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[Lee Buckalew]

Peter Morris said that a few pages back about the MLA system so not sure how I misunderstood that. I'm not knocking MLA and if you find that it's the best product to use for tours then I'm happy you found a product you like, I have found I don't like it and that is my preference, you just seem to be saying the same stuff their marketing department is saying as well as every Martin rep has told me trying to sell their speakers so understand why I'm not quick to accept your that it's the best product.

I am still not saying it's the best.  Just trying to get people to understand how it's different. 
Peter's statement is sort of correct.  No "problems" are created by using hard avoid per se but you must use it correctly.  You only have up to a total of 100% of DSP resources available, you must choose how to budget those resources along with your total available cabinets.  In order to provide more emphasis on the hard avoid area you must take some DSP away from creating smooth Frequency response or keeping SPL absolutely even.  In order to create a larger hard avoid area (or more of them) you may need more cabinets.  Forcing the software to do something that you lack cabinets for may cause unwanted results in the listening area if you don't add more cabinets. 
The default for DSP resources is 1/3 of resources toward each goal but you choose if that needs to change.  You also choose, based on what Display is telling you, if your choices help you or hurt you, if you need more cabinets to achieve your goals, etc.  Everything in audio involves compromise.


Lee

[Peter Morris]

I am still not saying it's the best.  Just trying to get people to understand how it's different. 
Peter's statement is sort of correct.  No "problems" are created by using hard avoid per se but you must use it correctly.  You only have up to a total of 100% of DSP resources available, you must choose how to budget those resources along with your total available cabinets.  In order to provide more emphasis on the hard avoid area you must take some DSP away from creating smooth Frequency response or keeping SPL absolutely even.  In order to create a larger hard avoid area (or more of them) you may need more cabinets.  Forcing the software to do something that you lack cabinets for may cause unwanted results in the listening area if you don't add more cabinets.  The default for DSP resources is 1/3 of resources toward each goal but you choose if that needs to change.  You also choose, based on what Display is telling you, if your choices help you or hurt you, if you need more cabinets to achieve your goals, etc.  Everything in audio involves compromise.


Lee

Thats a much better description than mine Lee, in simple terms the more you need the array to do tricks the more resources it takes in terms of cells and DSP.

[Michael John]

I just caught up on this thread and apologies in advance if someone has covered this already...

To the OP topic (and expanding on others posts)....  the key benefit of splitting the mix over separate arrays is lower distortion at high levels. Loudspeaker drivers are quite linear at low levels, but at high levels their displacement as a function of voltage is quite nonlinear. Pass a signal through a non-linear process and it generates harmonics. Pass two distinct signals through a non-linear process and many of the generated harmonics are not harmonically related to either signal - a la inter-modulation distortion.

Take a look at photos of the U2 360 tour. The stage side facing mix position - which had to throw the furthest at many venues - had two left and two right arrays of about 18 Clair i-5's each (72 total) plus left and right arrays of the i-5b sub units. The other 3 stage sides - which didn't have to throw as far - had single left and right arrays.

[Kevin McDonough]

There was an article posted some time ago, will try and find it later today showing that a correctly setup line array performs just as well if not better than the MLA system at rejection past a certain point as well as rejection to the rear, MLA is making claims that other line array manufacturers aren't and claim it's something special, not saying that the MLA isn't great, its a good box at a decent price point but DnB uses a very similar principle for the arrays and guys like Lacoustics and Meyer use other methods of achieving the same thing. In the end deploy the correct system correctly and you will get the results that you want.

It's impossible for me to hear danleys boxes because there are none in South Africa that I know of but I have hear DnB, Meyer and Lacoustics boxes and I know which is a clear favorite for me at this point, I've been shown predictions for our room from Martin and both Meyer and Lacoustics can show me predictions that look very similar without claiming to be something special.

Hey

Sorry a bit late to the party lol, have just caught up on the thread.

Just to provide a bit of background, the test mentioned was commissioned by SSE, the UKs biggest hire company. MLA was getting a lot of trade press for it's noise cancelling ability and the positive results people were getting in terms of off-site noise and SSE's rationale was that they wanted to test and see if it was worth the hype and worth investing in another system.

Really though, its fairly widely assumed that they were worried about losing business for their K1 that they'd not long ago invested heavily in, and wanted a bit of paper to prove their system was just as good.

As people have said, the test had a few flaws that were designed to show the K1 in the best light and negate any benefits MLA may have had over that. (though I don't mean to sound disparaging to K1, its also a phenomenal sounding system).

Firstly in terms of set up, they only hung a single hang of (iirc) 14 boxes for each system. But they expected them to meet SPL and distance targets that were more relevant to a full festival system which would have had double hangs of 20 odd boxes.

In many people's opinion this was chosen to hamper the MLA's extra "tricks", as in order to simply meet the SPL targets every box and driver had to be working just as a normal line array and be putting out a full volume, normal line array type signal. There would be no 'spare' drivers to do anything in or out of phase and use any of the MLA's power.  So what you ended up with was just comparing one very well designed box to another very well designed box, and predictably got similar results.

Had this been a hang of 24 boxes, or even a proper stereo hang, it's considered that the results could have been very different.

And secondly as was mentioned, only SPL was measured, and there was no measurement of what it actually sounded like or if it was an appropriate set up to actually provide good sound at the various measurement points, just whether it would hit the SPL targets or not.


As I say, I have nothing against K1 at all, and nothing against SSL either, we buy quite a few racks and custom made bits and bobs from them and they're always great to deal with. But this seemed like a paperwork exercise to justify their own speakers rather than a serious comparison.

k

[Peter Morris]

Hey

Sorry a bit late to the party lol, have just caught up on the thread.

Just to provide a bit of background, the test mentioned was commissioned by SSE, the UKs biggest hire company. MLA was getting a lot of trade press for it's noise cancelling ability and the positive results people were getting in terms of off-site noise and SSE's rationale was that they wanted to test and see if it was worth the hype and worth investing in another system.

Really though, its fairly widely assumed that they were worried about losing business for their K1 that they'd not long ago invested heavily in, and wanted a bit of paper to prove their system was just as good.

As people have said, the test had a few flaws that were designed to show the K1 in the best light and negate any benefits MLA may have had over that. (though I don't mean to sound disparaging to K1, its also a phenomenal sounding system).

Firstly in terms of set up, they only hung a single hang of (iirc) 14 boxes for each system. But they expected them to meet SPL and distance targets that were more relevant to a full festival system which would have had double hangs of 20 odd boxes.

In many people's opinion this was chosen to hamper the MLA's extra "tricks", as in order to simply meet the SPL targets every box and driver had to be working just as a normal line array and be putting out a full volume, normal line array type signal. There would be no 'spare' drivers to do anything in or out of phase and use any of the MLA's power.  So what you ended up with was just comparing one very well designed box to another very well designed box, and predictably got similar results.

Had this been a hang of 24 boxes, or even a proper stereo hang, it's considered that the results could have been very different.

And secondly as was mentioned, only SPL was measured, and there was no measurement of what it actually sounded like or if it was an appropriate set up to actually provide good sound at the various measurement points, just whether it would hit the SPL targets or not.


As I say, I have nothing against K1 at all, and nothing against SSL either, we buy quite a few racks and custom made bits and bobs from them and they're always great to deal with. But this seemed like a paperwork exercise to justify their own speakers rather than a serious comparison.

k

That's exactly what I heard .... exactly!

[ProSoundWeb Community]