Help me understand the concept of speaker “throw” please.

[Per Søvik]

Re: Help me understand the concept of speaker “throw” please.

So based on that Ozone O3 should be 16+16+16=48 and heavier than a lot of gasses in the atmosphere?

Yes, that is correct. So why doesn't the ozone sink to the bottom of the atmosphere and end life as we know it?

Thanks Jay for the lucid explanation. I share your low regard for so much of the climate change blather.

Second that, wish I could explain things without sounding like a lunatic.

@ Glen "dew point" ...

JR, once you start down that path, you'll soon be lost. You know that americans on average make a homonym-mistake about every too words? :lol:

 

[Glenn Adams]

Re: Help me understand the concept of speaker “throw” please.

Sorry I was not clear. I was just pointing out the homophone in your post, "due point" where you meant dew point.

JR

Sorry - sometime I don't get my own stuff. DEW it is like from the Mt.
Due point is the time to get paid for the show.

 

[John Roberts]

Re: Help me understand the concept of speaker “throw” please.

Yes, that is correct. So why doesn't the ozone sink to the bottom of the atmosphere and end life as we know it?

It does sink to the bottom of the stratosphere but still more than 10 miles up.

I am not sure if this has anything to do with it but there is a thermal inversion or reversal at that lower boundary, so air gets warmer going higher and going lower from there. So it seems like the Ozone (all of 10 PPM) likes that environment.

Second that, wish I could explain things without sounding like a lunatic.



JR, once you start down that path, you'll soon be lost. You know that americans on average make a homonym-mistake about every too words? :lol:

I have caught myself typing the wrong word... my posts would be a lot worse if i didn't proof read them multiple times.

JR

 

[Kevin Maxwell]

Re: Help me understand the concept of speaker “throw” please.

I have just read all of this thread I no one has come up with the right answer yet.

Speaker throw is defined as how far into the truck you can throw the speaker after a frustrating show. ;-)

 

[Glenn Adams]

Re: Help me understand the concept of speaker “throw” please.

I have just read all of this thread I no one has come up with the right answer yet.

Speaker throw is defined as how far into the truck you can throw the speaker after a frustrating show. ;-)

Bingo!

 

[Ivan Beaver]

Re: Help me understand the concept of speaker “throw” please.

I have just read all of this thread I no one has come up with the right answer yet.

Speaker throw is defined as how far into the truck you can throw the speaker after a frustrating show. ;-)

Of course the other question is "how many people will this speaker cover?"

In many cases only 2-if they are very close friends and hug each other.

unless they are laying down-then it is just 1 or less.

 

[Ivan Beaver]

Re: Help me understand the concept of speaker “throw” please.

I have just read all of this thread I no one has come up with the right answer yet.

Speaker throw is defined as how far into the truck you can throw the speaker after a frustrating show. ;-)

Here is another "real no shitter"---------------

Back in the 80s I worked as the bench tech for a music store outside of Washington DC

We had one group (political satire) that was always bring in their gear (plastic boxes and powered mixers) with it broken-literally physically broken.

This happened A LOT.

I got to see them once. Since what they did made a lot of people mad-they were usually in a hurry to get "out of of there".

They would literally throw their gear into the back of a truck-sometimes not even unplugging it-just pull the truck up to the stage and shove it in!

Very often there would be broken knobs-broken horns (not the drivers but the horns) and such.

They were always happy to pay the bill--------------------

 

[Perry Wright]

A topic overflowing with misconceptions. . . . . .
Simply: Long throw means a narrow dispersion pattern, which assumes the target coverage area will be far away.
Short throw means a wide coverage pattern for a target coverage area which is close.
• You may have heard that sound dissipates at -6dB per double the distance, which is true for the small scale, but does not usefully describe how sound behaves in an outdoor concert situation. The perceived sound intensity drops off at a much more linear rate. (See chart). Horn loading, including folded horn bass boxes, increases efficiency, directivity, power handling, but even more importantly, substantially increases the distance with useful sound intensity. In fact, outdoors, no direct radiating speaker will ever equal a medium bass horn (36" x 24" x 24") or larger (36" x 24" x 36"). At 300 feet, direct radiator speakers will be nearly useless, while the same speakers, with the same power and signal, in horn boxes, will produce effective sound intensity.

The same effect holds true for mids and highs. In other words, if large high horns and low horns are used with direct radiator mids, the mids will fall short at longer distances. All speakers should be of similar design. In other words, all horn loaded or all direct radiator.

Real world example: Years ago I did an outdoor concert with 4-18", 4-12", and 4 large high horns per side.
Well, it sounded great up close, but walking out 200-300 feet, the lows and mids were nearly non existent, while the highs still carried pretty well. The next concert we replaced the 4 18" with 2 folded horn 18's per side. Then the highs and lows reached the distance but the mids were still lacking. So for the next concert we replaced the 4-12" with 2-12's in a large horn cabinet on each side and totally solved the problem. Less speakers, less power, but far more coverage and projection. Lesson: Horns are definitely the way to go !

Horn designs may vary but ANY horn will FAR outperform ANY other design for outdoor concert events, no matter what kind of music is being played, live or recorded.

I heard someone say, "But power is cheap, so why use horns ?"
Well, power might be cheaper these days, but blown speakers are not. And that still does not change the laws of physics.
Horn loading is not a fad from the past. It is an acoustical advantage like a lever is a mechanical advantage.
Once you hear the difference, you will want full horn loading for all your events.

 

[Stephen Douglas]

A topic overflowing with misconceptions. . . . . .
Simply: Long throw means a narrow dispersion pattern, which assumes the target coverage area will be far away.
Short throw means a wide coverage pattern for a target coverage area which is close.
• You may have heard that sound dissipates at -6dB per double the distance, which is true for the small scale, but does not usefully describe how sound behaves in an outdoor concert situation. The perceived sound intensity drops off at a much more linear rate. (See chart). Horn loading, including folded horn bass boxes, increases efficiency, directivity, power handling, but even more importantly, substantially increases the distance with useful sound intensity. In fact, outdoors, no direct radiating speaker will ever equal a medium bass horn (36" x 24" x 24") or larger (36" x 24" x 36"). At 300 feet, direct radiator speakers will be nearly useless, while the same speakers, with the same power and signal, in horn boxes, will produce effective sound intensity.

The same effect holds true for mids and highs. In other words, if large high horns and low horns are used with direct radiator mids, the mids will fall short at longer distances. All speakers should be of similar design. In other words, all horn loaded or all direct radiator.

Real world example: Years ago I did an outdoor concert with 4-18", 4-12", and 4 large high horns per side.
Well, it sounded great up close, but walking out 200-300 feet, the lows and mids were nearly non existent, while the highs still carried pretty well. The next concert we replaced the 4 18" with 2 folded horn 18's per side. Then the highs and lows reached the distance but the mids were still lacking. So for the next concert we replaced the 4-12" with 2-12's in a large horn cabinet on each side and totally solved the problem. Less speakers, less power, but far more coverage and projection. Lesson: Horns are definitely the way to go !

Horn designs may vary but ANY horn will FAR outperform ANY other design for outdoor concert events, no matter what kind of music is being played, live or recorded.

I heard someone say, "But power is cheap, so why use horns ?"
Well, power might be cheaper these days, but blown speakers are not. And that still does not change the laws of physics.
Horn loading is not a fad from the past. It is an acoustical advantage like a lever is a mechanical advantage.
Once you hear the difference, you will want full horn loading for all your events.View attachment 208805

Thank you Perry, helpful to hear your explanation: some technical analysis, objectivity and a balanced measure of (the often neglected and unduly maligned) subjectivity. Throw is not an out of date concept. It seems to go hand in hand with the concepts of projection, reach and concentration or focus. These aren't just technical terms with specific or strictly audio (aural) definitions, They are also subjective concepts that apply to sound and hearing. Or individual perception of sound. And they don't always have a strictly technical explanation.
I guess for us non-technical music listeners it helps us appreciate the variations of sound using different vocabulary to describe them - even if not strictly technical.
It's a little bit like knowing what art you enjoy. You may not be able to technically describe it but you know it when you see ( or hear) it and it's still possible to describe it accurately with associated linguistic terms.
I've experienced this with 'throw'. Some speakers just seem to project a fuller stronger more pure-as-intended sound at a certain distance, that seems better when compared to a different set of speakers. So the term 'throw' seems to fit as a description of what is being heard. As it encompasses also the sense of fuller sound. Perry - you describe it well as the highs low and mids coming together in a balanced way.
The way speakers are designed to fill a large room or a small space, and the construction and design of the speakers and the power behind them affect the concept of throw - or reach - or projection - or concentration - very real matters for audio perception and comparison. ALL speakers lose db at distance, but all speakers vary in how 'best' or balanced they sound at different distances. (Isn't that why they are built and designed for different sized rooms and settings - especially in combination as Perry describes it?) I'm not sure that all these subjective differences can entirely be measured or defined by equation. I like the word throw. It's still relevant. I'm going to listen for it again the next time I compare some speakers.

 

[Carl Klinkenborg]

To keep the swerve going, does anyone wish to explain the physics behind the slant-plate "lens"?

It is a path-length refractor. The multiple plates (the spacing of which determines cut-off frequency and must be small compared with the wavelength) introduce path length differences due to their edge curvature but without changing the direction of the wave. ie. it is not 'directed downwards' as would appear to be the intuitive result. An alternative way of understanding it is that the varying length the sound wave travels through the lens introduces a varying time delay, shaping the wavefront .

 

[Tim McCulloch]

Hi Carl, long time, no see you here! Welcome back.

 

[Riley Casey]

Not WHCA though LOL

...

Back in the 80s I worked as the bench tech for a music store outside of Washington DC

We had one group (political satire) that was always bring in their gear (plastic boxes and powered mixers) with it broken-literally physically broken.

...

 

[Peter Morris]

A topic overflowing with misconceptions. . . . . .
Simply: Long throw means a narrow dispersion pattern, which assumes the target coverage area will be far away.
Short throw means a wide coverage pattern for a target coverage area which is close. ....

So if I get a bunch of narrow dispersion long throw horns and array them to make a perfect wide pattern horn ... they become short throw

I would argue that throw is the ability of a speaker or speaker system to project clean clear sound over distance and that can be wide or narrow

Throw is reduced by the drivers within speaker or array not combining properly - phase cancellation, poor directivity etc. and the resultant signal, especially at distance loosing clarity.

This is why high powered point source systems such as those made by Danley have great throw ... Ivan don't start on the line arrays argument ... compared to old massive arrays of things like Clair S4, or Turbo TNMS3 etc.

 

[Perry Wright]

Throw

Yes, I know that I’m late to the party, so no comments about that …..

But for anyone stumbling onto this discussion, I want to clear up a couple of things.

• First - the "throw" does indeed describe the distance sound will project. A narrower pattern will inherently project farther because it spreads out less.
• Second - the "inverse square" law is misleading a lot of people into thinking, incorrectly, that coverage angle does not matter. It actually matters tremendously. When you say that the sound level decreases by 6dB per double the distance, without specifying the area, the angle, and the distance, it means nothing. If the area is one foot square, and you move out to where the area is two feet square, and then move to where it is four feet square, each step will indeed be double the distance. But it is obvious that, if the angle of spread is narrower, the distances will be substantially larger. If the sound is a "plane wave" like inside a pipe, the sound loss would be almost zero over quite a long distance.
• Some speakers are referred to as a "point source". This is impossible. A typical loudspeaker has a coverage pattern of 90° x 40°, not omnidirectional at all. A column speaker may have a pattern of 100° x 70°. Slightly wider horizontal, and slightly narrower vertical than a single driver (about 90° conical). The problem is, the row of small, inefficient little drivers has NO component that is capable of projecting sound to the back of an auditorium, 50 to 100 feet away. And in actual listening tests, the high frequencies are extremely beamy, covering very little off axis.