Line Array vs Point Source vs Human Hearing 

Man I love listening to people who have forgotten more than I will ever learn.....You are a *ucking genious Keep on learning and sharing it makes us all better Thanks Man

Love it. Not enough sound engineers talking about the human factor!

Through all the learning I've done on line arrays, this aspect is one I've never come accross before or even thought about! Thanks for the great video and explaination!

As a relatively new mixing engineer I feel like I hit a gold mine with your channel. Thanks for these Dave!

If you've got me at an event doing jumping jacks, subtle differences in the vertical dispersion are going to be the least of my concerns. I think it's a scientific fact that high frequencies drop off substantially when drowned out by the sound of your own beating heart. Great demonstration, Dave. I really appreciate you taking the time to make these productions. The core concepts are useful to people at all levels, not just the pro-tour level.

A great video. It's been thirty years since my speaker building days and thinking about things like this. Brings back fond memories. Thanks.

What a brilliant explanation! Especially why it's so effective from a human listening perspective.

Brilliant! I've been saying the same thing to people, you can take all the measurements you want and get lots of nice data, but if it sounds bad to your ear, is bad lol.

Yeah, when I walk a venue with raked seating, it is easy to walk smoothly from one side to the other, but when I go up or down in equal steps, my ear/brain has a rest while moving from step to step. At a concert, once seated, our ears are pretty much vertically stable, but we move our heads horizontally - but I never really thought about that. You are amazing! Ha - once in a venue I sat down with my young adult daughters, and then did my usual visual check of the rigging, speakers etc. I looked back at the girls any they were laughing and then did an imitation of Dad scoping the venue. My wife never minds when I go to have a check of the mix position at interval.

Has to be the simplest, clearest well best explained vertical line array theory i've watched/read . Many thanks for that beautifull short informative tube. :)

Dave, thanks! very clear and significant explanation. After this video i am going to search for other videos you have done.

This is hands down the best explanation of the actual, practical difference between line/point source arrays I’ve ever seen (and heard)

Genius demonstration. So much better than a verbal or text explanation. Much respect ✊

Surprisingly deep and simple explanation. Great to see spanish and others lenguajes in the subs, much appreciated the effort, thank you Dave.

Excellent stuff, Dave, as usual. I have a huge ball-bearing lazy-susan that I use for speaker testing so I don't have to move the mic. Doesn't work well for vertical movement, but it's great for left to right!

For me, the biggest factor is that in a horizontal plane, all sources arrive almost at the same time in a line array. But in a horizontal array, all sources arrive at different times in a horizontal plane.

Nothing new to me, but still interesting to see it illustrated so expertly on a small scale. Well done, Dave. And thanks a bunch for taking the time and trouble to make these videos.

Dave you are a legend. I've been to many of the shows you managed the sound for; and they always have the best sound. You should be in a hall of fame somewhere.

Dave, thanks so much, this is a beautiful explanation of the concepts involved! Great job. On a side note, maybe wear a lapel mic or something when doing videos like this. I had to keep doing extreme toggling of my volume between the noise and the spoken bits. You have some very important things to say here, and they are easy to miss with your voice riding so far below the noise in dB's. Otherwise, this is some serious wisdom you are sharing here. Much appreciation for this and your other videos. I have learned so much over the years from you! Thanks for being able to explain some involved concepts in such a straightforward manner. Looking forward to more.

I have issues with the audibility of the commentary, but the principles presented seem pretty solid.This demonstrates WHY my ears prefer coax studio monitors and line array PA systems. Kudos.

I'm glad to be here, thank you Dave!

Thanks man! simple demo, made a complex subject easy to understand!

Really appreciate this short deep dive!

Thanks for sharing, Dave! Those old MDR-CD3000s are cool too!

Very concise and informative video. Thanks Dave!

Thank you for sharing your insights, Dave!

Thanks Dave, I've been saying for YEARS that it's the Human quotient that's most important....

Hi Dave. Great work! I’d just like to add a point (pun intended) about listening to multiple overlapping point source speakers with 2 human ears vs a single Omni measurement microphone as you demonstrated and that is there is another HUMAN factor - the ability for our brains to help minimise the phasing we perceive. If you listen to more than one overlapping PS speaker and then walk horizontally through the overlap (phase issue) areas, you can hear the phasing - but its nowhere near as bad a a single microphone “hears” it. If anyone wants to test this then just block one ear and turn your unblocked ear to the speaker system and again walk horizontally through the overlap. You will then hear it more like a microphone does. If you stay stationary in the poor overlap area and listen with both ears you may be surprised at how much the brain compensates for differing high frequency time arrival - assuming no wind is present! This human psychoacoustic effect is just like an optical illusion is to our eyes. What we perceive can be very different from what is actual and its a good reason to not rely on test measurements alone but to actually use what we are gifted with. Looking forward to your next video Dave!

I always wondered why they did this. Great explanation.

So much of what we experience as sound is due to our physiology and evolution as a species. What frequencies we are most sensitive to, how we perceive sound versus what sound is actually there, etc. It always kills me how little of any room, we actually hear stereo in. We know that Sound from that other speaker is reaching our ears, but our brain has turned off that second speaker, and we are only hearing the speaker we are closest to. Designing sound systems that best correlate to the ways in which our brains perceive sound, is just as crucial as designing systems that account for our physical attributes. Thanks much for doing this. These little reminders are so helpful in our daily endeavors to create the best sound experiences..

love these little videos Dave good stuff!

Thanks for sharing the knowledge Dave!

Thanks for the video, great information as always!

Hey thanks. So glad the youtube- lords decided I should see this. Have only seen your older content., which has always been exemplary. Thanks for posting. I have great admiration for what you’ve done and how you’ve managed your career. Perhaps everyone starting out in pro pa, at least in our generation, has similar early experience - from cabinet building to recones and service work to rental inventory and live work. I had s midlife career change but am still very interested the technology. Thanks for you content and your products.

As always- very informative. Always learn something from your vids!

Very interesting demo Dave, thanks for taking the time to set it up and film it. If you had the test mic further back the narrower HF beams would have converged more and made the tonal change with movement less probably.

Very nicely presented !

enlightening, thanks for taking the time!

Another great experiment Dave.

thanks for taking the time to explain this stuff to us dave :)

Dave, thanks for you videos. So glad I stumbled upon your channel.

You could test physical delay by moving those boxes between them on a higher level, This will improve even better the vertical coverage and make those issues less noticeable.

Always I learn somthing or some new prospective from your videos keep up the good work LOVE FROM PAKISTAN.

Fascinating and thought provoking as usual.

this concept seems so obvious and logical to me, but only now that I have heard it explained properly by Dave Rat, thank you so much sir!

Great video Dave!

One of the best demos I’ve seen!

Exactly! that's why no spec sheet, no review, no video, nor seller, will ever be able to replace true listening of the actual device with your actual song.

Great video! Loved the explanations and illustrations. Would love to hear your thoughts on smaller setups and this concept - i.e. Fishman SA330x, Bose L1, JBL eon one vs standard pole mounted 2 speaker PA systems.

Man i love these videos. Rarely u get such an informative lessons

Great stuff Dave.

Brilliant video as usual.

killer vid. loved it. loved content!

Very interesting, thanks for sharing!

Thank you so much for the excellent explanation of the human factor in listening and how we react.

Great. Good explanations.

Great and very educative video thank you Dave!

THANK YOU

you are a great teacher 🙏

This is an awesome video!

Dave, I am not a great fan of tattoos, but I love the hinge structures emerging from the inside of your elbows! Cool.

Thankyou so much for the brilliant explanation God bless ya

Outstanding video!!!

That was indeed very interesting!

This is the missing link to all that I've learned about point vs line source. Human hearing. Thanks for this.

Can confirm, was interesting!

It finally makes sense why the MTL1X was so awesome and why they coupled so easily. Also makes sense why my old evm cabinets get "muddy" when laid on their side.

Loved this!

Great video!!! Keep them coming, but more importantly hope you get back to work very soon.

Amazing ....Thanks Mr. Rat

paradigm shift presentation ! #renaissanceman #bravo : learning moment : polarised audio : sunglasses for your ears . . . next level understanding : gracias : hartelijk dank

This is great - so are we saying this type of set up is better than a single source set up? I’m a mobile DJ with a simple sub and top set up - but been eyeing the mobile line arrays for a while… great video and I’m now a follower! Cheers 🍻

Great video! Good job there!

I forgot to ask, what are your thoughts on the future of live sound, in various time frames perhaps? Should i hold off on a line array investment?

Muy bueno todo dave 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿 muchas gracias por este vídeo

Cool! It's also fortunate that the human factor with line arrays align with the practical issues with respect to line array orientation. It would be much more difficult to fly a line array in the horizontal plane.

Hi Dave have you heard the Kv2 Hd 5.0 point source set up?

A rather unique type of line array you may want to check out or maybe even build is the Constant Beamwidth Transducer (CBT) Line Array by Don Keele. I attended a demo of his speaker design a few years ago at the Detroit Chapter of the Audio Engineering Society. What makes his design unique is the frequency spectrum is flat across the full range in all directions. The other thing I experienced first hand and measured myself is the dB output is the same level from 6 inches to 80 feet. His design featured a series of 2"-3" full-range speakers (mids to highs) in an arc. He had two of these speakers both left and right with subwoofers on a crossover. He 'feathers' the output of the speakers with resistors so the middle speakers put out full output, but has the speakers go up and down, they are resisted in 3dB steps. So the top and bottom speakers in the array put out less than the middle ones. From a practical standpoint, the sound fills a medium to large size room with no hot spots or harsh frequency nodes. However, the quality of the speakers used in the array is crucial to sound quality. I believe the design does take some tunning with EQ and crossovers for the subs to get a proper balance. As with 2"-3" speakers the mids/highs can get out of hand if not tuned right. His design I believe is best on hard-surfaced floor or upside down from a hard ceiling as I recall it used the floor as a ground plane. www.xlrtechs.com/dbkeele.com/CBT.php There was a company selling a DIY parts kit, but no longer I think. Based on what I heard and how it fills a room so consistently both in frequency and dB SPL, I think the design has applications for mid-sized rooms or even large homes.

And then of course you can add small delays from element to element across a vertical array to control dispersion front to back in a venue which is nice. Phased array steering isn't just for radar anymore. The improvement in live sound over the last decade thanks to engineering has been quite impressive. I'll try not to think about the complete absence of concerts these days... darn too late.

Love this dude

My gig tonight was at a venue we ALWAYS have sound problems in. Just absolutely trash. But tonight one of my qsc’s died and we only had one speaker. It was by far the BEST we have ever sounded there. Sometimes the fix is so simple.

Great video.

The vertical domain can be perfectly flat (no comb filtering), and even attenuated to an amount you want off-axis. Have a look at Horbach Keele filters and the design guide based around them. Really interesting stuff, I'm actually in the process of designing one that's -14dB vertically at 78° off axis. Tons of fun! Thanks for the video, it's a great demonstration on the effects of multiple driver comb filtering. Anytime I need to explain it to someone, I am sending them right here!

Superbly Explained...5stars

Thanks for your biotechnical insights. Love your lab-approach.

Great video Dave! I enjoy your perspective. So let’s make a splayed line array and test it!! Tri main drivers!🤘

Great vid 👌👏👍

I like his videos very much and learn a lot. If you want to hear the other side of the coin look at kv2audio. I use the ES series. All of their stuff is point source. It’s all very interesting.

Shame as this guy actually is one of the few who teaches really well.

Freakin Awesome. You always bring up the best points about speaker placement and stuff. Just curious to does mounting the speaker to the outside of the face plate cause any difference??

Great video!!

I love your videos, I'm a guy who used to do Peggy lee and jack jones and.... back in the 80's and now design entertainment stuff out of LA and vegas... I'm designing an install system small cat club like space that has a pushed out stage and a 15' ceiling where there is no way (or need) for a line array to work as it would be behind the front of the stage (PAG NAG etc?) so I have a hung - splayed horizontal array just like you were doing in the video on a slight curve across the front with steep and medium narrow shots into the 30' long pit, with adjustable mounts, and dsp on each and every biamped speaker while there will be phasing its a mosh pit, dance floor or seated jazz club. is my instinct on this right and with enough of the control I just described probably the right way thanks again for sharing your experience.

Great video! How can I get more info on the SuperSub you build and can I power it with a dedicated K10 or K20?

Ah! So Bose got it wrong - I should mount my 802s vertically! Brilliant demo, there are so many scientific arguments for pros & cons of different arrangements, but most miss the point that it is humans listening to the end product. With multiple monitor wedges focused on one performer the phase issues must be horrible? Thanks Dave keep the videos coming.

Very interesting. I wonder if you use some type of directly fins or guides in front of the speaker if it would make a difference.

Great! Thank you!

Very interesting.

Dave, you're on the front page of Hacker News. : )

We also have a hard time locating sound directly in front or back of us. Question, I've seen so many large format system that hang two arrays per side either both facing forward or sometimes the outside hang is acting as a side fill, so how much separation or how far off axis before they no longer effect each other?

So if we lay down on our sides in front of a vertical line array and turn our heads from side to side, ie....vertically, our heads will implode? 🤜🥴🙄🤛