Line Array at Excel Music Show.

I went to the show on Sunday, mainly to look at guitars and amps. An old favorite of mine was playing by the name of Albert Lee. He, as always was great. but the balance in the mix wasn't good and the general sound was poor. The area was a bit cavernous, but you would think by now that these wonderful systems would be able to cope.
It suddenly dawned on me that there is a lot of line array that is on the small side with 8's or 10's as the main speaker. The cab is only 2 way and I now believe that the speaker has to do too much. any excursion of the speaker will impede the clarity needed for the high end of the unit, resulting in a sound that is far from clear. A lot of speakers are little more than direct radiating speakers and as we know this is the biggest mismatch to the surrounding air you can get. The sound was also coming from the columns, so it sounded distant. I believe that if you could properly horn load line array, a lot of the love hate relationship would vanish. I'm still waiting to be impressed.

It sounds like an under spec'd rig to me. I have heard some of the new mini lines in suitable locations and they have sounded very good.
Don't Martin do an all horn Array?

Tony

Even the horn loaded ones are compromised for the benefit of a compact cab. I suppose I always compare the sound with an open fronted horn. I have always thought the line array was designed to facilitate certain criteria. I don't believe it was designed to up the anti in the sound stakes.

The key word in the above post is compromise, everything I've read about line array systems written by experts is that the cabs designs has built into it various compromises. To my mind sound isn't about concession and middle grounds, it's only ever about maximum and utmost quality in every area possible!
Let's put it this way. If the sky was the limit and funds were no object whatsoever, at all! And you had pretty much a near unlimited amount of capital to build a system to rock the socks off half a million people or more. Would you do it by line array? No not at all. A ground based system the size of a large tower block laid on its side springs to mind, and designed to be perfectly stable.
No doubt in this galaxy there are many worlds far more advanced than ours, with highly evolved civilizations that left building battleships, tanks, death choppers and all that repugnant nonsense behind thousands and thousands of years ago. I wonder what their systems are like, as music is the universal language and the principle behind delivering the sound waves is the same, that being air movement. The only thing is their ability to control electromagnetism is far, far in advance of ours, as super strong fields of magnetic energy can even bend light right back in on itself (refraction) and the magnetic fields saucers generate is off the friggin' index enabling invisibility. Which leads me to ponder that they do not use solid magnets like we do around cones but generate the magnetic field by a different method.
What's wrong is that you hear people refer to societies as established! Established my arse! All societies are emergent. Established, or to be more precise the establishment refers to those who do not wish for change! Because change would be unfavourable to them. They like things just the way they are.
Every now and then great revolutions come along evolve humanity. By God we really need to evolve, as it can't carry on like this.
Personally I dislike line arrays with a passion. They do not strike me as a party speaker that you can get up close and personal with if you so desire. They're corporate, distant, and very plain.
Latters.

Blimey!
smiley32
Much as i also dislike line arrays, i do think that if you had 500,000 people to play music to than you would have to do it with a line array.
sorry.
Glastonbury's pyramid stage last year sounded awesome from waaaay back at the back when i heard Crowded House (i think it was) playing.
by the way, may i also take this opportunity to say hello again - i managed to get back in to FSP after numerous attempts since it all went tits up.
It's looking a little busier on here no? onwards & upwards.

We need a new section, "The meaning of life"
Hi Jody, busy?

yes thanks.
my rigs off on tour with some famous piano player for a month, & i'm having to rent in another rig to do my regular gigs.
all busy at the factory too. just finished a club system for london which i'm off to cable up tomorrow, and just finished 6 of 10 MP400's yesterday. need to build a 6 top box CS 850 system for Singapore by the end of next week:ohmy:
nice to be back on here again. I couldn't get in for ages. much better smileys on here smiley20
Glade festival's looking exiting - Franks doing a 1200 person Liquid stage, Glen's doing the Psy-Forum stage, and I'm doing the chill out again.
nice & relaxed for most of the festival, then after all the other stages are shut on sunday night, there's going to be a party on the chill out rig, culminating in Eat Static live at 4:00 AM monday, with permission to spank the rig good & propper. nice end to the festy, as long as the weather's good.
Got samples of the 15" versions of the new opus 18 that you heard turning up soon. yay! maybe a whole new bass end for me. the 4 ohm 24" cones are at last on their way down to me now, so i can at last power the wheelie subs properly. i'll try them out next friday. been waiting nearly 3 yrs!
also working on getting some large tripods made up, so i can run my rig outside as if in a tipi. flown tops, bass under, space for amps, and all covered & safe. tripods, abit like this, but up to 5m tall.






Did you build your speakers we cut out? any good?

sorry, i appear to have gone totally off topic. still, it's not just me. smiley4

line arrays, it's the emporers new clothes innit. too much techno babble, and not enough listening.

Tony.A.S.S. wrote: Even the horn loaded ones are compromised for the benefit of a compact cab...

I've often been disappointed by small line array cabs. Even the Martin one's weren't all that good when I heard them in Amsterdam's MelkVeg and I normally rate Martin very highly. The d&b ones in Cambridge's Junction are OK though a little thin sounding.

A small number of big line array boxes always sounds better to me than a large number of small boxes. The line array hangs in Fabric use only two cabinets of Martin's big line array and produce the best nightclub sound I've heard ever, period (even better than all the $$$ F1 stuff in Ibiza's superclubs).

People say that for line arrays to work, the lines must be very long compared to the wavelengths, to approximate an infinitely long straight line source. But that's simply not true: the line can be as short as you like, and it'll still sound fine (it just has to be approximately smooth and unbroken)

This misconception harms the reputation of line arrays and (annoyingly for me) harms the reputation of acoustic theory as a design factor.

Edit: choosing my words carefully in case someone argues

A lot of people who dislike LA's have also commented on the thin sound. Now assuming that any rig set-up correctly is going to be eq'ed fairly flat what could be the cause of this apparent thinness?

Could it be the time anomalies as a result of the length of the line from the many mid drivers as proposed by T.A. and others?

How about the mids being just too clean as a result of HQ 6" or 8" drivers on the smaller lines.

Could it be a psychological effect ?

As it happens the best I have heard has used 5" drivers (4 per cab) on the mids. And it was the whole mid range that simply sounded stunning almost up to what I class as Hi-Fi quality (but that's another story) although there were only 4 cabs per side.

Tony