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In Reply to: Does the criticism of line arrays apply to HORN line arrays of limited length? posted by Rafaro on June 19, 2016 at 17:43:40:
Hi Rafaro
The simple imaginary "point source" radiates like ripples in a pond except horizontally and vertically and so as you move away, the spl falls according to the inverse square law.
A point source placed on the other side of an open window, radiates a patch or section of that spherical radiation through that window but not the entire sphere and this is what our horns do, they radiate a section of a sphere.
To the degree one can make a horn that has "constant directivity" the height and width of that beam stay at the same angle over a wide range of frequencies.
What is not obvious is that when you move off axis of such a horn, the SPL falls accordingly BUT the frequency response stays the same. This means that if one places the horn up in the air and aims it at the right angle (the simple version is to aim the horn at the farthest seats) then one can make the response and spl very much closer to constant over a large rage of distances and this is what the Direct design program at the web site allows one to do. It is pretty easy to produce a much more even coverage and have it "sound the same everywhere" this way than with a line array.
In fact, a well known California line array only several years old was replaced with several of our Synergy horns at Penn state stadium and the installer (Clair bros) said the following regarding the large difference
"Everything worked out very well," says Devenney. "Coverage is excellent: plus/minus 2 dBA throughout the stadium, except in club areas where I intentionally made things quieter. The system has good articulation, nice fullness, great dynamics, and impressive vocal clarity.
http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/danley-jericho-horns-cover-south-to-north-at-penn-state-universitys-beaver-stadium/
Also, as you have observed with your horn, horn loading can give one a great deal more acoustic power than direct radiators, in fact the in many stadiums a J-3 has replaced 12 to 16 box hangs of large format line arrays with greater fidelity, a larger working distance and greater intelligibility.
If you double the number of drivers in a synergy horn, you get +6dB more energy, if you double the number of boxes in a line array you get about 3dB.
Line arrays are a great way to sell a lot of boxes, amplifiers and processing, the only down side is for the customer / listener as the large array will never sound like a good studio monitor and of course the cost and comlexity.
Part of the reason is they radiate an interference pattern and they are dispersive in the time domain. A single impulse as an input will deliver a train of arrivals spread out in time because there is a different path length between your ears and each source, the bigger the array, the worse it sounds.
While marketed as being narrow vertical patterns individually, a look at the vertical beam width which shows the truth and that the pattern is lost when the frequency falls (pattern loss frequency is 1,000,000 / angle / divided by horn mouth size in inches)
This is why we make large very horns. A single source full range horn delivers a single impulse to your ears in addition to having the same spectral content over a much larger area.
We don't advertise, a part of the reason is the huge effort that has gone into marketing line arrays in live sound so instead we have focused on the most difficult audio tasks where the limited throw distance and bad fidelity of the line arrays are already problems.
In the last 6 years since the Jericho Synergy horns were developed, they have been put in 4 of the 10 largest stadiums (100,000+ seats) with another one next season as well as many smaller ones and that based on side by side listening.
It's not just large stadiums where they are used but where the best sound is desired, here is an example of the largest surround sound system I know of, the listening area is about 250,000 square feet and the speakers your hearing are all more than 300 feet from the audience, a line array, no matter how large cannot do this and with 12 X bc218's, the lf corner is about 25Hz. Don't know who recorded this, try with headphones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtAyOeUn3wc
A couple stadium video's too for reference.
Penn state demo walking the field (the 3 speakers are the little black glob under the scoreboard)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_usTlJi2NA
At about 300 feet
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oyosfc3adc6j1du/20130723135350.mts?dl=0
at about 700 feet
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ykq1y2ugesok2se/20130723141759.mts?dl=0
at about 700 feet
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ohyjninxzu2fjo/20120726122124.mts?dl=0
at 800 feet
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9bsr2bnrjrr24cq/20140805175937.mts?dl=0
Best,
Tom
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Follow Ups
- RE: Does the criticism of line arrays apply to HORN line arrays of limited length? - tomservo 14:14:53 06/21/16 (1)
- RE: Does the criticism of line arrays apply to HORN line arrays of limited length? - Rafaro 22:56:46 06/21/16 (0)
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