this article:
is WRONG !
believing it contributed to me getting banned from two forums.
people with direct experience deploying line arrays at rock concerts told me that arrays aren’t limited in HF as the article claims but i refused to believe them because science is science - right ?
WRONG !
the article shows this chart:
and then states:
The magenta line shows the effect of attaching the driver to an older hom with non-constant directivity. In such horns, coverage patterns narrow in the high frequencies, squeezing the diminishing amount of treble into a smaller space. If you’re standing on-axis, this masks the mass-breakpoint effect
However, in modern line arrays, constant directivity horns are used, and the results more generally resemble the red line.
here is he problem - it is not true !
line arrays do not use “constant directivity horns” they use PLANE WAVE ADAPTERS
like this:
these have the same effect of boosting HF by squeezing it into a tighter beam as the traditional horn, except the squeezing is only in the vertical plane - they are constant directivity in the horizontal plane and ONLY horizontal plane
essentially all the math that follows is WRONG because of this one false assumption and is the reason why according to the article line arrays can’t do HF but according to people who actually deploy line arrays they do HF just fine
gotta say this article trolled me pretty good and got me banned from two forums …
i linked to it multiple times but nobody question the article because ProSoundWeb is a reputable source - they questioned my conclusions based on it …
but my conclusions were DIRECTLY based on what the article claimed … which was wrong …
in fact with proper transducers like JBL D2 that have massive amount of HF and are specifically designed for arrays work just fine win arrays …
the article indeed said “in the future” this would happen EXCEPT THE FUTURE IS NOW old man !
i basically got banned for saying music has less HF now because they can’t put more HF in music than arrays can handle but in fact arrays can handle plenty unlike what the article claims.
well at least i caught this mistake in time. i was already designing my own array with assumption of reduced need for HF which would have produced a kneecapped design.
no as a matter of fact we still need to design for full HF and HF isn’t going anywhere and arrays handle it no problem.