings) got a new rig in the early 80's: The then-new IVP preamp, CS800 power, biamped into JBL Cabarets, 118 with a 210 on top. He brought it back for a refund!
He had NEVER heard himself that well, had NEVER been able to drown out the guitar players at will. Could NOT dig it. Went back to his 360s.
When you talk about what fellas my age have seen, never underestimate the seismic shift in instruments and amps.
J o e y
