Advanced Subwoofer Techniques

There are a few tricks you can pull out of your sleeve to make your low frequency arrays work better. By building directional subwoofer arrays, energy can be kept off the stage and walls and kept on the audience where it belongs. These arrays require a little more signal processing …

Measurement and Optimization

Run and Gun Subwoofer Arraying

Of all the tweaking I do as a system tech, the most common is fixing mediocre subwoofer setups. Problems in this area are so prevalent that most audio professionals take them for granted or assume there is no room for improvement. There is often a better solution, which furthermore is …

Loudspeaker Fundamentals: How to Power Your Drivers

Loudspeakers

Loudspeaker Fundamentals: How to Power Your Drivers

The entire industry knows that loudspeaker drivers are fragile, and that careful attention needs to be paid to how much amplifier power is applied to each component in a sound system. This is especially true in our world of Live Sound, where we are always trying to push our speakers …

Loudspeaker Misconceptions: Which is Good for What?

Loudspeakers

Loudspeaker Misconceptions: Which is Good for What?

There is a lot of misinformation floating about regarding the benefits and detriments of line array and point source loudspeaker technology. For reasons unclear to me, the industry seems to be split down the middle with dogmatic “traditionalists” on one side, “new-fangled” line source users on the other, and the …

Ramblings

The Usability Conundrum

There have been a few events recently that have renewed my interest in usability, that is the ability of a human being like you or me to effectively manipulate a piece of equipment in order to attain some result. This is an especially important issue in the constant battlefield that …

Loudspeakers

Damping Factor: Soggy at Best

Of all the misunderstood specifications in this industry, Damping Factor (DF) probably receives more misplaced significance than anything. While, aside from a few exceptions, manufacturer spec sheets are broad generalizations that shouldn’t be used by anyone as the primary basis to compare anything, the Damping Factor spec is especially meaningless …

Measurement and Optimization

The Devil With Your Auto-RTA

I read approximately once a month about some weekend warrior who has just acquired their first DSP (Digital Signal Processor) system controller and seeks to understand how its auto RTA (Real Time Analyzer) function can help them get better performance out of their portable sound system. Invariably the DSP unit …

Ramblings

Staying Analog in a Digital World

It seems like every company on the planet has seen fit to bring out an amazing fancy new digital mixer, even some well-established companies that haven’t produced a mixing console before at any level. This explosion of the digital sound reinforcement product sector over the last half-decade or so has …