Re: Danley SM80 and others shootout Monday January 14 at Danley in Gainesville, GA.
Just to add a (now mute) point on the whole "hindsight being 20/20" thing.
Yes the space we held it in was limited-and the weather was not playing nice for most of the day. This prevented us from doing one VERY important thing-that should ALWAYS be considered when listening to a loudspeaker. WALKING THE PATTERN.
It is one thing to listen at a single position (usually on axis). And often quite another to see if the loudspeakers coverage pattern is consistent across the rated/intended coverage area.
Very often you will find that speakers get quite beamy on axis. So off to the sides (and still in the rated coverage pattern) the top end (usually) drops off. So the sound that one person hears is not the same as another person in a different area. This is ESPECIALLY important in the VERTICAL coverage. Not so big a deal if the loudspeakers are 6-8' off the ground, but if flown and pointed down towards the people-you will often find VERY different coverage patterns. MUCH more so than in the horizontal coverage.
I often hear the excuse "Yeah-but people don't often walk up and down in the air Ha-HA" NO-BUT THEY DO walk and sit from front to back-and THAT is where the vertical coverage issue start to raise their ugly heads.
So it is VERY important to not only go side to side-but also from front to back-if possible.
An easy test to listen to the vertical coverage when you can't fly a system up high is to simply put it down low 4-6' off the ground and turn it on its side. Now walk side to side-and you will hear the vertical coverage.
IF we had the room (which would be very hard to do in the space-with the number of people we had), I feel there would be some different opinions that people would have about certain products and overall "how well they do their job".
Just something to consider when evaluating products. There are a number of "aspects" to be considered-which can be very hard in a limited space with a limited amount of time.
