There are two main variations of the “subwoofer question:” Where is the best place to put my subwoofer(s)? How should I time align my subwoofer(s) to the mains? To answer the first question, we have to understand how subs interact with a room, which is just an extension of understanding how subs interact with each …
The reason the fast Fourier transform (FFT) gets so much attention in audio is that it allows us to look under the hood of a complex waveform and discover what frequencies are present. The converse is also true: by combining sine waves of various frequencies and phases, we can create any waveform we like. This …
Visit the offices of Advanced Automation Corporation (AAC), a systems engineering company based in upstate New York, and you’ll see all of the things you might expect from a technology and engineering workspace: whiteboards covered with meter-long equations, charts comparing the capabilities of various types of satellites, schematics of aircraft propulsion systems, radar testing equipment, …
Thanks to the proliferation of powered loudspeakers, active subwoofers sporting built-in “cardioid mode” DSP settings are on the rise. But what’s going on under the hood? Let’s take a look at the principles behind cardioid subwoofer arrays, clear up common confusions, and learn how to deploy these arrays in the field. Before digging into how …
Originally posted on January 1st 2019. In the tradition of the incomparable Ethan Winer, here are three audio myths pertaining to live sound that have cropped up around the live sound forums this year. May your new year be peaceful, happy, productive, and factually accurate. Myth: Turning a subwoofer away from you reverses the polarity. FACT: The rear …
Today’s post comes to you from a 600 seat concert hall in upstate NY. The hall was originally constructed for acoustic performances, and as such is far more reverberant than we’d like for reinforced music. The seating is covered by what some of my system tech buddies jokingly call a “dash” array – that is, …
Preparing some of the new QSC K.2 series boxes for a club install and have some data here from the verification step of the process. I thought it was interesting enough to share, and there’s a couple of things I found thought-provoking, as it’s my first time working with this particular product. These boxes come …
When preparing the configuration of a “line array” (technically an asymmetrical composite coupled point source) I start with three pieces of information: 1) What is the desired coverage angle? (From the loudspeaker’s point of view, the angle from the last row to the front row.) 2) What is the range ratio? (How far the top box needs …
Hi all. Read on for part 2 of the same system we were looking at the other day. Interesting application as it’s a listening room, so we’re only concerned about the system response at a single point in space. This side-steps a lot of the spacial variance issues that are at the heart of sound …
I have a podcast! It’s called Signal To Noise, and I host it along with pro audio veterans Kyle Chirnside and Chris Leonard. You can find it here: https://www.prosoundweb.com/podcasts/