The Grateful Dead's attempt at improving concert audio was somewhat successful, I mean there's tons of technology out there that did what they invented... I'm sure somebody else could speak rather in-depth about it ( @Bart Ell ) . They used frequency based time delays (time alignment?) factored on distances and all sorts of good stuff.
I don't even remember the last time I went to a show at a sports arena or coliseum. Now that I think about it, for the past 20 years or so it's always been music specific venues. Even at that, the sound at some is better than others (a few are downright awful - I'm talking about you, Mystic Theatre in Petaluma, no matter where one stands or sits the distortion is overwhelming).
For the smaller to medium sized clubs, depending on the band I either end up near the front, or find the sweet spot - there is no way the sound is ever equally good - or even close - all over the building.
I'm not a techie in any sense, but I do have very sensitive hearing. I'm convinced most people don't really pay attention to sound quality or understand it (and PS, same with food and taste buds)
