Practicality of a 5 way speaker for DJ use?

[pikipupiba]

I am thinking about making a 5-way speaker, super high, high, mid, mid-bass, bass. It will be used for mobile DJ-ing and is my solution to simple set up and tear down. Is this practical or smart?

Relevant thoughts: the crossover, driver matching, flat response, NEEDS TO BE VERY LOUD!!! and sound good, obviously

Would this design sound better or be louder than a 2 or 3 way system?

[Inductor]

What do you think of a 4-Way DJ speaker like the "100dB Nightclub speaker". Sub and super-tweeter included.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi...ml#post2241893
Lenard Audio - Education - X-overs. Time Alignment.

[John_E_Janowitz]

Honestly if you are building from scratch and choose the right drivers there is no reason to do more than a 2way plus a sub for live sound use. Keeping it simple avoids many issues. Every time you have a crossover point you have to have things properly time aligned and phase coherent throughout that crossover point. Unless you have good measurement gear and really understand what you're doing with it, you're going to have issues. These phase and time correction issues will more than outweigh any benefit of having more drivers that cover a more narrow range.

A 2way using a good woofer and a horn/waveguide is really the standard in the industry even among most high end stuff. A good compression driver on an appropriate horn will allow you to cover everything form 800hz on up with extremely high efficiency. While 2" compression drivers are the standard in the industry, a 1.4" or 1.5" will get you a little better top end without sacrificing power handling. They most often use the same coils but just a different throat. The 18sound XT1464 is a good option we use often. They have some 1.4" compression drivers for it as does BMS. If you really want to go to a 3way, the BMS 4594ND is a coaxial compression driver and sounds amazing. Overview


A good woofer (or woofers) either 12" or 15" will also get you the efficiency needed but and cover well up into the midrange. We've done systems for sound companies who do national shows and TD12's or TD15's mated with that BMS compression driver on the XT1464 horn are very hard to beat. The local sound company is continually getting jobs with this rig over EV, EAW and Turbosound rigs.

A design like this will easily get you up into the 130dB+ range just for a single MTM with TD15M's and the BMS compression driver on the horn. The only thing you may want more for is if you have to cover a wider or deeper area. That however doesn't require more drivers in the main speaker, just a properly designed speaker as center, side, or delay fills. The following system uses the MTM design but you can also see the small center fill monitors that cover closer to the front. If this was going in a narrow area the main monitors could be towed in more to cover the center.


However, for areas like the following outdoor stage, it's important to cover a wide area. That means the mains can't be angled in much requiring the center fills up front. If done properly there is a nearly seamless transition as you walk out of the range of the center fills and into the area covered by the mains.



I'll get a picture of the system that he recently did a 30 band metal festival with. We built new center and outer fills that would cover the extremely wide arena.

But to summarize, the goal should be to get the coverage you need. Just adding more drivers to a monitor is not going to help and often makes things much worse.

John

[Pano]

Agree 100% with John in his post above.

And just asking that question automatically disqualifies you from doing it. Far more trouble than it's worth even for advanced builders. Stick with a 2-way + Subs. It will work great.

[Inductor]

Originally Posted by panomaniac

And just asking that question automatically disqualifies you from doing it. ...

NNFP/NNFPOM. You can close this Forum because (asking) that's what everybody does the first time. You aren't changing the name from diyAudio to "difmAudio" (do-it-for-me-Audio), or are you. So attitude is everything, this day and age.

(NNFP - Not nice for poster).
(NNFPOM - Not nice for poster or moderator).

[John_E_Janowitz]

Here is a picture of the recent stack that Elite used for Savage Fest at the Brown Co Arena in GB. There are 8 single 18 vented cabinets per side to cover the low end. The mains on top are the TD15M with the BMS coax compression driver on the XT1464 horn. Under that are 2 midbass modules each housing 2 more TD15M's. These are brought in to supplement the midbass region. Essentially it is a 2.5way system using those to get more level in that range.

Then on the outside you can see the 2 monitors with dual 12's and the XT1464 horn. These are turned sideways to get about a 40 degree wide pattern. The one is towed inward to cover the front middle area. The other one is towed out to cover to the sides and up into the arena seating to the sides.



John