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[Tim McCulloch]

LOOK AT THE POLARS.

Column loudspeakers are almost omnidirectional at low freqs and the horizontal narrows as frequency increases (as you'd expect).  The column is useful for vertical coverage (tends to be relative narrow) but again, is frequency dependent.

I asked about this in a product review and the response was "it's all good".  Based on published specifications of the reviewed product (see that forum) I'm very very skeptical about any claims of uniform coverage.

Read Ray Aberle's response carefully, Jeremy.  I think he's correct in his assessment. I understand the urge to own gear but it's not always the best *business* decision.

-- Excess capacity, like something you use only 1 or 2 times a year, tends to almost infinite expense because it doesn't generate enough revenue to pay the taxes, insurance and warehousing costs.

-- The wrong product at the right price is still the wrong product.

Take a good, hard look at the whole situation before you commit to purchasing *anything*.

[Art Welter]

I won a box full of really nice 4" drivers on eBay for just about the shipping.  I have over 100lbs of them.   I think enough to make two 6' lines.  Was thinking about cutting PVC pipe and putting in some sort of rail and loading the drivers in.  Just an experiment.

Scott,

I did basically the same thing using Sonotube using 12x 3" NSB (no stinking badges) buyout speakers, a 36" line for about $12 in parts. The NSB drivers had very smooth and extended response, usable from around 100 Hz to 16kHz.
The results were actually quite impressive, the line was about 97 dB sensitivity, so with 400 watt peaks could hit around 117 dB at one meter.

I only used them on one gig, an excellent horn player bought them after hearing them.

Later, with more money and less time on my hands, I bought a pair of  Renkus-Heinz ICX7 mini-line arrays, about the same size, with a bit more low end, and a fancy passive crossover system to "correct" the problems the 7 co-ax drivers would have if run at the same level.

The result of "throwing away" more than 50% of the power away was the system required a ridiculous amount of power, and that power was primarily going to the center three cones and the center tweeter.

With just my god-given set of pipes I could yell considerably louder than the ICX7 could get with 400 watts, the first and only time I used them as delay speakers the center tweeters literally "melted down" and caused the center cones to drag, which was the only sound that was audible over the mains.

As the contract specified delay speakers, I removed the center tweeters and left the useless units in place for the next three weeks.
Renkus-Heinz service department would not sell the tweeter alone, so I simply substituted the bottom speaker for the middle speaker, the difference between no tweeter at the bottom of the line and one that is padded -10 was completely inaudible.

I sold the  speakers for well under dealer's cost, and disclosed the condition to the buyer, who was going to use them for background music and paging in a theater lobby.

At any rate, the $12 NSB speakers with no crossover at all outperformed the ICX7 in every metric other than around 15 Hz LF extension and vertical "beaming", which could be argued that the NSBs performed better in that regard, you could stand below them and carry on a conversation while the same basic level could be heard 60 feet away.

The ICX7 basically was a single tweeter above 4 kHz (or whatever frequency the cross was), you would get nailed by near-180 degree HF response standing near it.
Useless.

Art

[Jay Barracato]

I keep picturing a very large Ruben's tube.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[Don T. Williams]

+1 for Ray's post on return on investment vs. renting for one event.  Something like the Renkus IC Live or the Karray KR202 or 400 might be available for rent in your area and could work well.  These systems are far beyond the Bose L1's in performance but are still very "low visibility" with their slim design.

I just used my older Karray KR200 system to cover a Thanksgiving Prayer Breakfast with presenters and a moderately loud live 9 piece praise band.  This was held in a very reverberant college gym.  This gym has an installed system that they have used for years for basketball games and their graduation.  This was my first time for this event in that location.  The college president came up to me after the event and said it was the first time he had heard good sound in the gym, that he didn't think that was possible!  I was hired on the spot for graduation!

The trick is the narrow vertical dispersion of the system.  All seating for the event was on the floor. The customer also liked how visually unobtrusive the system was compared to a "stacks" or even speakers on a stick.  A digitally steered system like the IC Live would have worked well also.  It is not the solution for every event nor is it the only solution, but in these environments with flat seating these kinds of systems solve problems.

[Speed Daemon]

Apparently you have not used the IC live or IC^2 versions. They are quite impressive, and designed for portable use.

As I said, those systems didn't meet my specifications for SPL, frequency response and pattern control for FOH with rock bands.  I'm not saying that they don't work well for certain applications, just not mine.

[Ivan Beaver]

As I said, those systems didn't meet my specifications for SPL, frequency response and pattern control for FOH with rock bands.  I'm not saying that they don't work well for certain applications, just not mine.

Out of curiosity, what ARE your specs for SPL, response and pattern control?

And what do you use?

[Ivan Beaver]

LOOK AT THE POLARS.

EXACTLY

This applies to ALL loudspeakers.

A single simple number does not even come close to describing the pattern of a loudspeaker.

In many cases, this "number" is only good for an octave or so.

Sometimes just the top octave, sometimes a middle octave etc.

Very often it is wider-much wider, and in a lot of cases narrower-much narrower.

It does not matter how much people "want to believe" the speaker pattern is the simple number given, the reality is that the pattern is VERY freq dependent and changes quite a lot.

[Speed Daemon]

Out of curiosity, what ARE your specs for SPL, response and pattern control?

And what do you use?

The exact specs vary by application, but for rock music the bare minimum is faithful reproduction of everything from an open E string (~40Hz) to top C (~16kHz).  A nominal system for me can reproduce from C₁ to C₁₀ +/- 6dB and 120dB SPL.  Ideally I'd have a system that's perfectly linear to beyond the threshold of pain (~150 Pa as a practical limit) because the goal is cleaner sound at high dynamic levels, not just one number.

Pattern control is very much dependent on the venue, as what is beneficial in one situation can be detrimental in another.  Excluding line arrays, I like to use horn loaded systems that give me from 120x90 to 90x90 patterns in the vocal range.  I prefer 3-way systems with horn loaded mids for better pattern control lower into the midrange than your typical 2-way horn tweeter cabinet can give, and superior midrange overall.  The QSC KW153 is an example of this.  Back when Community made a lot of fiberglass horns, I used a lot of them.

Now that I'm living in a place with limited rental options, I keep a couple of the KW153 (w/ matching bass bins) and a few E-V ZLX-12P that I have for a basic wedge monitor and to use for FOH in very small venues where moving around heavier 3-way cabinets isn't practical.  When I need more than that, I rent.

How about you?  What are your specs?  What do you use?

[Ivan Beaver]

The exact specs vary by application, but for rock music the bare minimum is faithful reproduction of everything from an open E string (~40Hz) to top C (~16kHz).  A nominal system for me can reproduce from C₁ to C₁₀ +/- 6dB and 120dB SPL. 
How about you?  What are your specs?  What do you use?

When you say "120dB SPL" are you talking A or C weighted-fast or slow or peak response?  You can easily find a 30dB difference in how you measure the same exact signal.

I bet if you measured most systems, they might get down to 40hz, , but most are not going to get anywhere near 16K-at least at any decent (say FOH) distance.

Most "rock systems" will have a hard time getting to C1 at -6dB.   Assuming the -6 is an average response, and not an actual -12dB (using the average response as 0 and then assuming you can add the +/- 6dB to get -12dB)

What I take out for a system depends greatly on "what I am doing".

If I am 800' away- having a system that gets to 8Khz is almost a miracle.

Going flat to 20Hz is not problem-if that is what is needed.

I take out what is needed for freq response and SPL for the job.

Sometimes I need in excess of 150dB @ 1M and flat to 20Hz or lower, other times 110dB@1m  will do the job just fine.

I like to have actual pattern control down below 500Hz, no matter what I am doing.  It just keeps the energy where it needs to be.  Of course that means large horns.

[Speed Daemon]

Ivan, measurement is a whole 'nuther topic.  I think that we agree that it's the situation that drives the decision-making, and those vary widely.  So when you tried to pin me down on specifics that you aren't willing to give, that's not being fair, is it?

To get back to the topic, if you can produce data that shows that your stick system can perform well enough in a given situation, I'm all ears.  But I'm not a fan of using destructive interference to attack a point made in good faith.

[ProSoundWeb Community]