Posted by Greggo [ 71.199.176.244 ] on July 06, 2006 at 22:36:27:
In Reply to: Re: And now for something a bit more realistic posted by Jim Griffin on July 06, 2006 at 21:32:23:
Jim,
Thanks for the thoughtfull reply. I need to re-read your paper as I thought the line length issues at the frequencies I was thinking would hold up better. Anyways, I certainly have nothing but the utmost respect for the systems both you and Rick have engineered, but I can't help but wonder if there is more magic to be squeezed out of a line array that has the primary drivers working from under 300Hz up past 4kHz, with those drivers having a c-t-c spacing close enough to avoid any comb filtering. This range seems to get cited fairly often as one that, if left undisturbed by crossovers and differing transducers, can yeild a most musical and coherent presentation. This is the allure of the Jordan driver for me, granted the fact that they are not exactly the best value in terms of dollar per driver, and this is made worse by the number you need to fill a decent line length. But the idea that one could approach the silky smooth sound of a good full range driver with the dynamics and soundstage of a line array keeps nagging at me.
I also wonder if you had enough of them, like 16 or 25, that they would hold up well into the low 200s or high 100s for a lower level crossover. At that point, I think it would be easy to find a stack of 4-8 woofers that would gladly work together to handle 20-200 Hz with ease. I guess the bottom line is, if you did go from a 2-way design to a three way, how would you do it and where do you get the most return? Based on all the anecdotes from the single driver guys, I would vote to start experimenting with wide bandwidth drivers like the jordans to come as close to the full range ideal as possible. I think most people just find the idea of spending all that money for such little drivers, and then crossing them to a tweeter to just be too irratating to take seriously. I would like to try someday, just to find out for sure.
Thanks for pointing out that the DEQX can be thought of as much more than just a crossover, I have no idea why this did not occur to me. Thinking about just running from the digital outs of a decent CD/DVD player and then needing nothing but the DEQX untill you hit the power amps of an active speaker system helps to justify the cost when one is thinking, as I am, of upgrading their entire system. As you point out, it certainly seems to be an unbeatable tool when playing around with various speaker designs and appropriate slopes and filters to get the best out of them. Like you, I have no desire to ever think of this as a serious business, but I would like to build out the many ideas that pop into my head and have fun with it, maybe doing a custom build now and then or at least sharing plans that seem to work well with the rest of the net... all things that, if I follow through on would certainly further justify investing in a DEQX.
Thanks again for your response, I wish we could get more action on this forum as line arrays are just fascinating.
Regards,
Greg
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