The NXAMP4x4 from NEXO provides amplification, control, and more in a package that’s precisely matched to the company’s loudspeakers. For example, multiple digital sense lines protect, at the same time, the amplifier and the connected loudspeakers. There’s also on-the-fly independent loudspeaker per output selection or load monitoring through GPIO or Ethersound/AES/EBU/Dante networking.
VUE also provides both onboard and external power/control options. h-Class systems normally have integrated electronics, but they can be built without and instead be driven with the rack-mounted VUEDrive systems engine.
“There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach,” Berger notes. “With integrated electronics you get the benefit of short speaker lines, but disadvantages including maintenance, weight and the efficient use of amplifiers. With rack-mount systems, the major advantage is the amplifier/processor can be used to power multiple boxes.”
Supplementing its self-powered arrays, Meyer Sound’s Galileo loudspeaker management system and Compass control software provide a systems approach to controlling the performance of an entire line array. From the incoming audio signals, the audio can be separately equalized, delayed, and processed to a quantity of separate outputs going to sections of the array.
Array correction and configuration presets, atmospheric correction filters, high- and low-pass filters, and more are included. The Galileo 616, for example, provides six inputs and 16 outputs.
Steering Technologies
Once the line array is flown with the chosen splay angles and tilt, it becomes more difficult to direct the system’s acoustic output toward another location in the venue, or otherwise make adjustments.
Steering technologies address this issue by controlling the amplification level, phase, timing, and other elements of the signal to specific enclosures or components – changing the acoustic relationships among them so that the direction of the lobe is modified and in some cases even allowing two separate beams to be created for main floor and balcony reinforcement.
EAW’s Adaptive Performance arrays, Anya and the smaller Anna, take the control to the individual component level. The arrays fly straight, with no inter-cabinet splay, and the sound crew utilizes Resolution software to define the desired coverage and upload those parameters to the array. This immediately takes over the process and institutes the required changes to each loudspeaker’s amplifier power and additional settings.
These changes can be made on the fly, accommodating different seating arrangements between events, and the array’s coverage may be split to avoid balconies and other reflective surfaces. As with any other line array, the LF cutoff frequency for vertical pattern control and the “throw” depends on the physical length of the array.
An Anya cabinet includes dual 15-inch woofers, six 5-inch horn-loaded midrange drivers, and fourteen 1-inch horn-loaded compression drivers on a waveguide, powered by 22 channels of amplification with DSP and networking. Each column of enclosures has a nominal horizontal coverage of 70 degrees, which can be flown side-by-side to create a wider pattern.
Four specialized sensors on each enclosure can automatically detect other enclosures above, below, and to the sides, and make the necessary acoustic adjustments based on their position in the array. The less-scaled Anna works identically.
As noted earlier, each unit in a K-array KH8 column has the ability to be tilted totally independent, with further coverage precision obtained via the onboard eight DSP channels in each loudspeaker, designed to load FIR and delays to achieve highly accurate steering. In addition, the company worked closely with AFMG on the development of the system’s FIRmaker software that allows users to establish their own acoustic modeling.
Martin Audio has also been a significant player in this regard with the MLA Series. Simply, each MLA array has up to 144 individual acoustic elements [cells], each with its own onboard amplifier and DSP, which can be optimized by software to deliver customized coverage across an audience area. It generates an even sound field over the audience, and it can contain it as well, helping to reduce the influence of the room.
“Hard avoid” areas, such as behind and below the array, ceilings, balcony edges and beyond the venue perimeter, can also be programmed in. Vertical coverage can also be fine-tuned electronically to cope with changing environmental conditions and last-minute changes in rigging height, and much more.
Upcoming Innovations
Manufacturers continue to push the boundaries, extracting ever greater reliability, efficiency, coverage control, flexibility, and ease of use from their designs. As for what’s still to come, VUE’s Ken Berger mentions “amazing work” on the software side to more closely integrate modeling, control, and networking, as well a functional aspects “from laser inclinometers to intelligent rigging.”
d&b audiotechnik shared some of its most recent breakthroughs, stating that the company “is always looking for areas to innovate in every component of system design,” seeking a variety of small improvements that may be incorporated within current products or used as a “building block” for new technology in the coming years – and with the caveat that venues and sound companies investing in equipment expect it “to remain current and productive for many years.”
New d&b developments include ArrayProcessing optimization that functions on top of the ArrayCalc software and amplification platform, and addresses “the issue that line arrays don’t maintain a consistent frequency response in the vertical plane over the distance of an audience area.” Also new is NoizCalc, which addresses the propagation of sound energy into the far field of open air events, by calculating coverage on terrain maps.
Line arrays are ubiquitous in touring sound and performance venues, so look forward to many more innovations in the coming years as manufacturers seek to integrate their designs ever more closely to the requirements of each venue and performance situation.