Saturday, June 9, 2018

Going Downhill

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Fortunately, I didn't have to listen to this nightmarish "sound system," but just looking at it was pretty depressing. This tiny faux-array JBL “full-range” speakers perched above and well behind apartment-sized subwoofers immedately made me want to ask, “When did Bose buy JBL?” From time alignment to diffraction and sound pressure field distortion problems, nothing about this mess would be able to reinforce anything resembling music. It isn’t even easy to move, unless the tiny speakers pack inside the subwoofer boxes. If there is any value system here, it must be “gain before feedback” because sound quality clearly is no consideration.

2 comments:

Spikehead said...

I’ve heard several of these systems and have been impressed. They’re easily scalable for different venues, so make good sense for touring rigs and rental houses. Dispersion is better than traditional systems IMO.



-I swear I’m not a robot.

T.W. Day said...

I've been suffering arrays since the 60's and have yet to hear one that isn't mostly irritating; although the arrays used as wall-of-sound systems used at the MN state fair are at least sometimes decent. In their case, "dispersion" means directionality which isn't as controllable or predictable as the half-assed models claim. There will always be phase problems with multiple point source systems over a broad range of frequencies, but if we keep tolerating cell phone distortion we'll learn to appreciate this kind of sound system or just do deaf from the subwoofer abuse.

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Over the dozen years I taught audio engineering at Musictech College and McNally Smith College of Music, I accumulated a lot of material that might be useful to all sorts of budding audio techs and musicians. This site will include comments and questions about professional audio standards, practices, and equipment. I will add occasional product reviews with as many objective and irrational opinions as possible.