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[Mark McFarlane]

When intelligibility is most critical is often when the pattern may also be the most critical.  You may not worry as much about the pattern at the extremes of the response but throughout the speech range the pattern may indeed be important.
 
You might want to look at something like some of the EAW UB series products or other 'under balcony' speakers that are designed for horizontal mounting.
 
Be aware that if you use a nominal vertically oriented box in a horizontal orientation with the horn rotated then rotating the horn can change the interactions of the horn with the woofer through crossover and can result in a different and typically not identified horizontal pattern at those frequencies.

Thanks Brad.  WIth 6 rows of chairs I didn't think intelligibility of speech would be a problem, but we an certainly play with aim and tilt.

I'll have a look at the  EAW UB series.

Is the problem rotating the horn typically in a changing phase response in the crossover region, or just that the rotated pattern isn't measured by the manufacturer?

[Mike Harper]

Thanks mike, that relieves my fear of getting hem close to the ceiling.  These look like a good solution.  Do the i's sound as similar to the Zx1A's that everyone has been raving about?  I assume they use the same drivers.

Same drivers as the ZX1 and the ZXA1.  We have these 2 ZX1i speakers, and 6 of the Passive ZX1 that we use as floor monitors in our sanctuary.  The ZXA1 shows that is is biamped with an 800watt amp, with a crossover point of 1.8KHz where the passive speakers are crossed over at 1.7KHz.  That is the only difference I see in the specs, however I assume EV did some optimization on the Powered unit, since the specs say that it gets its amp tech from their TG series amps it may have a preset DSP built into the amp.  We power ours with Crown XTI 2000 amps and absolutely love the sound we get from them.  I want more of them for other rooms in our church.

[Ryan C. Davis]

Mark,

Have you considered that you likely have a fair amount of space above the T-Grid Ceiling? I've been thinking about that a little bit and I think you could rig the back end of your box above the grid and have just the face of the speaker below the grid. We work with grid ceilings all the time and, at least here, I could get my grid guy to patch it all up and work the ceiling tiles around the speaker for a couple hundred bucks.

Just a thought, you may not be on as tight of a space constraint as you thought...

[Mike Harper]

Mark,

Have you considered that you likely have a fair amount of space above the T-Grid Ceiling? I've been thinking about that a little bit and I think you could rig the back end of your box above the grid and have just the face of the speaker below the grid. We work with grid ceilings all the time and, at least here, I could get my grid guy to patch it all up and work the ceiling tiles around the speaker for a couple hundred bucks.

Just a thought, you may not be on as tight of a space constraint as you thought...

Ryan,

I think you are confusing my pictures with Mark's.  It looks like his pictures have a drywall ceiling, especially since his florescent light fixtures hang down from the ceiling.

[Mark McFarlane]

Mark,

Have you considered that you likely have a fair amount of space above the T-Grid Ceiling? I've been thinking about that a little bit and I think you could rig the back end of your box above the grid and have just the face of the speaker below the grid. We work with grid ceilings all the time and, at least here, I could get my grid guy to patch it all up and work the ceiling tiles around the speaker for a couple hundred bucks.

Just a thought, you may not be on as tight of a space constraint as you thought...

Hi Ryan,

I think you are confusing Mike's pics with my pics in the OP.  I have a solid ceiling to deal with.

[Ryan C. Davis]

It appears I have confused Mikes Pics with Marks.

as you were...

[Mark McFarlane]

I went back to the room today to refine some measurements.  A new floor plan is attached.

Basically, hanging anything between the projector and the screen isn't going to work, we need to use the top inches of the screen.

Also, the beams that cut the room in thirds are 12" thick, so the ceiling at those locations is down from <9' to <8'.  Hanging on the beams (i.e. a 12" cabinet would hang down to 7') isn't really going to work in this multipurpose room.

In the diagram below I've shown a 3 90-degree speaker solution as an example.  Two horizontally mounted 'big speakers' to cover the left and right sides of the rooms and one smaller speaker to cover the hole in the middle. 

We have a couple 5" Tannoy speakers that sound amazingly good and might be useful as the center sections fill(s), although matching tonality may be a challenge..

[Mike Harper]

I went back to the room today to refine some measurements.  A new floor plan is attached.

Basically, hanging anything between the projector and the screen isn't going to work, we need to use the top inches of the screen.

Also, the beams that cut the room in thirds are 12" thick, so the ceiling at those locations is down from <9' to <8'.  Hanging on the beams (i.e. a 12" cabinet would hang down to 7') isn't really going to work in this multipurpose room.

In the diagram below I've shown a 3 90-degree speaker solution as an example.  Two horizontally mounted 'big speakers' to cover the left and right sides of the rooms and one smaller speaker to cover the hole in the middle. 

We have a couple 5" Tannoy speakers that sound amazingly good and might be useful as the center sections fill(s), although matching tonality may be a challenge..

Mark,

Would it be feasible to adjust the projector, maybe just get it to hang lower with a new mount?  something like this:
any of the mounts form Omni mount
http://www.omnimount.com/products/ceiling_and_projector_mounts/projector_mounts/
and a pipe extension like this
http://www.omnimount.com/products/ceiling_and_projector_mounts/projector_mounts/accessories/npt_pipes/

That would maybe allow you to hang the projector lower and project under the speaker cabinet and still use the entire screen. 

[Kent Thompson]

I went back to the room today to refine some measurements.  A new floor plan is attached.

Basically, hanging anything between the projector and the screen isn't going to work, we need to use the top inches of the screen.

Also, the beams that cut the room in thirds are 12" thick, so the ceiling at those locations is down from <9' to <8'.  Hanging on the beams (i.e. a 12" cabinet would hang down to 7') isn't really going to work in this multipurpose room.

In the diagram below I've shown a 3 90-degree speaker solution as an example.  Two horizontally mounted 'big speakers' to cover the left and right sides of the rooms and one smaller speaker to cover the hole in the middle. 

We have a couple 5" Tannoy speakers that sound amazingly good and might be useful as the center sections fill(s), although matching tonality may be a challenge..

Your drawing is nice and geometrically pretty but, as was pointed out to me once and now have learned by experience, the 90 degrees may not be 90 degrees at all frequencies and at all distances. Best to get more information on the dispersion patterns to verify that they will be good for this particular room. You might already have taken this into account but, I thought I would bring it up.

[Jonathan Johnson]

Mark, I can't give you any product recommendations, but I've been thinking about a different approach to deployment. You've basically got a split stage, so a center cluster is going to create a problem for half the people in the room in that the sound will be coming from the wrong place.

Your budget may not allow this, but what about a left cluster and a right cluster? Stuff on the left stage would feed to the left cluster, and stuff on the right stage would feed to the right cluster.

This does add another problem: coverage. People on the left side of the room may not get adequate coverage from the right cluster, and vice versa. You might be able to overcome this by adding a delayed signal from the right stage to the left speaker of the left cluster (and vice versa). But at that point, you're probably way over $3K, and it complicates the situation when you're playing back video with audio on the screen, or if you've got musicians playing on both stages at the same time.

EDIT: Duh, I just looked over your last post again and basically that's what your most recent concept is. Sorry 'bout that!

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