Jekyll and Hyde LA speaker design

[Brisso57]

I was musing about line arrays when I suddenly wondered why I hadn’t read of a dual purpose LA. There seems to be no good reason – in principle – why a line array couldn’t be dynamically reconfigurable as a MTM (or TMM) floorstander.

Let’s consider a LA enclosure with a single central(-ish) tweeter. The M’s and the T are arranged cheek-by-jowl in a vertical line, to minimise the combing effect, and the XO point likewise selected.

Whether or not the M’s are sealed or vented, let’s further imagine that the cabinet size is such that each M’s enclosure volume is appropriate. For the purposes of the exercise, let’s say that the wiring for ALL drivers is routed to an external XO box fixed to the rear of the cabinet.

With suitable switching, or maybe a patch-board, the same driver set and cabinet could be quickly redeployed as either a LA or else as a MTM floorstander.

*** In MTM mode you could also perhaps use the “other” M’s – with a suitable low-pass filter – as a “quasi-subwoofer”. Sure, you might need to use equalisation, but you get the idea.

The M’s I have in mind – though there may be other drivers better suited – are the CSS WR125ST. I’m open to suggestions for the tweeter.