Line array tweeter

[kop]

I'm planning a set of line arrays for church; about 400 seats. We currently have seven 15" two ways, two 18" subs and eight 12" two way monitors with 10,000 peak watts total. I want to use two arrays with 10 double 6 1/2" woofers (20) and 10 planar tweeters per side crossed at 2500 Hz. Question: will the planars keep up, sensitivities are a match and each handles 80 watts, or should I go with compression horns on waveguides instead? (expense is an issue) Any opinions or ideas are welcomed.

[Randy L]

Will you be using an active crossover for the lows & tweets in the line array, or will you have a passive crossover?

If you were thinking of the Dayton Planar, its Fs is 1650hz, and it does state that you should have an 18db slope to cross it over at 2500hz.

They were my first choice in my pro PA line array project, but the crossover point would have been too high for my goals, and their size was too large for my design (placing the tweeters in front of the lows).

How many watts is the amp(s) you will be using to drive the line array?

[kop]

I'd like to use a passive crossover. A third high pass section is conceded at 2500Hz; second order on the low at 2000Hz. The Dayton is under consideration. Power available will be 1600 rms watts per unit.

[Randy L]

So I'm guessing that you want a setup somewhat like this....a stack of individual cabinets. Each cabinet has two 6-1/2" drivers and a (planar) tweeter in the middle.

[JCURIA]

I recently built a pair of mid-range towers (6 Eminence Beta-8A) and tweeter towers (6 peerless cone tweets) for my outdoor home theater system. They are pictured here in my house for the upcoming winter. The system is tri-amped (dual 18 sub not shown) and controlled through a dBX speaker management system.

[kop]

Hey Randy L,
That's the idea. But, what I'm concerned about is coverage and volume capability. Will the planars do? And, is 6 1/2 big enough or should I go with 8 inchers (maybe only 12-16 per sde)?

[dthomas]

Hey Randy L,
That's the idea. But, what I'm concerned about is coverage and volume capability. Will the planars do? And, is 6 1/2 big enough or should I go with 8 inchers (maybe only 12-16 per sde)?

I have 40 of the Pioneer NSBs that I am building a pair of line arrays. I have 100 of the Delco buyout 5/8" mylars that PE had on buyout where you bought 200 in a case. I plan on 20 of the 4" and the 36 of the mylar tweeters on each side. They will be PA mains crossing at 120Hz. The pioneers need an equalizer but the mylars aren't really all that bad out to 15KHz. I figure I can cross them at around 3500Hz the mylars have basically no resonance peak so my hope is that with enough of them they will do fine down to about 3500Hz. Initial tesing of 18 of them is very promising. Final sensitivity will be about 102db for both lines. They will be actively crossed with a 200W amp on the mids and 150W amp on the tweeters. 4 15" horns will be doing the bass duty from 40-120Hz.

I plan on finishing them in the next few weeks. Of course that means a month. The gig my son's band is playing for the next 5 weeks is a small venue so their existing system works quite well. It is clean and loud but you really have to be in the sweet spot with tops that are 15" drivers crossing to horns at around 2000Hz. They get the job done and they don't get complaints but I really get aggravated when I listen to how bad it beams.

[mmacoustics]

I helped build the line array speakers for our church. We used the 12 neo8s per side and 24 peerless 5.25s (per side). We have a pair of 18s under the stage for our subs. The crossovers are all active - 100Hz and 1200Hz. Our auditorium seats about 300. They play very loud and clear with no issues. In our room we had to do some significant equalizing above 10kHz - but the end result is great.