Re: As good a time as any...
Frank,
I am not really sure what delay you are referring to. I tend to think of three types of delay. The first type of delay is to match the various parts of a speaker system to each other. For a SOS show this only applies if you have separate subs. The second type of delay is if you have a system that has a delay ring (speakers further out in the crowd to extend the sound field). The third type of delay is to delay the entire FOH system to the backline.
In practice, when my SOS speakers are mounted on the subs, I have a precalcualted delay to aligh the subs and tops. If I have an extremely loud backline (which is rare in my current jobs) I could delay the entire FOH system to the backline which can help clean up the mud.
Satellite speakers can be problematic because the question becomes for what position do you delay them? In theory, the delay is the difference in distance between the FOH speakers to the listening position and the satellite speaker to the listening postion. Unfortunately, in a large area these distances can be different. What you end up with is some sort of average or ''can I make it better somewhere without making it totally suck elsewhere''. You also start to run into the same problems when the subs are not physically located with the tops.
I think a more basic place to start with a SOS rig is whether you want true stereo (all listening positions covered by two separated sources), pseudo stereo (some positions especially in the middle covered by two sources but fairly large areas only covered by one source), or dual mono (each listening position covered by one source even though you set up two sides because people expect to see that).
Personally, I tend to dual mono, and even in a narrow room prefer a single source. However, people seem to freak out if you don't set up speakers on both sides. There have actually been rooms where I set up both sides and never turned one on.
