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What happens when Flint makes a Line Array?

Flint

Flint

Prodigal Son
Superstar
Well... he kinda goes too far.

LineArray01.jpg
First, he makes them about as tall as possible - they should fit into most homes with 8 foot or higher ceilings.

LineArray02.jpg
He uses 5-1/4" fullrange loudspeakers which appear to have solid bass to below 100hz and decent treble to about 9kHz.

LineArray03.jpg
He spends more time engineering and building them to be light, simple, and easy to setup and tear down. He managed to reduce the weight of the baffles by 25% be cutting out sections and filling with lightweight blue foamboard and the rear upright brace is significantly lighter than all the original designs he researched.

LineArray04.jpg
Yes, he made them huge, in case there was any doubt.

LineArray05.jpgHe refused to wait for the lacquer to dry on the tweeter mounting brackets before taking time to make a mojito, change into his Ernest Hemingway linen duds, and enjoy some listening at insanely high SPLs.
 
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One more photo of how I mounted the tweeter:
LineArray06.jpg


The specs are as follows...

91-1/2 inches - combined height without feet (add about 1/2 inch with the rubber bumper mounted on the front left and right edge of the baffle).
45-3/4 inches - height of each individual baffle
23 inches - width of baffles
8 full-range 5-1/4 inch drivers per baffle (16 per channel in assembled system)
1 tweeter for each system (1-1/4 inch soft dome tweeter)
400 watt power handling
Open baffle design
 
Flint said:
Well... he kinda goes too far.

View attachment 7890
First, he makes them about as tall as possible - they should fit into most homes with 8 foot or higher ceilings.

View attachment 7891
He uses 5-1/4" fullrange loudspeakers which appear to have solid bass to below 100hz and decent treble to about 9kHz.

View attachment 7892
He spends more time engineering and building them to be light, simple, and easy to setup and tear down. He managed to reduce the weight of the baffles by 25% be cutting out sections and filling with lightweight blue foamboard and the rear upright brace is significantly lighter than all the original designs he researched.

View attachment 7893
Yes, he made them huge, in case there was any doubt.

View attachment 7894He refused to wait for the lacquer to dry on the tweeter mounting brackets before taking time to make a mojito, change into his Ernest Hemingway linen dudes, and enjoy some listening at insanely high SPLs.
Click to expand...

I like Horned Rimmed Glasses & Green Aprons...Sweet, with what you have accomplished!
 
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I like your flip clock. And for some reason, those speakers remind me of the 1970s...
Looks awesome! Probably sound even better.
 
... And now he refers to himself in the third person. Too much time home alone? (It puts the lotion on its skin...)

Nice job, man, that looks like a lot of fun. Wow, only one tweeter to balance all of that?
 
First of all ... looks great!

How does it sound? I’ve never heard an open baffle system before and have always been curious.

I’m under the impression that lostvsof space is required between the back of the baffle and the wall. True?
 
They look great. You didn't post any teasers on here, but obviously I saw some of the stuff you put on FB. Those little peaks into your project gave no indication of the size of these things.

Nicely done. I would love to hear some good line arrays someday. I have seriously considered the kits Parts Express has for a winter project.

Well, tell us man, how do they sound?
 
Randy said:
They look great. You didn't post any teasers on here, but obviously I saw some of the stuff you put on FB. Those little peaks into your project gave no indication of the size of these things.

Nicely done. I would love to hear some good line arrays someday. I have seriously considered the kits Parts Express has for a winter project.

Well, tell us man, how do they sound?
Click to expand...

There were teasers here in the Random Thoughts Thread...................
 
All of my design and work has been about getting the most from the cheap-ass 5-1/4 inch speakers I got from Madisound a decade ago from one of their warehouse deals. I focused on the physical acoustics, hence the sheer number of drivers, height & width of the baffles, and so on. Now that they are assembled and wired up, I am listening and measuring to consider how to get better performance via the crossover network.

As for the tweeter, I am only using it for the very top octave of sound where the relatively large "full-range" drivers are incapable of producing significant and clear output. So, I put a very basic single order crossover with a F3 of about 8,500Hz on the tweeter. ALl the tweeter does is as the bit of shimmer at the top frequency range and it has virtually no impact on the vast majority of the sound these produce.

I haven't, yet, put any crossover on the array, but that will be necessary in the future. Specifically, I need to do something to cut the frequencies which overlap with the tweeter where the array doesn't perform well anyway. But based on measurements I can see some other aspects of the array need addressing.

My next task is building wings for the baffles which will extend the width to about 44 inches. At 44 inches, the solid bass could extend to as low as 77 Hz. Currently the 23 inch baffle makes for solid bass to about 147Hz. Without the baffles, these things produce shockingly solid bass, especially at higher SPLs. I know intellectually that the output really drops off below 100Hz with these speakers, but when playing good bass heavy recordings I can feel the bass - my entire body vibrates. It is similar to the way a live amplified concert can make your body shake. Also, since these are open baffle and I have them placed out in the room, it seems I can listen at very high SPLs without the room washing out. So, at one point I had it loud, as in REALLY loud, and I didn't feel it was too much.
 
One of the difficulties of working with a big line array like this is that you cannot design a crossover based on the measured performance of a single driver. There is so much acoustic interaction between the drivers when operating that I have to measure the real performance at the listening position then design the crossover based on that. Of course, that gets even more complex in that the interaction varies based in listening distance. If I design the best possible performance at 3 meters listening distance, it may not sound as good at 5 meters. But, I am willing to take that risk.

By the way, large line arrays with multiple drivers, like an array of woofers, midranges, and tweeters, have less of this problem I am concerned with. Really, the issue is the acoustic centers of the 5-1/4 inch drivers being so far apart at higher frequencies. Mathematically, that means the 5-3/8 inch distance between the acoustic center of each fullrange speaker means that above 2.500Hz there is massive phase cancellations, amplifications, and so on. Since I am operating these to over 7,000Hz, that gets messy.

I could (and I am considering this) build an array of tweeters (like 6 to 8 of them) which can take over above 2,000Hz and completely eliminate this tuning issue, but I cannot find affordable enough tweeters which fit the bill. Remember, I spent about $2 each for these fullrange drivers. I am not going to spend $20 each for 16 tweeters.
 
heeman said:
Have you studied their imaging, sound-stage and accuracy yet?
Click to expand...

Right now I am very much distracted by their overall sound - the impact, size, scale, and sheer room filling power. When playing a good recording of a live piano trio, I could swear there's a piano in my front living room. I know what pianos sound like in a room like that since I grew up with a two full concert grand pianos in my home. It is shocking how real it sounds.
 
Flint said:
I could (and I am considering this) build an array of tweeters (like 6 to 8 of them) which can take over above 2,000Hz and completely eliminate this tuning issue, but I cannot find affordable enough tweeters which fit the bill. Remember, I spent about $2 each for these fullrange drivers. I am not going to spend $20 each for 16 tweeters.
Click to expand...

For something like this, are you looking for a tweeter that has an f3 of 2000 or lower? and would they be aligned to the left/right or inbetween like you currently have?
 
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