Line array

music festival with two line arrays of height each A line array is a loudspeaker system that is made up of a number of usually identical loudspeaker elements mounted in a line and fed in phase, to create a near-line source of sound. The distance between adjacent drivers is close enough that they constructively interfere with each other to send sound waves farther than traditional horn-loaded loudspeakers, and with a more evenly distributed sound output pattern. Line arrays can be oriented in any direction, but their primary use in public address is in vertical arrays which provide a very narrow vertical output pattern useful for focusing sound at audiences without wasting output energy on ceilings or empty air above the audience. A vertical line array displays a normally wide horizontal pattern useful for supplying sound to the majority of a concert audience. By contrast, horizontal line arrays have a very narrow output pattern horizontally but a tall pattern vertically. A row of subwoofers along the front edge of a concert stage can behave as a horizontal line array unless the signal supplied to them is adjusted (delayed, polarized, equalized) to shape the pattern otherwise. Loudspeakers can be designed to be arrayed horizontally without behaving as a horizontal line source. Modern line arrays use separate drivers for high-, mid- and low-frequency passbands.…

music festival with two line arrays of height each]] A line array is a loudspeaker system that is made up of a number of usually identical loudspeaker elements mounted in a line and fed in phase, to create a near-line source of sound. The distance between adjacent drivers is close enough that they constructively interfere with each other to send sound waves farther than traditional horn-loaded loudspeakers, and with a more evenly distributed sound output pattern. Line arrays can be oriented in any direction, but their primary use in public address is in vertical arrays which provide a very narrow vertical output pattern useful for focusing sound at audiences without wasting output energy on ceilings or empty air above the audience. A vertical line array displays a normally wide horizontal pattern useful for supplying sound to the majority of a concert audience. By contrast, horizontal line arrays have a very narrow output pattern horizontally but a tall pattern vertically. A row of subwoofers along the front edge of a concert stage can behave as a horizontal line array unless the signal supplied to them is adjusted (delayed, polarized, equalized) to shape the pattern otherwise. Loudspeakers can be designed to be arrayed horizontally without behaving as a horizontal line source. Modern line arrays use separate drivers for high-, mid- and low-frequency passbands. For the line source to work, the drivers in each passband need to be in a line. Therefore, each enclosure must be designed to rig together closely to form columns composed of high-, mid- and low-frequency speaker drivers. Increasing the number of drivers in each enclosure increases the frequency range and maximum sound pressure level, while adding additional boxes to the array will also lower the frequency in which the array achieves a directional dispersion pattern. The large format line array has become the standard for large concert venues and outdoor festivals, where such systems can be flown (rigged, suspended) from a structural beam, ground support tower or off a tall A-frame truss tower. Since the enclosures rig together and hang from a single point, they are more convenient to assemble and cable than other methods of arraying loudspeakers. The lower portion of the line array is generally curved backwards to increase dispersion at the bottom of the array and allow sound to reach more audience members. Typically, cabinets used in line arrays are trapezoidal, connected by specialized rigging hardware. In the free field, sound which has its origin at a point (a point source) will be propagated equally in all directions as a sphere. Since the surface area of a sphere = 4π r 2 where r is the radius, every doubling of the radius results in a four-fold increase in the sphere's surface area. The result of this is that the sound intensity quarters for every doubling of distance from the point source. Sound intensity is the acoustic power per unit area, and it decreases as the surface area increases since the acoustic power is spread over a greater area. The ratio between two acoustic pressures in deciBels is expressed by the equation dB = 20log(p1/p2), so for every doubling of distance from the point source p1 = 1 and p2 = 2, thus there is a sound pressure decrease of approximately 6 dB. A line source is a hypothetical one-dimensional source of a sound, as opposed to a dimensionless point source. As a line source propagates sound equally in all directions in the free field, the sound propagates in the shape of a cylinder rather than a sphere. Since the surface area of the curved surface of a cylinder = 2π r h, where r is the radius and h is the height, every doubling of the radius results in a doubling of the surface area, thus the sound intensity halves with each doubling of distance from the line source. Since p1 = 1 and p2 = 4 for every distance doubled, this results in a sound pressure decrease of approximately 3 dB. In reality, dimensionless point sources and one-dimensional line sources cannot exist; however, calculations can be made based on these theoretical models for simplicity. Thus there is only a certain distance where a line source of a finite length will produce a sound pressure higher than an equally loud point source. Interference pattern is the term applied to the dispersion pattern of a line array. It means that when you stack several loudspeakers vertically, the vertical dispersion angle decreases because the individual drivers are out of phase with each other at listening positions off-axis in the vertical plane. The taller the stack is, the narrower the vertical dispersion will be and the higher the sensitivity will be on-axis. A vertical array of drivers will have the same horizontal polar pattern as a single driver. Other than the narrowing vertical coverage, the length of the array also plays a role in what wavelengths will be affected by this narrowing of dispersion. The longer the array, the lower frequency the pattern will control. At frequencies below 100 Hz (wavelength of ) the line array which is less than approximately 3 meter long will start to become omnidirectional, so the system will not conform to line array theory across all frequencies. Above about 400 Hz the driver cones themselves become directional, again violating the theory's assumptions, and at high frequencies, many practical systems use directional waveguides whose behavior cannot be described using classical line array theory. In short, the geometry of real-world audio line arrays as used in public address systems can only be modeled approximately by line array theory, and only in the 100–400 Hz range. ==Configurations== Two configurations that are rarely used are the straight and curved array. The problem with curved arrays is that they are not very well suited to the average venue. While the bottom half will be angled down to provide extra coverage at locations close to the front of the stage, the top half will be angled upwards at the ceiling. Also, the problem with straight line arrays is that the beam is far too narrow at high frequencies. A solution to utilize the best features of both arrays is to use a curvilinear or ‘J’ array. This is made up of a straight line portion and a curved portion, normally at the bottom. This provides a long throw straight line component for people relatively far away, while the curve at the bottom acts as an in-fill for the area underneath the array that would otherwise be neglected Spiral arrays are the next development from J-arrays, and have a superior frequency response due to their similar polar pattern at shifting frequencies, while still retaining the long throw and in-fill benefits that J-arrays provide. The concept is that spiral arrays are curved all the way along the array, but the curve is progressive. This means that the top of the array is almost straight with angles of 1° between boxes, and increases at the bottom to between 6° and about 10°. A well-designed spiral array could have an almost constant directivity pattern with frequency, with some small lobes exhibited at low frequencies.

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