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[Mac Kerr]

I am not sure how to do this-but I received a private message from the mods saying that it was wrong for me to make a comment (that was removed) about a software product.

I could not respond to the private message-so have no other way to ask this question than this.

The product in question does not compete with anything that my employer manufacturers/sells, and the manufacturer of the software does not make any product that even resembles anything that my employer sells.

The product in question can be used (and the target market) by many different manufacturers.

So is it "off limits" for me to comment about something like Smaart or TEF?  What about mixing consoles? that we do not make a competing product?

These are products that do not compete with anything we sell and can/are used by many different manufacturers.

Or is it against the rules to comment on anything said by another manufacturer?  Even if that "3rd party" product is used by many different people.

So in that same light-is it wrong to comment about a specific part (say a driver) that we use (or have tried out) and other people use?

Sorry if I offended anybody-but I did not feel it was wrong to comment about a product that was not specific to a competing manufacturer.

Had you included a quote from the post you were responding to it might have been clear that you were not responding in reference to the VUE products that I specifically mentioned in my message. You could also respond to the message since you knew who it came from.

Mac

[Kenneth Berger]

One thing is for certain - the quest for sonic excellence is served well by trying to perfect the two approaches here.  The Danley approach uses primarily acoustical physics in the correct alignment to achieve its results.  Another approach (Vue, Fulcrum, others) starts with an imperfect acoustical physics starting point of "not exactly a point source" and uses corrective electronics to bring it back towards the desired performance.  With each approach borrowing a little bit from the other, who knows...in 10 years we may have products that would blow our mind today, and perhaps even more affordable for the low and mid level user.

Rick,

We would agree that working in both he physical and virtual worlds will enable some very cool technology in the future, but would take exception that VUE is primarily approaching sound form an "imperfect acoustical physics" starting point, Mike Adams (VUE Chief Engineer) describes our design perspective as – start with the best parts, do the best possible physical design and use as little processing as possible to get it right, so it "doesn't suck”.  We do not rely on array beam forming to "make" our arrays work well rather we steer after aiming the physical array (steering curved arrays not straight hangs and fixing it in the mix so to speak).

To be clear VUE does not at this time use the kind of DSP correction that Fulcrum uses in their Temporal EQ. At this time we only use FIR filters as an option for the purposes of Beam Forming, not as part of our basic system design.  Fulcrum’s very unique application of dsp in their basic system is best left to Dave Gunness to describe and he is a much better source for what they are doing than I would ever be, suffice it to say form my perspective he is doing very cool stuff but fundamentally different from what we are doing at VUE. Many other systems use FIR filters to correct for loudspeaker problems that are generally better corrected in the physical design – In Our Humble View of Speaker Design.  We are studying the impact of FIR filters in terms of quality requirements and the "side effects" of using them to vary the beam and correct for other time related anomalies.  In loud speaker design everything is a trade off.

With regard to FIR Maker – From an application stand point we are finding (and it is still the early days of working with FIR Maker) that beam forming is more useful to prevent sound from going places you don't want than it is is controlling the sound in the primary listening area. One of the great things about a "line array" or curved vertical array is that you can control the output and vertical coverage by adjusting the angles of the array elements (if you have enough elements).  The benefits of beam forming in most cases enable you to go from +- 2 dB to +-1 dB in level difference from front to back of a typical room / array combination.   While it is nice to reduce the variation by 1 dB this is not a significant gain for a significant increase in cost and complexity.

On the other hand we have found that you can reduce the sound in non-audicance areas using FIR maker by as much as 20 dB (in applications we have modeled particularly on stage) and this is a significant improvement justifying the added complexity.

Hope this is helpful,
Ken Berger
VUE audiotechnik

[Ivan Beaver]

Had you included a quote from the post you were responding to it might have been clear that you were not responding in reference to the VUE products that I specifically mentioned in my message. You could also respond to the message since you knew who it came from.

Mac

I did include a quote from the post I was responding to-it was short.  Not the whole post-but just the statement I was responding to.

[Peter Morris]

One thing is for certain - the quest for sonic excellence is served well by trying to perfect the two approaches here.  The Danley approach uses primarily acoustical physics in the correct alignment to achieve its results.  Another approach (Vue, Fulcrum, others) starts with an imperfect acoustical physics starting point of "not exactly a point source" and uses corrective electronics to bring it back towards the desired performance.  With each approach borrowing a little bit from the other, who knows...in 10 years we may have products that would blow our mind today, and perhaps even more affordable for the low and mid level user.

Hi Rick,

I had written a much longer post, but now Ken has posted a reply, here is the short version …

I would argue that it’s just the compromises that are different.  I’m sure that all of these manufacturers understand “acoustical physics” and are making wonderful products which are not based on “imperfect acoustical physics”.

I don’t think it’s appropriate to compare a system designed to suit one particular application that cannot change its pattern and in some cases is too heavy to manually lift to a flexible, saleable line-array designed to be manually handled and set up in a different venue every few days.

It’s like comparing an SUV to a Porsche and having the Porsche owner say my car is better because it goes faster to the owner of the SUV who bought his car to go camping.

I really do love some of the stuff that Danley is doing – absolutely; and I love the passion Ivan and Tom have for their products, but until they build something that provides the same logistical advantages of a line array I don’t think their comparisons are particularly valid.

I’m sure Ivan will have a different opinion … 

Peter

[Ivan Beaver]

Hi Rick,

I had written a much longer post, but now Ken has posted a reply, here is the short version …

I would argue that it’s just the compromises that are different.  I’m sure that all of these manufacturers understand “acoustical physics” and are making wonderful products which are not based on “imperfect acoustical physics”.

I don’t think it’s appropriate to compare a system designed to suit one particular application that cannot change its pattern and in some cases is too heavy to manually lift to a flexible, saleable line-array designed to be manually handled and set up in a different venue every few days.

It’s like comparing an SUV to a Porsche and having the Porsche owner say my car is better because it goes faster to the owner of the SUV who bought his car to go camping.

I really do love some of the stuff that Danley is doing – absolutely; and I love the passion Ivan and Tom have for their products, but until they build something that provides the same logistical advantages of a line array I don’t think their comparisons are particularly valid.

I’m sure Ivan will have a different opinion … 

Peter

The issue with "acoustical physics" is pretty simple.

If you have a loudspeaker that has separate components that each radiate their own pattern, you WILL have interference and cancellations.

Yes you can "fix" this at one listening position-but move to a different position and it is different-or worse.

I am still trying to get a handle on why people call a line array "scaleable". 

SURE you can add more elements but what is REALLY happening?

If you have one or 2 elements, the coverage is limited to a narrow pattern in the vertical at the higher freq-the low and mid freq just "balloon" all over the place due to no pattern control

So the effective coverage for everybody is a narrow vertical.

So lets add a lot more elements.  Now that narrow vertical extends down lower in freq-but the overall pattern is still narrow.

Sure you can "bend the array" but when you do you are limited in the high freq to the narrow pattern the HF devices have.

So you end up with spotty coverage (ie different sounds at different seats).

So from a coverage standpoint-it depends on where you are as to what response you have.

This appears to be fine for some people but not for all.  A proper sound system will have the same sound for ALL the people not different sounds at different seats.

So now lets take the "scaleable system" outside.

Have you ever heard a line array with a nice breeze blowing?  It is all over the place.

A single source of sound is MUCH more stable in the wind.

This was evidenced last spring at the WMC in Miami.  The hotels on the beach all have their own parties and are facing the systems towards the ocean.

We had the owners from nearby hotels come to our stage and want to know how we were able to keep the sound from "blowing around" like it was at their stages.

You can't when you have a lot of different devices covering the same area.  The same interference that causes the narrow pattern is also HIGHLY subjective to temp gradiants which make the sound appear to be "blowing around".

Adding more cabinets only makes it worse.

So how "scaleable" is the system now?  It becomes worthless.

The usual answer is "Well the wind just blows the sound around-that is the way it is".

Well that is the way it is with YOUR system, but not ALL systems-so it IS NOT "the way it is".

Now this is not saying the same thing does not happen with a single source.  Yes it does, but it like a really wide single floodlight moving around a bit, rather than a whole bunch of narrow spotlights moving around.

At the point the single source becomes "a little bit of a problem" the interference system (no matter whether it is a line array or a stack of "point and shoot" cabinets) is pretty much useless or really bad.

Time will tell which is the better approach

[Hayden J. Nebus]

Has anyone else looked at Don Keele's CBT work?  His approach uses a frequency independent shading function across a arcuate array to deliver broadband constant directivity without DSP. Alternately, minimal DSP could be used to push a fixed column or variable geometry curvilinear array into the proper shape via delay.

From casual observation in the vertical plane it appears the symptoms of driver interaction with this approach are all but pushed out to the very edges of coverage.

There's a price, or rather several, of course: you burn somewhere in the neighborhood of 3dB sensitivity and you need more array elements for given coverage, as the main lobe has coverage to around 70% of the array's radial angle.

[Peter Morris]

Has anyone else looked at Don Keele's CBT work?  His approach uses a frequency independent shading function across a arcuate array to deliver broadband constant directivity without DSP. Alternately, minimal DSP could be used to push a fixed column or variable geometry curvilinear array into the proper shape via delay.

From casual observation in the vertical plane it appears the symptoms of driver interaction with this approach are all but pushed out to the very edges of coverage.

There's a price, or rather several, of course: you burn somewhere in the neighborhood of 3dB sensitivity and you need more array elements for given coverage, as the main lobe has coverage to around 70% of the array's radial angle.

Yes ...

http://www.jblpro.com/www/products/installed-sound/cbt-series#.VBrqaGkiPq4

[Tom Danley]

Hi Rick,

I had written a much longer post, but now Ken has posted a reply, here is the short version …

I would argue that it’s just the compromises that are different.  I’m sure that all of these manufacturers understand “acoustical physics” and are making wonderful products which are not based on “imperfect acoustical physics”.

I don’t think it’s appropriate to compare a system designed to suit one particular application that cannot change its pattern and in some cases is too heavy to manually lift to a flexible, saleable line-array designed to be manually handled and set up in a different venue every few days.

It’s like comparing an SUV to a Porsche and having the Porsche owner say my car is better because it goes faster to the owner of the SUV who bought his car to go camping.

I really do love some of the stuff that Danley is doing – absolutely; and I love the passion Ivan and Tom have for their products, but until they build something that provides the same logistical advantages of a line array I don’t think their comparisons are particularly valid.

I’m sure Ivan will have a different opinion … 

Peter

Hi Peter
A REAL problem here is that we judge new things or technology based on what we already know and when you don’t know the effects of a different approach, it’s hard to convey with words what the audible impact is.

For example, when one says point source, many picture a horn and a 15, or even more off base, the systems used before the line array was popular but in reality, unless one has heard a small full range crossover less driver on a large flat baffle, one probably hasn’t heard something radiating as a simple acoustic point source.       

As some music is very much ‘time variant”, having many separate sources produces many separate arrivals in time which is often audible all by itself, while the industry focuses on ‘amplitude’ Time is part of what makes systems sound different.  With an array, one can “fix” that in one location with DSP but not everywhere, you simply can’t fix most spatial radiation problems with DSP, nor can one fix the energy radiated outside the desired angles caused by source interference.

The Synergy horns we use radiate like they had one driver also but have a narrower dispersion pattern than one driver on a flat baffle and because the drivers in them add coherently instead of interfering and because they are horn loaded, it takes far fewer of them to do a given job.

Since it isn’t clear to me what one can and can’t say about the things they invented, developed or they sell, I will try to avoid stepping over the invisible line.
 Consider the installation in the link below and read between the lines, the system this replaced was a several year old big name and very large array system like live sound uses and when they asked Mike for a demo (using just 3 boxes),  after hearing it vs their system they said “don’t even play their system again”. 

 http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/danley_jericho_horns_cover_south_to_north_at_penn_state_universitys_beaver_/av

Not only did this new sound system work better, is more powerful, sounds better, has much more even coverage, is essentially immune to wind and has a -3dB point below 30Hz, it would take up FAR less space in a truck.
     
Understand too as I explained in this thread, while Ivan and I have a background in live sound, we have not tried to get into to live sound because of the overwhelming line array “marketing knowledge”,  but we don’t make boxes limited to a specific job, the usage process is simply selecting the proper box and aiming it correctly.     

As for a given task, what is required this way is much smaller than a ubiquitous array, scalability is accomplished by using a volume control up to the point one needs a more powerful box.

To be clear, this is not a case of comparing one sports car to another, this is a different acoustic technology that is also patented and not available to others.   As for smaller scale sound, there is still an advantage to not having an interference based system and using a CD point source Synergy horn;  Here is a user’s video of ONE small sm-80, a 65 lb cabinet and sub per side;

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=726740944028708&set=vb.126113687424773&type=2&theater

Best,
Tom

[David Sturzenbecher]

 Consider the installation in the link below and read between the lines, the system this replaced was a several year old big name and very large array system like live sound uses and when they asked Mike for a demo (using just 3 boxes),  after hearing it vs their system they said “don’t even play their system again”. 

 http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/danley_jericho_horns_cover_south_to_north_at_penn_state_universitys_beaver_/av

Tom,
You and the other Danley guys have brought this up time and time again. I have no horse in this race, as the company I work for is both a Danley dealer and a dealer for the company of speakers that was removed. I like both companies (and the people that work for them), and they both make products that the other does not.  We all know there are good designs and poor designs.  I do know that the design that was existing at that stadium was quite poor (from what was obvious in pictures, I have never been there), so I really do hope your system design is better then the last system design.   I bring this up to point out that I feel the quality of the design, and what the constraints/compromises are (money, space, etc) will far exceed what speaker is chosen.  I say this in that I have heard bad Danley installs, just as I have heard bad installs from the other company above. Also, you don't see that other company talking about the Jericho's they have replaced with their product.

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

Tom,
You and the other Danley guys have brought this up time and time again. I have no horse in this race, as the company I work for is both a Danley dealer and a dealer for the company of speakers that was removed. I like both companies (and the people that work for them), and they both make products that the other does not.  We all know there are good designs and poor designs.  I do know that the design that was existing at that stadium was quite poor (from what was obvious in pictures, I have never been there), so I really do hope your system design is better then the last system design.   I bring this up to point out that I feel the quality of the design, and what the constraints/compromises are (money, space, etc) will far exceed what speaker is chosen.  I say this in that I have heard bad Danley installs, just as I have heard bad installs from the other company above. Also, you don't see that other company talking about the Jericho's they have replaced with their product.

I agree.  I own some Danley products and appreciate Ivan and Tom's contributions generally, but I'm a little tired out from the repetition in this thread and elsewhere on the forum lately.  We've heard the "point sources are better" story about 15 times in this thread alone, complete with multiple postings of the SM80 video, and generally the attitude that anyone who isn't running a show of 0-5000 people with a pair of SM80s is an idiot.  Perhaps the intention isn't marketing, but it sure seems to be the result.

Let's give it a rest for a while.

[ProSoundWeb Community]