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Old 05-16-2017, 12:15 PM
dannyg1 dannyg1 is offline
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I've been having a private conversation with a musician who's considering a line array and it's occurred to me that many, if not most , people who are looking at these things don't really understand the underlying principles/problems that line arrays are made to solve.

One amp vs. A line array doesn't really tell you a lot about what the difference in output sound is to your audience. Just like your guitar sounds great to you but mercilessly thin to people who are 15 feet away, a point source speaker only covers so much audience with the sound you intend to produce. A line array, at least somewhat, broadens that coverage.

Sound is like light and a point source can only light so much of a dark room, unless you make it so powerful that it can light it all. Problem there is that audience in line and close to the powerful light will be blinded, toasted and fried by the light. Because of that, what you'll see when you enter, say a stadium with a roof, is a myriad of not as powerful lights, with a source for every nook and cranny. You'll see the same with speakers- lots of not so powerful speakers, covering each nook, designed on delay lines so as not to create a cacaphony of voices arriving at different times (think echoed announcement in a large train station).

Line arrays can only focus high frequency sound because as frequency gets lower, the beam from the speaker spreads. It also gets its energy eaten by air/distance and that's why your guitar sounds thin at 15 feet.

In order to properly cover a large space you need full range freq. Coverage and line arrays alone can't do that, at least without beaming. Which is why some of us can't stand playing through fishman SA220's. They're designed to sound thin.

Only properly spaced and delayed full range speakers can cover a larger space with the sound we'd like to project economically. Smaller spaces can be somewhat different but the same rules still apply.

I'm pretty sure this will go over like a lead brick....
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