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Church and H.O.W. – Forums for HOW Sound and AV - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Church and HOW Forums => Church Sound Archive => Topic started by: bass on February 23, 2005, 11:15:03 AM
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A while back someone suggested that I should try the Bose 502a panaray speaker system. I also looked at the 402II speakers. I will be using them as point source about six feet apart flared outward slight tilted down. I was wondering if any one had experience with these speakers? I thought about using lasers to aim the speakers for instance attach lasers to the speakers showing the directivity. Is that feasible?
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"I was wondering if any one had experience with these speakers?"
If this is the horn-loaded stuff, then I can tell you that the designer, Cliff Henrickson, is one of the "godfathers" of modern loudspeaker and horn design. Aklthough I have not had the need to use Bose horn devices, I would not be hesitant in doing this..... what so ever.
"I thought about using lasers to aim the speakers for instance attach lasers to the speakers showing the directivity. Is that feasible?"
No.
Loudspeakers do not behave in such a linear fashion, first of all.
Second; they behave differently over frequency.
Third; specifications are provided by the manufacturers and not an independent lab. So how much can we trsut them to eb spot on ?
While there is certain justification in plotting loudspeaker coverage on architectural backgrounds as part of the system design process and this also involves using "straight lines" to represent the specified coverage patterns.... the degree of error in ldspkr system design is such that there would be nothing gained by employing lasers in such a fashion when installing..... in my humble opinion.
I'm not saying "be sloppy" or "don't worry - be happy". I'm just saying that aligning things so precisley and with such a "pure" metric as laser light is a waste of time because in the real (audio) world, as you go up or down in frequency the coverage angles you are using will not be the same.
If your project involves a few Bose ldspkrs, the chances are very good that you can get Bose (or one of their regional reps) to model the space and system with the Modeler prediction software.
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The 402II is not the horn loaded Bose that Tom mentioned. They are the small column speakers that have 4 – small (about 4 1/2”) full range speakers. It depends on your application as to whether these would be appropriate or not.
I am not a fan of these speakers. A high school near me (during a major renovation of the auditorium that seats about 900) installed a sound system using these in their auditorium. They do a lot of theatrical shows and they gave up trying to use the installed system after one try. They are installed 1 – left, 1 - center and 1 – right but not a true LCR. And 3 as a delay ring mostly covering the balcony, there is no under balcony seating that’s where the light booth is. They could not get enough gain before feedback with these speakers. There is also a Bose sub way up high in the front of the room.
I have done a few things in this auditorium that were basically 1 person at a podium plus projection. And I have been able to tweak the system enough to make it work ok.
So I guess if you were to mount them in the right place (this is VERY IMPORTANT) and with the right expectations they may be fine. But I don’t think they are worth the money. The school is in the process of rebuilding the rest of the school and cant use their auditorium during the construction because of blocked exit routs. During this construction a few of these speakers were stolen. I said that could be a blessing in disguise but was told that they are self insured so its money out of their pocket.
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Woops, you are right. I should have checked the catalog.
I have pretty much the same opinion of these. They can work but they need to be mounted appropriately and you need to understand their limitations.
I just visited a church last week wherein the 402's they used for delay fills were all mounted horizontally (to blend in architecturally) and this left pretty blatant holes in coverage (the 402's are 120-degrees H x 60-degrees V). Once they were remounted in the correct orientation things were substantially improved.
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What is the size of the room you are trying to cover?
We use Bose Speakers for our DJ Division. We do not use them for larger applications because there are other speakers that fit better.
Bose speakers are very power hungry and like to eat. However, once you give them the power they want, they rock. Bose is also VERY conservative on their power ratings. For example, the 502BP sub says that it can handle 900Watts continuous. However, after calling Bose about an other question, they relayed to me that that unit is actually rated at 1800 Watts Continuously. They underate their units knowing people are going to push the limits.
You will find some large arenas use Bose speakers throughout because of the small size and large sound. For example, the old Tiger Stadium here in Detroit is outfitted with all Bose speakers throughout running Carver Amps. Since Carver Amps are not around anymore, you will need differnt amps.
Another thing to keep in mind is certain amps work better with Bose than others. For example, we use Mackie 1400i's with our systems since they make the 802 speakers sound like they are horn driven even though they are not. Some amps do not give you that sound.
Bottom line, BOSE are very niec speakers and you can get them in balck or white for your application. They have an awesome warranty. In 10+ years, I have only had to send in one sub for warranty and we have 4 complete systems. The sub was blown due to on of my DJ's who is very irresponsible and no longer works for me because he broke something everytime he went out. Usually he broke the newest item!
Good luck.....
Lyle
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Ah yes, it wasn't easy to come up with a new system that actually sounded worse than the 30+ year old EV re-entrant horns (that they left hanging) but they managed. The last game that I attended there, I walked the stadium and frankly, if you got within 30-40 feet and +/- 10 degrres of on axis , you might actually have been able to discern one out of every three words (assuming you were a fairly critical listener). They obviously had the plans well under way for the new Comerica Park and did the Tiger Stadium system 'on the cheap'.
JMHO,
Al
p.s. I don't really care what name was on the system - it was grossly under-designed for the job at hand.
p
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I noticed no one mentioned the 502a's after the first post. We installed a set about a year ago in my church and they haven't been too shabby. I would have rather gone with some Bag End's or Turbosound's personally but they were donated, and we actually got them for relatively cheap, so I'm gonna complain. With the 502a's though make sure they're at least 8 feet apart. They don't play nice together any closer than that. I've got a 2/3 octave eq in the signal path before the Panaray Controller so eq isn't too big of a problem. I would definitely recommend no less than two MB4's. We've only got one on an older amp which has the power but doesn't seem to be putting out a lot (nobody noticed until today with following hilarity with someone telling me we needed to put it on the stereo full range 402II setting) but hopefully that will get remedied soon with a new amp (QSC RMX850) and another MB4. All in all it isn't a spectacular system but I've heard a lot of other systems in my area that are simply poorly designed (FOH speakers 4 feet behind the pulpit for instance) and very poorly run.
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"point source" with 6 feet separation? I assume this is a mono system. I guess you are considering 2 boxes to get the desired horizontal coverage. This will work best if the boxes are tight together. Is there some reason for the separation? These are credible loudspeakers as are many others. The first step is to determine the coverage angles you need, then the bandwidth you need, and the max. SPL you need.
I don't know enough about your room to go much further. But, in most churches the rear wall reflections are the killer to good sound. The higher the loudspeakers the greater the down angle of the loudspeakers. This forces the rear wall reflections into the floor long before they get to the front of the church.
Lasers make a lot of sense. However, they are used to aim the loudspeakers at the proper seats as determined by sound system design software. Good design and quality loudspeakers yield highly predictable results.
The 402II loudspeakers act as a line array. Their coverage angles will not allow high suspension with downward tilt. They can be very effective if mounted at ear height but rear wall reflections can be a killer with them.
Bottem line - you must understand the acoustics of the room before you chose loudspeakers and their location.
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"point source" with 6 feet separation? I assume this is a mono system. I guess you are considering 2 boxes to get the desired horizontal coverage. This will work best if the boxes are tight together. Is there some reason for the separation? "
If there was some good reason to use 2 402's (or 502's, for that matter) arrayed horizontally, then it would be beneficial to split them up to reduce audible combfiltering. But there is no good reason to use 2 of these devices unless (perhaps) if you needed to use one as a primary and the other one as a delay/fill ldspkr. In order for this to work you would aim them for minimal overlap.
"The 402II loudspeakers act as a line array. Their coverage angles will not allow high suspension with downward tilt. They can be very effective if mounted at ear height but rear wall reflections can be a killer with them."
These do not behave as line sources/arrays. There are too few drivers. The 402 is specified as covering 120H x 60V and the 502 is specified as covering 120H x 70V. I have had a few church clients with these systems and they work well (for what they do) when suspended high and tilted down due to these coverage angles. A line array (or a system that exhibited line array behavior) would, as you point out, not be a candidate for high elevation and tilting.