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[John Roberts {JR}]

One thing that would surprise many "live" guys, is how large the install market really is.

They are not in that market, and don't realize the size.

I was working at Peavey when we jumped in with both feet...

Another amount of the iceberg underwater vs above comparison is the number of musicians performing on stage vs in the audience willing to buy. (Hint the audience is worth more sales.)

For every club or venue in an area, just think about how many Churches, schools, performance spaces, sports facilities, workout rooms etc there are.  And how many rooms each of these facilities may have.

Don't forget malls and shopping centers, while they may be in slight decline at the moment. But the internet fulfillment warehouses replacing them need paging and background music too.

As a "general rule" (yes it varies a bit either direction), the install market is 60-70% of total sales for loudspeaker companies.

While a rental house may buy a system or two an use it over and over, an install house has to constantly buy systems to install, or they go out of business.

...And amplifiers, and sound distribution systems. That market surprisingly (or not) can be pretty conservative and resistant to change (don't fix it if it ain't broke). Peavey had an uphill slog to gain market share with a brand that literally everybody (including install contractors) loved to hate.  The game changer for Peavey was Mediamatrix computerized sound systems technology that allowed us to eliminate rooms full of processing gear, and miles of wire, not to mention the labor to connect all those boxes together and make them work. Contractors were forced to embrace using Peavey technology, or lose the bid to somebody undercutting them by tens of percent on the quote because they used Peavey. Money speaks pretty loudly in that market.

I see a similar hook for Danley if a handful of high output boxes can replace an expensive pile of other technology, or stack, or line array. If they do a better job at the same time, that is just icing on the cake. They won the install business competition with lower cost. Overcoming rider snobbery for the performance market is less linear.

Keep the hits coming...   

JR

[Tim McCulloch]

I see a similar hook for Danley if a handful of high output boxes can replace an expensive pile of other technology, or stack, or line array. If they do a better job at the same time, that is just icing on the cake. They won the install business competition with lower cost. Overcoming rider snobbery for the performance market is less linear.

Keep the hits coming...   

JR

Yep, and that's why I mentioned it would take more than 1 successful tour in my reply regarding Roland C's assessment of touring.  There's an incredible amount of "me, too" in the touring industry coupled with the career-ending impact of a bad PA choice for a production manager or tour manager.  The touring industry is every bit as conservative (resistant to change) as the installation market but I think there is more emotion and preference bias than in installation were it's almost 110% about the Benjamins.

I think Ivan is being charitable regarding the difference in sales impact of live production.  My guess is that  <20% of the commercial/professional audio manufacturing *profit* is generated by sales of professional touring products.  Audio is so ubiquitous that live sound folks don't pay attention to sound unless there is a stage somewhere and live folks have no idea how much money is involved in the install side.

[Roland Clarke]

Yep, and that's why I mentioned it would take more than 1 successful tour in my reply regarding Roland C's assessment of touring.  There's an incredible amount of "me, too" in the touring industry coupled with the career-ending impact of a bad PA choice for a production manager or tour manager.  The touring industry is every bit as conservative (resistant to change) as the installation market but I think there is more emotion and preference bias than in installation were it's almost 110% about the Benjamin’s.

But here’s the rub.  How many people queue up to take out the latest thing in touring, where often it isn’t really proven.  If this wasn’t the case L’Acoustic, D&B Audiotechink, Meyer, Would never get their new stuff out of the Wharehouse.  The truth is plenty are prepared to take risks for whatever reason, prestige, getting a jump on the market, perhaps very preferential terms on the new kit. 

Their apparently are some comments floating around from Robert Scovill re problems with really poor sound on some stadium gigs along with some terrible punter reviews saying how bad sound has been on some of these gigs.  Some people have posted it on professional forums on Facebook where the posts have been shutdown on the basis that they group doesn’t support disparaging remarks about other professionals, particularly as we all know it may very well been completely out of their control.  It does indeed seem that top act touring is completely about the money.  For a long time I’ve been saying the music industry has managed to move all the money into a handful of top acts whereas the rest scramble for the crumbs.

[Tim McCulloch]

But here’s the rub.  How many people queue up to take out the latest thing in touring, where often it isn’t really proven.  If this wasn’t the case L’Acoustic, D&B Audiotechink, Meyer, Would never get their new stuff out of the Wharehouse.  The truth is plenty are prepared to take risks for whatever reason, prestige, getting a jump on the market, perhaps very preferential terms on the new kit. 

Their apparently are some comments floating around from Robert Scovill re problems with really poor sound on some stadium gigs along with some terrible punter reviews saying how bad sound has been on some of these gigs.  Some people have posted it on professional forums on Facebook where the posts have been shutdown on the basis that they group doesn’t support disparaging remarks about other professionals, particularly as we all know it may very well been completely out of their control.  It does indeed seem that top act touring is completely about the money.  For a long time I’ve been saying the music industry has managed to move all the money into a handful of top acts whereas the rest scramble for the crumbs.

The other rub is that l'Acoustic, d&b, JBL, Meyer have established reputations and the tours that are shown taking out the first rigs have been courted to do so or there may be an existing relationship between the artist, PM/TM or FOH mixerperson and the manufacturer.  These things don't happen in a vacuum.

I'm not a FaceSpace/myBook user so I'm mostly ignorant of audience/consumer hubris unless it shows up on a non-social media platform.  I recall a terrible review of a concert in Atlanta (?) in a new stadium where the tour declined to integrate with the installed system (discussed here on the LAB, IIRC).  I suppose there are others where punters and others are dissatisfied.  Feel free to PM me with anything you don't want to present on this forum, but I'm interested to hear what Scovil is saying.

I agree that the big money is situated with a relatively small number of performers, probably fewer than 50 in the USA and maybe 500 world wide; we just harvest the left overs.

[John Roberts {JR}]

Not to keep flogging this dead horse (where is that emoticon Dave used?). When I was over product management for Peavey my loudspeaker product manager wanted desperately to gain entrée into the touring market. Sadly the math just didn't work for us. The investment in free demo gear, and hand holding was just never going to happen. Peavey didn't have the marketing budget or stomach for that.

I also had some pretty disappointing discussions with major Peavey dealers trying to explain why the more professional loudspeaker offerings that Peavey did offer cost more than the mass market boxes... 

JR 

[Tom Danley]

I slightly disagree.

We all talk about scaleability, but it’s not really the problem.  If we think about all we need is a main system that can cover up to just over 100m distance and about 60m wide.  From about 20m, so probably 70-90 degrees nominal width.

Over 100m you are probably looking at delays so you only need to hit around 91db peak.

Front, you are going to need fills for any sizeable gig. 

If the fields wide, you need outfills.

Scaling down is comparatively easy.

It’s interesting that the two big players in modern point source systems, KV2 and Danley, have got systems that will do this.  Perhaps the only thing they would struggle with would be the vertical shading to keep sound off theatre balcony’s like MLA can.

Hi Roland, all
There has always been an issue of looking “much too small to do the job" and so discounted on size or driver count.      But when you can get all the drivers to horn load and add coherently, without self cancelation into one single source, you can get more than size would suggest.

You mentioned 91dB peak at 100 meters and needing delays past that.
 
The J-7 in this thread seems large enough to do a modest audience .

That box that can do 100dBA slow at 100 meters (would be peaks around 106dB)                       
You would reaching peaks of around 94dB at 400 meters.

Because they radiate as a single acoustic source, there is no distance where they become a jumble or unlistenable, there is no swishy sound when there is a crosswind, there is very little change in sound anywhere in the pattern and the pattern edges are pronounced.

So you could use the 2x2 mounts and fly one J7 and reach the level you mentioned.

I don't know which system is heavier, more costly or takes up more truck space or time to raise and lower,,, but to reach that 91dB peak at 100m, one would need to grab the old headroom knob and back down the J7 by about -15 dB.   

Umm, I am curious, if you have the aiming  program for that array, see what one would have to hang to get +15dB more than that system or 100dBA  at 100 meters, honestly this wasn't that easy in that  size Horn /  box.   
Best Regards
Tom Danley

[Roland Clarke]

Hi Roland, all
There has always been an issue of looking “much too small to do the job" and so discounted on size or driver count.      But when you can get all the drivers to horn load and add coherently, without self cancelation into one single source, you can get more than size would suggest.

You mentioned 91dB peak at 100 meters and needing delays past that.
 
The J-7 in this thread seems large enough to do a modest audience .

That box that can do 100dBA slow at 100 meters (would be peaks around 106dB)                       
You would reaching peaks of around 94dB at 400 meters.

Because they radiate as a single acoustic source, there is no distance where they become a jumble or unlistenable, there is no swishy sound when there is a crosswind, there is very little change in sound anywhere in the pattern and the pattern edges are pronounced.

So you could use the 2x2 mounts and fly one J7 and reach the level you mentioned.

I don't know which system is heavier, more costly or takes up more truck space or time to raise and lower,,, but to reach that 91dB peak at 100m, one would need to grab the old headroom knob and back down the J7 by about -15 dB.   

Umm, I am curious, if you have the aiming  program for that array, see what one would have to hang to get +15dB more than that system or 100dBA  at 100 meters, honestly this wasn't that easy in that  size Horn /  box.   
Best Regards
Tom Danley

Good to see you posting here! 😁

I don’t have any specific ease data for the KV2, but they are claiming 147spl long term with a peak at 151 dB, for the vhd5 system, but that includes 3 additional upper bass modules a total of 433 kg. 

I’m sure it’s adequate to hit the targets I talked about in my original post.  My thoughts come from the fact that limits imposed by health and safety and environmental concerns limit the amount of spl we can use.  An interesting one was a comment from Glastonbury stating they were reaching 103 at foh for a Who concert.  Foh is 60m from the hang so we are only talking about 139db at 1m.  Even if this measurement was a average A weighted peak would be 145, well within what the J7 or the vhd5 can achieve.  The present system was 4 x 18 box line array hangs plus delays.  Obviously some people will argue headroom, but I suspect there would be sufficient comb to negate a fair amount of that.

My original comment about the number of hf drivers was based both on the fact the J1 only had three and I’ve seen a couple of videos online where at considerable distance their appeared to be enough hf, the vhd5 uses three I think two of which are configured on a line array style waveguide the third asymmetrically aimed to cover near field.

[John Halliburton]

Good to see you posting here! 😁

I don’t have any specific ease data for the KV2, but they are claiming 147spl long term with a peak at 151 dB, for the vhd5 system, but that includes 3 additional upper bass modules a total of 433 kg. 

I’m sure it’s adequate to hit the targets I talked about in my original post.  My thoughts come from the fact that limits imposed by health and safety and environmental concerns limit the amount of spl we can use.  An interesting one was a comment from Glastonbury stating they were reaching 103 at foh for a Who concert.  Foh is 60m from the hang so we are only talking about 139db at 1m.  Even if this measurement was a average A weighted peak would be 145, well within what the J7 or the vhd5 can achieve.  The present system was 4 x 18 box line array hangs plus delays.  Obviously some people will argue headroom, but I suspect there would be sufficient comb to negate a fair amount of that.

My original comment about the number of hf drivers was based both on the fact the J1 only had three and I’ve seen a couple of videos online where at considerable distance their appeared to be enough hf, the vhd5 uses three I think two of which are configured on a line array style waveguide the third asymmetrically aimed to cover near field.

While tighter than other older "point source" designs, they fail by using direct radiating 10" midbass drivers around the mf and hf horn modules.  The equivalent size of the midbass radiating complement may improve their directivity somewhat, they should've just horn loaded it to match the other bands.  It also means the processing is going to be pretty involved to try and smooth things out.

The rig they demo in the video is basically the same size as the DSL Caleb, but I sure wouldn't want to be on the KV2 team at a side by side shootout with one.

Best regards,

John

In the final analysis, it doesn't compare to what Tom's doing with the Synergy horn

[Randy Pence]

I expect the fixed install market to be larger than touring. If they can cover both applications with one box it's all good, but not easy to be all things to all people. 

JR

In Europe, the 2 markets are largely one and the same, which is why factory rigging is so important here.

[Roland Clarke]

While tighter than other older "point source" designs, they fail by using direct radiating 10" midbass drivers around the mf and hf horn modules.  The equivalent size of the midbass radiating complement may improve their directivity somewhat, they should've just horn loaded it to match the other bands.  It also means the processing is going to be pretty involved to try and smooth things out.

The rig they demo in the video is basically the same size as the DSL Caleb, but I sure wouldn't want to be on the KV2 team at a side by side shootout with one.

Best regards,

John

In the final analysis, it doesn't compare to what Tom's doing with the Synergy horn

Absolutely.  The only directionality it will get will be similar to a line array of that given length, the Danley will obviously have some more pattern control.  I had the opportunity to hear the KV2 SL 412 and the ESR 215 earlier this year and fidelity was extremely good, but they are not heavy spl boxes.  My point is that give or take a smidge,  no one makes a box or a single hang that is designed to cover more than a 100m X 60m field.  On the largest concert systems, the main hangs only cover this sort of area.  We know what ball park spl we need to produce so all major systems are aiming to produce the most even coverage of that zone.  Furthermore if you can cover this with a pair of single cabs it renders scaleability a bit pointless.

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