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[Luke Geis]

fwiw I must have been half asleep when I wrote 70HF drivers.... Yes 14 per Anya. I believe the Anya is meant to be entirely a beam steering system as it hangs straight with no splay between boxes. Each speaker in the box is also on its own amp channel with its own dsp. Despite that, the length of the array is the major factor in its ability to control coverage and MOST arrays are not long enough to have any real control over a usable number of octaves anyway. A 12 box hang of any array is only barely enough to be considered a full hang. Most people seem to utilize between 4-8 boxes when doing corporate and smaller shows. What's the point? Still to this day have not heard a LA system that has made me go hell yeah, must have.

[Mac Kerr]

fwiw I must have been half asleep when I wrote 70HF drivers.... Yes 14 per Anya. I believe the Anya is meant to be entirely a beam steering system as it hangs straight with no splay between boxes. Each speaker in the box is also on its own amp channel with its own dsp. Despite that, the length of the array is the major factor in its ability to control coverage and MOST arrays are not long enough to have any real control over a usable number of octaves anyway. A 12 box hang of any array is only barely enough to be considered a full hang. Most people seem to utilize between 4-8 boxes when doing corporate and smaller shows. What's the point? Still to this day have not heard a LA system that has made me go hell yeah, must have.

The demo I went of Anna was either a 4 or 6 box hang. The beam steering capabilities were astounding. They were able to sweep a fairly narrow vertical slice of coverage from right below the array to the far back of the room. You are free to remain a skeptic, it worked when I saw it.

Mac

[Tim McCulloch]

The demo I went of Anna was either a 4 or 6 box hang. The beam steering capabilities were astounding. They were able to sweep a fairly narrow vertical slice of coverage from right below the array to the far back of the room. You are free to remain a skeptic, it worked when I saw it.

Mac

^^^ What Mac said...

I went to the Avid/EAW/Tom Petty dog and pony show.  I walked the arena while most of the others were learning Console Tricks from Scovi... and then chatted up the system engineer.  I was impressed and that takes a lot these days.  Anya is big, heavy, and the widgets and doohickeys and little squirrels inside are all complicated things.

But it does what it says on the tin, so to speak.  The coverage was consistent, both in SPL and tonality, even 80° down.  While EAW is not the only manufacturer to accomplish this the Anya was the first rig I'd heard where I trust how it was set up (for a show, not a demo, and by Scovi/Sound Image techs).

Luke, you need to get out more.

[Helge A Bentsen]

The demo I went of Anna was either a 4 or 6 box hang. The beam steering capabilities were astounding. They were able to sweep a fairly narrow vertical slice of coverage from right below the array to the far back of the room. You are free to remain a skeptic, it worked when I saw it.

Mac

+1
I've done corporate shows with as little as 2 or 3 Annas a side, the coverage was still a thing of beauty even with such a limited number of boxes.

[Chris Grimshaw]

The demo I went of Anna was either a 4 or 6 box hang. The beam steering capabilities were astounding. They were able to sweep a fairly narrow vertical slice of coverage from right below the array to the far back of the room. You are free to remain a skeptic, it worked when I saw it.

Mac

Question: how much of the frequency range was effectively steered?

I can imagine it's pretty easy above a few hundred Hz. Just do it end-fire style and apply progressive delays to the different elements to "launch" a wavefront in the desired direction.

Below a few hundred Hz, where the array is getting acoustically small, it gets more challenging. I'd guess that you have to start inverting the signal to certain elements to actively "cancel" sound going in that direction. If that's the case, output has to suffer in the name of directivity control.

Just curious. I'm not in the market for line arrays and haven't attended any demos.

Chris

[Luke Geis]

I wish I could get out more.......     I should have made a new paragraph when I said: " despite that ". I have not myself heard the Anya, but everyone I talk to about them says the same thing, amazing coverage control. Sound wise, well I'm sure it sounds just as well as the others. There isn't much to dispute though, that the length of the array is a factor in its ability to control coverage. I would imagine the Anya to be better than most conventional LA systems, it has multitudes more DSP and drivers to do what it does. However, a longer 8-16 box length of Anya's I imagine can do more than a 4 box hang in terms of control. 

It's not that I am a skeptic, I just have not heard a LA system yet that has made me that excited. Meyers, L'Acoustics, D&B, Martins, JBL's and several others have all done well and honestly sound fine, but none have made me go OMG that is amazing; YET.

[Steve-White]

The demo I went of Anna was either a 4 or 6 box hang. The beam steering capabilities were astounding. They were able to sweep a fairly narrow vertical slice of coverage from right below the array to the far back of the room. You are free to remain a skeptic, it worked when I saw it.

Mac

This concept has been around a while and is proven as in the acoustic lens horns designed in 1954 that worked on mechanical delay line to spread the wavefront.  Today it's used in sound projection equipment slated for military applications with very narrow beam projection of noise.  Projection of high intensity sound pressure that can disable/disorient ground troops on the battlefield.

A hop skip and a jump to PA audio systems with today's processing power.  Powered boxes with the processing onboard and network controlled.

5 years from now this will be standard at the high end of the industry.

[Steve Payne]

It's not that I am a skeptic, I just have not heard a LA system yet that has made me that excited. Meyers, L'Acoustics, D&B, Martins, JBL's and several others have all done well and honestly sound fine, but none have made me go OMG that is amazing; YET.

Curious what systems have you heard that made you go OMG that is amazing?

[Luke Geis]

The L'Acoustics ARC was one, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Meyer UPJ's for what you would use them for. The Martin W8 was probably the best LA system I have used so far and really was impressed by. It just sounded right from the get-go. I have used and heard several other systems but there was always just something about them. Martin in general just has a sound I prefer I guess, as I have not been disappointed by anything of theirs I have used. I really like the L'Acoustics point source stuff, it too just sounds right from the get-go. I own the JBL SRX 800 stuff and for the price, it kicks some good booty and requires very little work to make me happy. I have an octet of RCF NX series monitors that also for the price really do sound good and measure well. It's not that I am a snob, I just have a sound in my head that I think is right and not many arrays or speakers fall into that idea.

[Martin Morris]

The L'Acoustics ARC was one, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Meyer UPJ's for what you would use them for. The Martin W8 was probably the best LA system I have used so far and really was impressed by. It just sounded right from the get-go. I have used and heard several other systems but there was always just something about them. Martin in general just has a sound I prefer I guess, as I have not been disappointed by anything of theirs I have used. I really like the L'Acoustics point source stuff, it too just sounds right from the get-go. I own the JBL SRX 800 stuff and for the price, it kicks some good booty and requires very little work to make me happy. I have an octet of RCF NX series monitors that also for the price really do sound good and measure well. It's not that I am a snob, I just have a sound in my head that I think is right and not many arrays or speakers fall into that idea.

Still to this day have not heard a LA system that has made me go hell yeah, must have.

If it sounded right from the get-go and you were really impressed - Isn't that a "Hell Yeah" moment?
Check out the Martin WPL or MLA, which are current systems, unlike the legacy W8.



Cheers
Martin

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