Transforming normal PA into Line Array

Kobus van Dyk

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Aug 17, 2019
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I've had this idea for a while now.
Is this crazy or will it work?
Let's take an Active Speaker like for instance an EV ELX 12" Powered Top
Strip it apart and put all of the Contents inside your own built line array cabs or bought ones.
Will this be able to do what I line array does or is there more too it than that?
 
You could do that but you would need a new box, fly ware, line array horn with a suitable pattern and size (e.g. 90 x 10), reprogram the DSP EQ settings and some how access to a program to aim the boxes … and then its likely you will not have enough power in the HF driver to keep up with the LF as the LF drivers sum better than the HFas you add boxes to the array …. Bottom line - no it won’t really work, and its already been done ..... :poop:
 

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Hi Kobus ... FWIW the picture was just a joke :)

... anyway what you need to do is quite complicated. Firstly the spacing between your drivers and the crossover frequency is critical if it’s going to work correctly.

What you need to do is select a crossover point so the spacing of the drivers is preferably ¼ of a wave length (centre to centre) but probably less than ½ will be OK --- i.e. around 500Hz or less for you 12”.

Some people like Nexo use a phase plug on the 12” driver which has allowed them to push designs like the Geo S12 up to around 900Hz. But to do that you need a powerful large format driver that's designed to operate that low. The EV ELX you mentioned uses a tiny compression driver thats crossed at 1700Hz.

If you don’t use a phase plug on the 12" you will need a 3 way design – a couple of 6” mid drivers or use a 2 way compression driver that will go that low e.g. BMS4594 or B&C DCX464.

At this point what you have done is basically just spend a lot of $$$ to buy a 12” driver as not much else is likely to be useful.