I keep trying to come up with an array design that I'm happy with, and I keep striking out.
In that CBT-esque thing that I posted a few days ago, I'm pretty happy with how the midrange sounds. But the highs sound about as good as you'd expect from a paper cone 2" woofer that's largely intended for cheap consumer electronics.
The highs are actually smoother than predicted, but they still have that sound of a papercone tweeter.
I'd hoped to stick a Unity horn or the like in the middle, but I'm kinda stumped on how to make this thing work, because it needs to be so darn large in order to get directivity control down to 200Hz or so.
IE, with a conventional box speaker in a fairly large cabinet, like my Yamaha DXR12s, you get some directivity control from the sound diffracting around the cabinet.
The cosmetics of a line array is great, but the narrow baffle creates a step in the directivity and the shading means that the speaker has to be physically larger than a conventional two-way or three-way to control directivity down to the same frequency.
It's just really hard to figure out a solution that works here:
1) In order to get it to play high in frequency, the drivers need to be really small
2) if the drivers are really small, you wind up with low sensitivity and low power handling.
3) If you try to put a tweeter or a Unity horn in the center, you get a directivity mismatch
4) putting a ribbon in the center seems like a potential solution. But you end up with pathlength differences. You might get away with it if you used ultra-steep slopes, but that introduces a new issue, in that the crossover becomes expensive.
Something that made me feel a little better about how difficult it is for me to come up with working array, is how bad the professional arrays behave.
For instance, this is Yamaha's new line array. Look at how atrocious those polars are. The horizontal response varies by +/- 10dB!!
For instance, this is Yamaha's new line array. Look at how atrocious those polars are. The horizontal response varies by +/- 10dB!!
Attachments
All the hard work has been done already...
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...raight-cbt-with-passive-xos-and-no-eq.330031/
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...raight-cbt-with-passive-xos-and-no-eq.330031/
Does it NEED to be an array?
As it get's big anyway ... why not use a big Horn from 4-600Hz?
Something like that for lowest possible frequency https://www.bcspeakers.com/en/products/horn/1-4/0/ME464
or something smaller if less control is needed.
I'm useing the DE360 for a home cinema project - sounds very smooth and relaxed.
As it get's big anyway ... why not use a big Horn from 4-600Hz?
Something like that for lowest possible frequency https://www.bcspeakers.com/en/products/horn/1-4/0/ME464
or something smaller if less control is needed.
I'm useing the DE360 for a home cinema project - sounds very smooth and relaxed.
Line array allows wide horizontal response and narrow vertical response to very low frequency.
If 2 meter tall line-array was replaced with a horn with similar vertical coverage it would be also roughly 2 meters high, but two meters deep and wide as well. Which is probably not acceptable for many applications 🙂 Depth of such device is related to coverage angle, narrow means deep. Also both hortizontal and vertical coverage angle are somewhat tied, perhaps some crazy diffraction slot device could do it. Perhaps this kind of device https://www.danleysoundlabs.com/products/sf1/ and Patrick Bateman has experimented with one https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/shark-tank.377776/
If 2 meter tall line-array was replaced with a horn with similar vertical coverage it would be also roughly 2 meters high, but two meters deep and wide as well. Which is probably not acceptable for many applications 🙂 Depth of such device is related to coverage angle, narrow means deep. Also both hortizontal and vertical coverage angle are somewhat tied, perhaps some crazy diffraction slot device could do it. Perhaps this kind of device https://www.danleysoundlabs.com/products/sf1/ and Patrick Bateman has experimented with one https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/shark-tank.377776/