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Line Array? Yeah Line Array.


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Line Array? You guys know you wanna......

 

Obviously no one from Line 6 is going to come on here and say "yup, we're working on one." Anyone care to comment on if that would be viable? How do you think L6 would do it? Small format, powered line-array boxes is a crowded market, but then again so was the mid-size, powered point-source speaker market, and in my opinion L6 set themselves apart with the feature-set on their boxes (won't comment on sound-quality, I havn't had the chance to compare them directly to the competition, though on their own I think they sound great).

 

Anyone care to share thoughts?

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Well, I had the Bose L1 Model II's which I sold to get a dreamstage system.  The Bose sound great no doubt, and I would still recommend them for I high number of situations, they're light, they set up really easily, you don't need monitors very pristine sound.  But when you have to get into bigger venues with noisy audiences they may not have the balls to give you the coverage you are looking for. 

 

I think Line 6 has totally set themselves apart with these speakers.  With the more detailed two channel mixer, which includes feedback suppression, effects and acousting guitar body modelling you're getting quite a bit of bang for the buck.  The L3t is comparable to the Bose L1 compact in price but I would suggest that you are getting more power.  It's heavier but I would see even easier to set up because you just set it down and plug in.  The bass response in the L3t is pretty impressive even without the L3s.

 

The Bose were great because I could fit our bands entire PA (2 Bose systems with a B2 each) in my Mazda 3 sport.  But guess what, the L3s fits in the back door and I can slide it in on the wheels and fit 2 L3t's behind it. Then there's still a fair bit of room for my guitar and guitar processor.  I haven't tried to fit my 2 L2t's in yet but I'm guessing if I need to I could fit them in the front seat.  I'll know on Saturday when I try to load all this stuff in my car.

 

So I don't know that there is any reason to go for a line array, With this system I can take what I need for the gig I'm doing. These have pretty good horizontal coverage too 100 degrees as opposed to the 170 degrees that the Bose have.  But that Bose coverage can work against you if you are trying to use 2 in a L/R configuration because the coverage is so great they are susceptible to phase cancellation.  I think Line 6 should stick with this product it's a winner and just continue to add more options in the way they did with the L2t.  Maybe some smaller sub options? 

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We are a band with a new LIN6 6 set (M20d/ 2 L3), AND two BOSE L1 model 2 with 6 B1. The question we have between us is about the best configuration, in any case we use the M20d as a mixer because we have at least 12 to 16 inputs, and we use the BOSE Tonematch only for the RJ45 connection to the L1. BUT the question is, what is the optimumin term of sound and control: LINE6 L3t as main speakers and BOSE as side monitors or the opposite? Today we have the opportunity to test the configuration in a medium size (250 audience) room, and I will publish our conclusions if any..the band is today with 8 musicians/ singers and we do Beatles songs with three to four singers, guitrs, bass, drums, and keyboard.

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I had a Bose L1 Compact for 3 years and I just traded in for an L3T which I'm picking up today, in a couple of hours. I did it because the Bose hadn't enough power for my needs for quite some time now...It was a nice system, for acoustics in small venues or pop/rock covers, where the volume wouldn't have to really impose on people, and using sampled drums, but still, it was peaking all the time. It's a very clever, light, practical system, with great sound dispersion, but it 150W or so weren't getting the job done for a while now, so I figured the 1400W from the L3T would get the sound up to where it should/needed to be...

 

I know that 1400W refers to peak power, but still, the bose's peak was around 300W, so I guess I'm still getting a lot more power from the L3T. SPL output is also a lot higher on the L3T. I'm considering running my pod hd500 thru it alone and get rid of the DT25 if the sound is good and powerfull enough, though I'll be having keyboards and voice thru the L3T too...we'll see after some testing if the AMP stays or goes. 

 

Sorry about the bose testament, but it seems quite some people here were using bose's and they're migrating to L6...I'll give you my impressions after tonights rehearsal!

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We are a band with a new LIN6 6 set (M20d/ 2 L3), AND two BOSE L1 model 2 with 6 B1. The question we have between us is about the best configuration, in any case we use the M20d as a mixer because we have at least 12 to 16 inputs, and we use the BOSE Tonematch only for the RJ45 connection to the L1. BUT the question is, what is the optimumin term of sound and control: LINE6 L3t as main speakers and BOSE as side monitors or the opposite? Today we have the opportunity to test the configuration in a medium size (250 audience) room, and I will publish our conclusions if any..the band is today with 8 musicians/ singers and we do Beatles songs with three to four singers, guitrs, bass, drums, and keyboard.

I would recommend the L3t's as your mains and the Bose as monitors.  I found the B2's gave me nice bottom end far more than when I was using 6 B1's.  I would say you will get as much bass response from 2 L3t's as you can get from your B1's.  And if you do use the Bose as monitors, I would make the set up simpler and just leave 2 of the B1's at home and just use 2 per unit, they should be enough for monitoring.  In the future you might consider adding a single L3s it really thumps. 

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Line Array? You guys know you wanna......

 How do you think L6 would do it? Small format,

 

LIne array is a marketing term and it doesn't really mean anything ... but they are the fashion rage these days. "Line source array" is what you really mean.

 

There is no such thing as a small format line source array.  To be  full frequency  the length of the line must be almost 12' tall.  Bose L1's are not line source arrays.  The only "true" line source arrays are ribbon drivers

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LIne array is a marketing term and it doesn't really mean anything ... but they are the fashion rage these days. "Line source array" is what you really mean.

 

There is no such thing as a small format line source array.  To be  full frequency  the length of the line must be almost 12' tall.  Bose L1's are not line source arrays.  The only "true" line source arrays are ribbon drivers

 

Yes that is what I meant; "Line Source Array" is the technically correct term, though seems people will just say "line array" when that's what they mean. I understand your correction of the terminology; I do the same the same thing with my customers and their P.A. language; drives me nuts when they use the wrong term:)

 

Are most line source arrays that you see in use not supposed to be "full frequency" (by which I assume you mean 20Hz-20kHz)? By that I mean they go down to about 80 or maybe 100 Hz. So wouldn't the 8+ (or larger) box-per-side rigs be tall enough to achieve 100Hz-20kHz properly? Still learning the physics/science of this stuff:)

 

Another question: So with regards to your second statement, all the "small-format", "line array," boxes out on the market now (JRX, Yorkville Paraline, Mackie has one too now), are they really doing anything different from a point-source box turned sideways, just with wide horz coverage and narrow vert coverage?

 

Thanks Boomer:)

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A true line source array has a linear wave front as opposed to the spherical wavefront of a conventional speaker. This way putting these speakers close together does not cause interference (comb filtering) but the speakers "couple" and act as one source. This is done by shaping the horns in a way that delays the center of the horn output compared to the edges. This way the wavefront is flat. There are many different shapes and designs[.

This is the ideal case and real world speakers do this more or less well. The background is that speakers couple and produce a coherent wavefront if they have a linear wavefront and the distance between the sources is not more than half the wavelength of the highest produced frequency.

 

For the frequency bandwidth there is no restriction on the design. Some line source arrays go down to 60Hz using 15" speakers. The directivity usually starts to work much higher, around 700Hz. It is more practical to have the subs not as part of the array to get floor coupling and for weight and other mechanical reasons.

 

Many long shaped speakers do not fulfill this criteria and are not line source arrays.

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For a "line array" to behave as a cylindrical wave the length of the line needs to be far greater than the wavelength of the lowest frequency (and generally about 4 times the wavelength).  The wavelength of a 100 Hz tone is just short of 12 feet so it is not possible to get any line type performance without a array of boxes that is more than 12 feet long.

 

So As Arne points out above these little line shaped boxes don't exhibit and "line source array" behavior below 700-1000 Hz

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For a "line array" to behave as a cylindrical wave the length of the line needs to be far greater than the wavelength of the lowest frequency (and generally about 4 times the wavelength).  The wavelength of a 100 Hz tone is just short of 12 feet so it is not possible to get any line type performance without a array of boxes that is more than 12 feet long.

 

So As Arne points out above these little line shaped boxes don't exhibit and "line source array" behavior below 700-1000 Hz

 

So knowing that, most companies have linear point sources because it would be almost impossible and impractical to try and achieve the line array theory? Or are there times when some linear point sources do behave like line arrays?

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The Bose cross over at 140hz which is well below the 700 - 1000 hz so they can't really even pull it off with the 7 ft towers.  Still, I have to admit that having gigged and rehearsed them for a few years,  they certainly do show characteristics unlike any other speakers I've used in the past 35+ years.   So they must have enough of it right or figured out some kind of workaround to the challenges described in this thread.  

 

They do fill a room with sound really evenly and the sound drops off in volume far less that regular speakers, and the sound does come out horizontally and not vertically so it doesn't bounce off the ceiling.  But some of these advantages can turn into disadvantages.  For instance if you are on a fairly high stage, you have to try to tip the L1's to try to point the sound downwards.  And the 170 degree horizontal dispersion makes them more prone to phase cancellation if you are trying to use just two of them in a L/R configuration.  I also found that, if the room was empty, yes, you could have tolerable stage volume with the L1's behind you and still fill the room with sound.  That works up to a point but when you have a really crowded room the bodies could start to swallow up the sound.   Then if you crank it up to compensate you get into issues of feedback, intolerable stage levels, or just simply not enough power.  That's why I had to come over to Line 6.

 

I just played one of my regular clubs last night that really would push the Bose to the limit and expose the above mentioned deficiencies.  My dream stage rig killed it, with lots of room to spare.  And in fact the bar managers and waitresses, all commented on how amazing the sound was.  I had the main output set to -5db, every speaker level set to the halfway detent and you could still argue that maybe it was too loud.  For mains I was only using 1 L3s, and 2 L3t's.  3 L2t's handled the monitoring.  It was awesome.  I don't miss the "line array" at all.

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