Line arrays

Can I get some help with dropping these in to a line array?

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=269-570

Thanks.

I can try to help. What type of array are you planning to do? Open baffle or standard closed or ported enclosure etc. Also what tweeters and crossover designs are you gonna be using?

I finished my arrays a while back. I used those midbasses and the Onkyo buyout tweeters . You can check it out on my webpage on the line array link. I know the whole web page is pretty sad looking but its under construction. I still have all the grapics work to do lol.

http://www.rtcustomdesigns.net/

I've got a ton of pictures covering the construction and a bit on the actual design but nothign too significant in the way of FR graphs or anything. I still havnt got a sound card for my computer to use my measuremtn mic yet .



Ryan

wow, that's awesome. What tweeters do you recommend?

I'm looking to do something about half the size you did, along with several speakers utilizing say, 4 midrange and 2 tweets

With line array speakers its all about driver spacing and comb filtering. If you space the tweeters too far away they will not play very high. Usually you want the tweeters to be as close as possible. If they are 3.5 cm apart they will usually work up to 20 K hz. If they are 7cm apart they will only effectivly work up to 10 K hz. So you want to look for a tweeter with a VERY small face plate. For a really cheap solumtion this tweeter should work.
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=269-708

For a better quality tweeter i would use one of these.
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=275-035
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=275-030
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=297-408
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=297-409

Those NSB 4"ers sound pretty good suprisingly. They dont fare to well above 3 Khz in my opinion. Because of the tweeters I'm using i have to cross the midbasses over at around 4000 Hz. For some music they can sound a bit muddy in the midrange. I would use at least 4 tweeters along with the midbasses in your case. You want the tweeter element to be at littler long than what you'll get with just two tweeters. I think you should be good with 8 or so of those cheaper tweeters. They will be about the same lenght as the 4 NSB's which will be good. The other route is using one tweeter in between the midbasses. So it would be MMTMM configuration. The hardest thing with that is getting a tweeter that is effecient enough to match the SPL levels of the midbasses. Sure you can always L-pad the midbasses but then you loose all of that great effeciency of a line array.


Ryan

Let me clarify.

I'm working on a few projects.

1.) high end line array, 2 total, for the main speakers. looking at 8 or 16 NSBs per tower and 4 or 8 tweeters if they can keep up

2.) low cost general purpose speakers for outside and whatnot, like 2 NSBs and a tweeter.

I like these tweets:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=275-035


the onkyo tweets are the right price, but start at around 6khz, and from what I've seen, these NSBs neext to be xovered atound 3khz or less

It would be good to use tweeters wit hthe NSB's as you mentioned they dont work to well over 3Khz. But I think the problem your gonna run into is with 8 NSB's you'll have a 32" line of drivers minimum. And with 8 of those tweeters it'll be about a 10" line of tweeters. To prevent the effects of lobing and comb filtering you have to keep the spacing on the tweeters VERY close. Thats why a lot of line arrays use ribbon tweeters. Cause they are long enough and give you very close spacing between drivers. I'm wanting to use 8 dayton planar tweeters to replace the onkyo tweeters I have.

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=275-085

Obviously that would add quite a bit to the price of each tower. You can choose to space the tweeters a bit further apart but the further apart which will cut off how high the speaker can play. Mine dont have very clean response above 12Khz since my tweeter spacing is about 2".


Ryan

Why do I need the tweeters to be as high as the woofers? Can't I do a like 8" row of tweets and a 32" row of NSBs? the tweets are more efficent

what if I used a ton of these:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=269-708

with teh xover at 4.5k?

according to this:

http://audioroundtable.com/ArraySpeakers/messages/335.html

I've gotta crossover below 3.2k.

hmmm.....

what about these?

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=270-170

greenman100 said:

what about these?

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=270-170

Click to expand...

seems as those will make comb filtering problems. great.

Well you CAN make the tweeter row a lot smaller than the midbass row. I'm not exactly sure what the specific reasons are but I'm pretty sure that it will negativly effect the sound. I beleive it has something to do with lobing but I'm still not super familiar with all the line array theroies. A normal point source speaker radiates into a spherical patern while the line array radiates more like a vertical colum. I've seen someone use a single horn tweeter or sometimes a single high effeciency tweeter between the row of midbasses. But that creates some problems. As i mentioned above the midbasses are dispersing is a vertical colum and that single tweeter is dispersing in a spherical patern. Ideally you would want the tweeters to be the same lenght as the midbasses. But I think what your looking for is to have the tweeters with a similar dispertion patern in terms of lenght and width of the midbasses. There are a few web pages you can check out about line array dispertion paterns. I dont have the links right now but I found them thorugh google. I'll check around later tonight for them.


Ryan