There's a bunch of threads on here regarding the Unity horn; it's basically a three-way D'Appolito array, folded around a conical horn, with a coupling chamber inserted to reduce harmonic distortion.
Geddes pioneered the use of reticulated foam in waveguides. In a horn or waveguide, a significant percentage of the radiated sound is delayed in time. This is because a percentage of the sound is reflected off the mouth, and a percentage of the sound does not travel down the center of the horn or waveguide. Those waves are absorbed more than axial waves, as they travel further.
Geddes and Duke LeJeune, from about six years back
Looks like JBL was listening - they've created a loudspeaker which combines a bit from both.
In the three loudspeakers above, the tweeter is at the apex of the horn, just as in a Unity horn. And the midranges flank the tweeter, as in a D'Appolito. But there's a coupling chamber in front of the midrange(s) - just like a Unity. The reticulated foam is used here to good effect, particularly in the line array. Here's quote from the patent:
"The RBI is a substantially solid boundary that is placed over the mid-range speakers to provide smooth, wave-guiding side walls to control the angular radiation of the high-frequency sound waves emanating from the high-frequency sound sources. To allow the mid-range frequency sound waves generated from mid-range sound sources to pass through the RBI, the RBI is designed with openings. To further prevent the possibility of having high-frequency sound radiate through the openings in the RBI, the RBI may be designed with porous material in the openings of the RBI. The porous material would be transparent to the mid-range sound radiation, but would prevent the high-frequency sound radiation from being disturbed by the openings in the RBI."
The graphs show performance with and without the RBI device. (the coupling chamber, like a unity horn.) The difference looks subtle, but keep in mind each segment is TEN dB. Note how the off-axis response is improved, particularly near the crossover point. This is right in the important vocal range, where six dB dips are surely audible!
If anyone would like to learn more, take a look at patent 7134523
Geddes pioneered the use of reticulated foam in waveguides. In a horn or waveguide, a significant percentage of the radiated sound is delayed in time. This is because a percentage of the sound is reflected off the mouth, and a percentage of the sound does not travel down the center of the horn or waveguide. Those waves are absorbed more than axial waves, as they travel further.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Geddes and Duke LeJeune, from about six years back
Looks like JBL was listening - they've created a loudspeaker which combines a bit from both.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
In the three loudspeakers above, the tweeter is at the apex of the horn, just as in a Unity horn. And the midranges flank the tweeter, as in a D'Appolito. But there's a coupling chamber in front of the midrange(s) - just like a Unity. The reticulated foam is used here to good effect, particularly in the line array. Here's quote from the patent:
"The RBI is a substantially solid boundary that is placed over the mid-range speakers to provide smooth, wave-guiding side walls to control the angular radiation of the high-frequency sound waves emanating from the high-frequency sound sources. To allow the mid-range frequency sound waves generated from mid-range sound sources to pass through the RBI, the RBI is designed with openings. To further prevent the possibility of having high-frequency sound radiate through the openings in the RBI, the RBI may be designed with porous material in the openings of the RBI. The porous material would be transparent to the mid-range sound radiation, but would prevent the high-frequency sound radiation from being disturbed by the openings in the RBI."
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
The graphs show performance with and without the RBI device. (the coupling chamber, like a unity horn.) The difference looks subtle, but keep in mind each segment is TEN dB. Note how the off-axis response is improved, particularly near the crossover point. This is right in the important vocal range, where six dB dips are surely audible!
If anyone would like to learn more, take a look at patent 7134523
The VT 4886 diffraction slot horn is not at all similar to the OS waveguide used by Geddes or the conical horns used by Danley.
JBL’s uses of porous materials in front of the mid drivers in the VT4886 horn would tend to absorb HF entering the mid exit slots, as they say, it “would prevent the high-frequency sound radiation from being disturbed by the openings”.
Quite different from the use of reticulated foam to reduce HOMs in Gedde’s waveguides.
Art
If anyone is looking for part numbers
http://www.jblproservice.com/pdf/VerTec Series/VT4886.pdf
Yes I would agree They may be using foam but it sounds like the foam/material is used as a band-pass filter not a HOM trap. As far as I understand Earl’s use he uses the foam to attenuate the HOM’s with minimal HF loss through the foam. Here you have a very deliberate HF loss. It looks to me like 2 different applications not necessarily related.
Rob🙂
http://www.jblproservice.com/pdf/VerTec Series/VT4886.pdf
Yes I would agree They may be using foam but it sounds like the foam/material is used as a band-pass filter not a HOM trap. As far as I understand Earl’s use he uses the foam to attenuate the HOM’s with minimal HF loss through the foam. Here you have a very deliberate HF loss. It looks to me like 2 different applications not necessarily related.
Rob🙂
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The JBL is an interesting design, because an array can control directivity like a waveguide can, except the footprint is much smaller. Then again, waveguides give you finer control, and arguably control directivity better. But combine them both, and you have an excellent compromise. A high frequency waveguide for accurate wave shaping, combined with an array to save space.
A quick comparison of the size is in order:
A Danley SH-50 takes up 11.5 cubic feet. With a 28" mouth, we'd expect to see directivity control down to approximately 482hz.
A JBL VT4886 takes up 1.04 cubic feet(!!!) The waveguide in the center is 7.75" square and we'd expect directivity control down to 1741hz. BUT - the array that flanks the waveguide *also* controls directivity, down to 594hz. My "hunch" is that the polars will show a discontinuity where the waveguide trades off to the array that's wrapped around it.
So let's investigate my 'hunches' and see how the directivity looks...
Here's the directivity of the JBL. As noted above, the array should control directivity down to 594hz, due to the array. And in the graph, we see this is true. (At 594hz, the -6db point in the graph indicates that the loudspeaker has a beamwidth of approximately 140 degrees.) I'd expected an anomaly in the directivity where the waveguide 'trades off' to the array, and we see that anomaly at 800hz.
If I'm not mistaken, there are no published directivity plots of the SH-50. But Paul Spencer has built a very nice horn based off of it. His appears to be about 20" x 20", so we'd expect directivity down to 675hz or so. And in his graph, we see the directivity broadens in the octave from 350 to 700hz, as expected.
I think it's interesting to compare the two designs. The Synergy horn's directivity is inarguably closer to a constant beamwidth. But the size penalty is significant. If size is not a factor, I'd say the Synergy is superior, but the JBL is compelling particularly if you're very low on space. (And since all of my designs are for the home or car, I'm *very* limited on space.)
A quick comparison of the size is in order:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
A Danley SH-50 takes up 11.5 cubic feet. With a 28" mouth, we'd expect to see directivity control down to approximately 482hz.
A JBL VT4886 takes up 1.04 cubic feet(!!!) The waveguide in the center is 7.75" square and we'd expect directivity control down to 1741hz. BUT - the array that flanks the waveguide *also* controls directivity, down to 594hz. My "hunch" is that the polars will show a discontinuity where the waveguide trades off to the array that's wrapped around it.
So let's investigate my 'hunches' and see how the directivity looks...
Here's the directivity of the JBL. As noted above, the array should control directivity down to 594hz, due to the array. And in the graph, we see this is true. (At 594hz, the -6db point in the graph indicates that the loudspeaker has a beamwidth of approximately 140 degrees.) I'd expected an anomaly in the directivity where the waveguide 'trades off' to the array, and we see that anomaly at 800hz.
If I'm not mistaken, there are no published directivity plots of the SH-50. But Paul Spencer has built a very nice horn based off of it. His appears to be about 20" x 20", so we'd expect directivity down to 675hz or so. And in his graph, we see the directivity broadens in the octave from 350 to 700hz, as expected.
I think it's interesting to compare the two designs. The Synergy horn's directivity is inarguably closer to a constant beamwidth. But the size penalty is significant. If size is not a factor, I'd say the Synergy is superior, but the JBL is compelling particularly if you're very low on space. (And since all of my designs are for the home or car, I'm *very* limited on space.)
Hi Patrick
If one watches the dimensions, one can tie in direct radiators to this kind of system, consider the SPL Trik loudspeaker I had designed in 1999 at the old company I worked for who’s web site is still up.
Sound Physics Labs, Inc.
Or the C-3 with woofers on the sides to help with directivity which in a year and a half of it’s introduction, had similarly configured line array boxes from out east using that approach.
I understand why this is being done too, it really does sound better if you can get all the drivers to add together into a single new source.
Also, this small size market has been very successful in nibbling away at sales of larger but not as good sounding options. Some animations on the first link;
.:: VTC Pro Audio - EL208 ::.
Yorkville Sound: Paraline
A cool part about the Paraline is that on one dimension, the size is too small to allow any reflections and by adjusting the curvature, one can make an apparent source that converges, diverges or is a plan wave.
On the large scale sound area, our last year and a half has been booming in the stadium sound area.
A couple years ago I found a way to combine the outputs of multiple compression drivers in to one horn, without interference and cancellation like Y throats and manifolds produce.
That invention, the Layered combiner, was the hardest thing I have had to figure out, it took four months of thinking and cutting out bits and working with our 3d cad guy before we were ready to cut metal. For a while, I was afraid it was not going to come to be as originally when I said “yeah I think I see a way” it was a fleeting picture in my head but it ended up being like that image.
Anyway we had been selling into the stadium area like Turner field etc but we demo’d the first Jh-90 in June 2010 at an NSCA trade show when Mike noticed he demo room’s rear doors opened to the outside. We got in one demo (before the building folks shut it down) but that lead to BYU stadium and that lead to a pile of them this last year. I know the big guys noticed this trend too but most of the time, you can’t argue with something that sounds better side by side and has better pattern control and usually takes less gear than systems that depend on self cancellation and sources which radiate ala Huygens (where in addition to the forward construction, is a large amount going other directions).
Not only that but the systems that radiate this kind of interference pattern are very audibly effected in the wind and have a different spectral balance at every distance and in spite of being claimed to have great throw, have a very pronounced usable distance. With a real constant directivity point source, you have one source of radiation and so the radiated field is very even and not an interference pattern so when the wind blows it hardly has any effect. Also, one finds that with such a source, the spectral balance does not change with position left to right (in the pattern) or with distance, only loudness falls.
Here is a very early video of the J1 in a large hotlanta parking lot, as you can hear, there is very little change when he is walking around.
Danley Sound Labs Jericho Horn playing Jennifer Warnes track.MOV - YouTube
Can you do a stadium with two speakers?
TO ARRAY OR NOT TO ARRAY: DANLEY JERICHO HORNS PROVE TO BE A BETTER ALTERNATIVE FOR GVSU FOOTBALL STADIUM | BriefingRoom on MixOnline
How can one do this and not cook the people next to / under the cabinets?
A large horn, unlike a concert array, can be very far down off axis, 90 degrees off or behind, a Synergy horn can be VERY quiet relatively speaking.
Here is a video of a J3 being demonstrated outdoors in December which shows this. The camera guy walks around, in and out of the pattern. You can get an idea how loud this was by adjusting the headphone volume to scale the voice when the operator walks up and talks to the guy next to the fellow with the camera. At 2:30 he pans out the field where the people were listening at 450 feet (being intended for large scale sound). While the system would be quite loud if you were in front of it, it is not loud at all if your off axis. If you adjust the height and aim point to utilize the shape of the bottom of the lobe, one can end up with a nearly constant spl vs distance, much more constant and better sounding than a large conventional array.
Danley Sound Labs - YouTube
Our more recent work, including a nice card from the Packers (a job a big west coast speaker company didn’t get) is on our face book page;
Danley Sound Labs, Inc. | Facebook
Anyway, with the power of name recognition and marketing the masses will come to think of them as inventing these approaches, I have to thank you for pointing the similarity of the design to the folks here. Keep your eyes open for ways of combining multiple drivers into one source next.
That has opened up the stadium business for us and so will be of interest to the Borg collective and others.
Fwiw, many of our Synergy horns have been measured by an independent lab and the un retouched measurements are available in the EASE or CLF file formats. The CLF view can be downloaded free and then one can examine the polar plots, 3D beam width and other aspects of the speakers performance.
Best,
Tom Danley
If one watches the dimensions, one can tie in direct radiators to this kind of system, consider the SPL Trik loudspeaker I had designed in 1999 at the old company I worked for who’s web site is still up.
Sound Physics Labs, Inc.
Or the C-3 with woofers on the sides to help with directivity which in a year and a half of it’s introduction, had similarly configured line array boxes from out east using that approach.
I understand why this is being done too, it really does sound better if you can get all the drivers to add together into a single new source.
Also, this small size market has been very successful in nibbling away at sales of larger but not as good sounding options. Some animations on the first link;
.:: VTC Pro Audio - EL208 ::.
Yorkville Sound: Paraline
A cool part about the Paraline is that on one dimension, the size is too small to allow any reflections and by adjusting the curvature, one can make an apparent source that converges, diverges or is a plan wave.
On the large scale sound area, our last year and a half has been booming in the stadium sound area.
A couple years ago I found a way to combine the outputs of multiple compression drivers in to one horn, without interference and cancellation like Y throats and manifolds produce.
That invention, the Layered combiner, was the hardest thing I have had to figure out, it took four months of thinking and cutting out bits and working with our 3d cad guy before we were ready to cut metal. For a while, I was afraid it was not going to come to be as originally when I said “yeah I think I see a way” it was a fleeting picture in my head but it ended up being like that image.
Anyway we had been selling into the stadium area like Turner field etc but we demo’d the first Jh-90 in June 2010 at an NSCA trade show when Mike noticed he demo room’s rear doors opened to the outside. We got in one demo (before the building folks shut it down) but that lead to BYU stadium and that lead to a pile of them this last year. I know the big guys noticed this trend too but most of the time, you can’t argue with something that sounds better side by side and has better pattern control and usually takes less gear than systems that depend on self cancellation and sources which radiate ala Huygens (where in addition to the forward construction, is a large amount going other directions).
Not only that but the systems that radiate this kind of interference pattern are very audibly effected in the wind and have a different spectral balance at every distance and in spite of being claimed to have great throw, have a very pronounced usable distance. With a real constant directivity point source, you have one source of radiation and so the radiated field is very even and not an interference pattern so when the wind blows it hardly has any effect. Also, one finds that with such a source, the spectral balance does not change with position left to right (in the pattern) or with distance, only loudness falls.
Here is a very early video of the J1 in a large hotlanta parking lot, as you can hear, there is very little change when he is walking around.
Danley Sound Labs Jericho Horn playing Jennifer Warnes track.MOV - YouTube
Can you do a stadium with two speakers?
TO ARRAY OR NOT TO ARRAY: DANLEY JERICHO HORNS PROVE TO BE A BETTER ALTERNATIVE FOR GVSU FOOTBALL STADIUM | BriefingRoom on MixOnline
How can one do this and not cook the people next to / under the cabinets?
A large horn, unlike a concert array, can be very far down off axis, 90 degrees off or behind, a Synergy horn can be VERY quiet relatively speaking.
Here is a video of a J3 being demonstrated outdoors in December which shows this. The camera guy walks around, in and out of the pattern. You can get an idea how loud this was by adjusting the headphone volume to scale the voice when the operator walks up and talks to the guy next to the fellow with the camera. At 2:30 he pans out the field where the people were listening at 450 feet (being intended for large scale sound). While the system would be quite loud if you were in front of it, it is not loud at all if your off axis. If you adjust the height and aim point to utilize the shape of the bottom of the lobe, one can end up with a nearly constant spl vs distance, much more constant and better sounding than a large conventional array.
Danley Sound Labs - YouTube
Our more recent work, including a nice card from the Packers (a job a big west coast speaker company didn’t get) is on our face book page;
Danley Sound Labs, Inc. | Facebook
Anyway, with the power of name recognition and marketing the masses will come to think of them as inventing these approaches, I have to thank you for pointing the similarity of the design to the folks here. Keep your eyes open for ways of combining multiple drivers into one source next.
That has opened up the stadium business for us and so will be of interest to the Borg collective and others.
Fwiw, many of our Synergy horns have been measured by an independent lab and the un retouched measurements are available in the EASE or CLF file formats. The CLF view can be downloaded free and then one can examine the polar plots, 3D beam width and other aspects of the speakers performance.
Best,
Tom Danley
But the Unity horn is usable as a single unit, whereas the line array needs at least six elements to begin behaving as designed. They're products designed for very different applications, and not directly comparable.
Hi John
FWIW, I worked on a line array design more than a decade ago with a Brazilian company (FZ Áudio - Marca mundial, vocação do Brasil.) that is virtually identical to the JBL Vertec. There is nothing new in the JBL design.
FWIW, I worked on a line array design more than a decade ago with a Brazilian company (FZ Áudio - Marca mundial, vocação do Brasil.) that is virtually identical to the JBL Vertec. There is nothing new in the JBL design.
Hi Mr dB
Hi
The Synergy horn is a technology that allows multiple drivers to add together as if they were one impossible broad band driver within a horn and eliminates the phase shift crossovers introduce so that they really act like a single broad band source.
The SH-50 is a product using that approach but an SH-95 which is smaller also uses it.
A speaker like the SH-50 can also reproduce a square wave over a broad band, spanning both crossovers, something few hifi speakers can do let alone pa speakers.
Yes the array boxes are meant to be used in multiples to get more vertical pattern control, they are stacked vertically because the interference pattern they produce is much less noticeable in that plane.
If you laid out a typical big name line array horizontally, then the interference is much more apparent especially if you move side to side or in normal use if the wind blows.
You can place several of the Synergy horns side by side to make an array but unlike other speakers, there is no audible seam between them and you hear nothing changing as you walk side to side until you reach the pattern edge which is very pronounced (much less sound to the sides or behind etc)
The reason I try to keep the number of boxes needed down is that in general the larger the number of sources, the worse / less intelligible the sound is.
I know the industry has been taught and now “knows” that line arrays are the way to go, but there has NOT EVER BEEN a real constant directivity broad band point source before. As soon as one has multiple drivers used normally (greater than about ¼ wavelength apart), one has an array of interfering point sources, sources that radiate independently not as one source.
AS this effect is not obvious in measurements other than polar’s and it is a bit hard to explain, something one has to hear.
I am sure you have heard a large sound system in say a stadium or heard a normal stadium sound system. Have a listen to what this approach in a large stadium can sound like. This is three Synergy horns, two J1’s, facing right and left and one J2 facing forward down field. The speakers are the little black glob under the score board.
Here is a video taken during sound check at a large stadium that already has a fairly new big name line array system that sounds horrible. In this case the stadium is completely empty (no absorption at all).
Penn State University Beaver Stadium Jericho Horn Demo | Facebook
At a trade show some months ago, a magazine put together a listening event where a number of small loudspeakers were set up and demo’d, with the same music at the same SPL. The systems were sized to deliver the same working spl and distance.
This shows another part of the advantage of having all the drivers add coherently in the Synergy horn. If you have drivers interfering with other drivers to produce the reduced fall off they are famous for, it takes a lot more of everything (which is great if you make that stuff).
Consider the single Synergy horn, single subwoofer and amplifier we supplied cost about 1/9 of the most costly solution and has the lowest SPL below / behind the speakers (more confinement of the energy than the line arrays). I think if I had been there I would have added some EQ to warm the voice a little but they didn’t use any.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=2384841834542
The cool part is you don’t need fancy aiming software or elaborate adjustments in the rigging, you just aim Synergy horns at the farthest seats, the broad band directivity tapers the amplitude as you get closer.
Best,
Tom
Hi
The Synergy horn is a technology that allows multiple drivers to add together as if they were one impossible broad band driver within a horn and eliminates the phase shift crossovers introduce so that they really act like a single broad band source.
The SH-50 is a product using that approach but an SH-95 which is smaller also uses it.
A speaker like the SH-50 can also reproduce a square wave over a broad band, spanning both crossovers, something few hifi speakers can do let alone pa speakers.
Yes the array boxes are meant to be used in multiples to get more vertical pattern control, they are stacked vertically because the interference pattern they produce is much less noticeable in that plane.
If you laid out a typical big name line array horizontally, then the interference is much more apparent especially if you move side to side or in normal use if the wind blows.
You can place several of the Synergy horns side by side to make an array but unlike other speakers, there is no audible seam between them and you hear nothing changing as you walk side to side until you reach the pattern edge which is very pronounced (much less sound to the sides or behind etc)
The reason I try to keep the number of boxes needed down is that in general the larger the number of sources, the worse / less intelligible the sound is.
I know the industry has been taught and now “knows” that line arrays are the way to go, but there has NOT EVER BEEN a real constant directivity broad band point source before. As soon as one has multiple drivers used normally (greater than about ¼ wavelength apart), one has an array of interfering point sources, sources that radiate independently not as one source.
AS this effect is not obvious in measurements other than polar’s and it is a bit hard to explain, something one has to hear.
I am sure you have heard a large sound system in say a stadium or heard a normal stadium sound system. Have a listen to what this approach in a large stadium can sound like. This is three Synergy horns, two J1’s, facing right and left and one J2 facing forward down field. The speakers are the little black glob under the score board.
Here is a video taken during sound check at a large stadium that already has a fairly new big name line array system that sounds horrible. In this case the stadium is completely empty (no absorption at all).
Penn State University Beaver Stadium Jericho Horn Demo | Facebook
At a trade show some months ago, a magazine put together a listening event where a number of small loudspeakers were set up and demo’d, with the same music at the same SPL. The systems were sized to deliver the same working spl and distance.
This shows another part of the advantage of having all the drivers add coherently in the Synergy horn. If you have drivers interfering with other drivers to produce the reduced fall off they are famous for, it takes a lot more of everything (which is great if you make that stuff).
Consider the single Synergy horn, single subwoofer and amplifier we supplied cost about 1/9 of the most costly solution and has the lowest SPL below / behind the speakers (more confinement of the energy than the line arrays). I think if I had been there I would have added some EQ to warm the voice a little but they didn’t use any.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=2384841834542
The cool part is you don’t need fancy aiming software or elaborate adjustments in the rigging, you just aim Synergy horns at the farthest seats, the broad band directivity tapers the amplitude as you get closer.
Best,
Tom
Admittedly, I am not intimately familiar with prosound line arrays.
But I have not noticed any which use a coupling chamber in front of the midrange.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
The graph above shows the difference with and without JBL's "RBI."
The most notable difference is above and below the crossover point, in the two octaves from 1000hz to 4000hz.
Tom -
Thanks for being so generous with these replies. I've learned more about horns from your posts than I've learned from the audio books on my shelf.
I have a question about phase.
The original JBL Vertec did not use a coupling chamber in front of the woofer, but the new Vertec does. From studying your design, it seems that the coupling chamber is essential to maintaining consistent phase over the bandwidth of your products.
For instance, I've uploaded a picture which simulates the group delay of a midrange horn. One horn has a coupling chamber. One does not.
With a coupling chamber in front of the woofer, there is a rise in the group delay on both sides of the horns passband. (IE, there is a peak at 139hz, and a second peak about one octave higher at 300hz.)
WITHOUT the coupling chamber, there is only a single peak in the group delay.
I'm guessing that the rise in group delay at the TOP of the horn's passband allows a seamless transition from driver to driver to driver.
Does that make sense?
In other words, let's say you have a 'conventional' design with a horn on top of a direct radiator. At the low end of the horn's output, the group delay will be high, because the electrical impedance is rising. (Due to resonance.) So right where the group delay is high, we're crossing over to a direct radiator, at a frequency where the direct radiator has low group delay.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Here in a synergy horn, each driver has a coupling chamber. Due to the coupling chamber, we have a peak in the group delay on *both* sides of the passband. For instance, the midrange will have a peak in the group delay at the top and bottom of it's passband. But the woofer will ALSO have a peak at the top and bottom of it's passband.
To make a long story short - the Synergy horn will have a series of spikes in the group delay curve, starting with the compression driver, then the midrange, all the way down to the woofer. And these series of spikes will keep the group delay curve consistent for most of the loudspeaker's bandwidth.
I noticed that your Genesis horns had a phase curve that's actually flatter than some of the small synergy horns, and I'm guessing it's due to that. Basically it's easier to flatten out the group delay curve with MORE drivers, not less, because all these peaks in the curve blend into one smooth series of peaks. Similar to the sampling rate in digital audio, where MORE samples leads to a smoother approximation of the analog original.
Attachments
If you are interested in pro arrays I highly recommend you download and install JBL's LACII program. (I think you have to e-mail for authorization.) You can "create" your own pro array by hanging and aiming some quantity of modules, then setting the strength, EQ and delay to each allows you to define the coverage (vs. frequency).
Simulate an audience area below and and experiment to get flat coverage over the seating area. Good fun and amazing software (I did this years ago in Fortran on a PDP11, haven't written a program since!)
They have similar software for the CBT units.
David S.
Simulate an audience area below and and experiment to get flat coverage over the seating area. Good fun and amazing software (I did this years ago in Fortran on a PDP11, haven't written a program since!)
They have similar software for the CBT units.
David S.
Sure, this is what we have always done and I frequently work out the speaker height and aiming for behind-screen theater speakers to best cover the audience from front to back.
But this software is way beyond that. You can get really even coverage across any seating area. You can cover a main floor and balcony, with a directivity notch to miss the area in between. You can design bass arrays with delay to give nulls in the rear or inward firing direction. You can get an exact polar match to the floor profile rather than an approximate one available by picking the best of 2 or 3 horn patterns.
Lots of money with multiple array modules and amps and EQ/delay units for each, but definitely the way the business is going for the larger installs.
David
I work in software, and one of the things I've noticed is that there isn't a huge correlation between what is the BEST solution and what is the most POPULAR solution. For instance, I routinely use software that is expensive and proprietary when there are better solutions that are actually free!
But the thing I *have* noticed is that there's a huge correlation between the popularity of a software package and the compensation of it's salesforce.
For instance, there is one software package that I use day in and day out, and the sales force at the company is famously well paid. And even though we could use free alternatives, I'm inclined to believe that the reason we use the proprietary solution is because the salesman from that company aggressively pursue deals because they're getting paid to win them.
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Hi Dave
Software for designing arrays is routine and old hat.
We have an independent company measure our full range boxes to derive the EASE data files used for room design and predictions.
Where many of the mfr programs fall down is they do not show many details such as the self interference one gets from most large arrays.
While this is hidden in averaging, smoothed model data and the pretty prediction plots, it is often quite audible if the wind blows, if you walk the pattern or if you measure the frequency response at a number of distances.
It is these artifacts inherent in that approach that enables us to replace large systems like this with ones that have a much more homogeneous sound field.
With only one radiation lobe that is near constant over a wide band and not the traditional interference pattern, it is possible to place one speaker in a stadium such that the SPL at the closest distance and farthest distance is only 4dB AND sound much more hifi than the old array way.
The approach of aiming at the back row is ancient and as Don Davis had explained in a Synaudcon in the 80’s, but the switch to broader band multi-way speakers made that much less effective (they radiate a pattern of lobes and nulls) and so not done often.
Even now, there are VERY few commercial or hifi speakers that can be arrayed (even two speakers) and not have an audible to VERY audible seam.
Lay a typical line array on it’s side and walk left to right or hear one in a crosswind and you hear the inherent interference pattern.
One big plus for the large array makers and installers is that it takes so much more of everything when the sources are partially canceling each other out as in a typical line array.
A big plus for us is these are usually the kind of system the stadium or venue owner has and wants to replace. If you can demonstrate something very clearly better sounding AND it radiates far less sound outside the intended pattern, they often don’t care that it looks smaller is an unheard of name and often like that it costs less.
This makes that business far easier to get than live sound where most people “know” a large line array is the way to go and have a favorite brand.
Live Sound: Purple Sounds Best: A Matter Of Mass Psychology - Pro Sound Web
Best,
Tom
Software for designing arrays is routine and old hat.
We have an independent company measure our full range boxes to derive the EASE data files used for room design and predictions.
Where many of the mfr programs fall down is they do not show many details such as the self interference one gets from most large arrays.
While this is hidden in averaging, smoothed model data and the pretty prediction plots, it is often quite audible if the wind blows, if you walk the pattern or if you measure the frequency response at a number of distances.
It is these artifacts inherent in that approach that enables us to replace large systems like this with ones that have a much more homogeneous sound field.
With only one radiation lobe that is near constant over a wide band and not the traditional interference pattern, it is possible to place one speaker in a stadium such that the SPL at the closest distance and farthest distance is only 4dB AND sound much more hifi than the old array way.
The approach of aiming at the back row is ancient and as Don Davis had explained in a Synaudcon in the 80’s, but the switch to broader band multi-way speakers made that much less effective (they radiate a pattern of lobes and nulls) and so not done often.
Even now, there are VERY few commercial or hifi speakers that can be arrayed (even two speakers) and not have an audible to VERY audible seam.
Lay a typical line array on it’s side and walk left to right or hear one in a crosswind and you hear the inherent interference pattern.
One big plus for the large array makers and installers is that it takes so much more of everything when the sources are partially canceling each other out as in a typical line array.
A big plus for us is these are usually the kind of system the stadium or venue owner has and wants to replace. If you can demonstrate something very clearly better sounding AND it radiates far less sound outside the intended pattern, they often don’t care that it looks smaller is an unheard of name and often like that it costs less.
This makes that business far easier to get than live sound where most people “know” a large line array is the way to go and have a favorite brand.
Live Sound: Purple Sounds Best: A Matter Of Mass Psychology - Pro Sound Web
Best,
Tom
ok i dont know much aboutthe synergy horn and the complex parts, i do however think i understand the basic principle.
have you thought of a ultimate sygergy horn? where you do this....
image host
ok its a bad illistration because im tired, and idea's dont have to start with perfect cad drawings and calculations.... i was just wondering what would happen if you took the sygergy horn concept, extended it out so it was bigger, and horn loaded the horn with horn loaded subs, so you would have a concert with one huge speaker eather side doing the lot, then you could "phase match" the whole frequency responce
one big horn driven smaller horns each with sucsessively bigger drivers (like pipe organ pipes)
so on the outmost part the bass horns, then on the inner sections the standerd surgery horn,
or even better, you could simply extend the sygenry horn to include a 4 built in horn loaded subs on each of the 4 faces... like this below
hosting images
just a wacky idea, im full of em......
oh and if you do use it drop us a few grand for the idea...😀
obviously with the final design you would fit the bass horns into the "box" in a more agreable form than my slightly off wack illistration....
here is a slight better illistration for ya...
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and you could probubly use your 15" tapped horns, just reshaped to fit in there new home.....
here is a slight better illistration for ya...
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
image hosting gif
and you could probubly use your 15" tapped horns, just reshaped to fit in there new home.....
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