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Sound Advice

The Sound of Southern Gospel - Line Arrays

I debated on if this was relevant to our industry or not. Line arrays are becoming extremely common in the audio industry and until recently have not been priced low enough or have been small enough to even consider for a group to carry. There are many advantages to line arrays that could really help out in the venues groups are required to play in.

A line array is a speaker cabinet that will usually cover an extremely wide area but very focused vertically. For instance, most line array speakers will cover up to 160 degrees wide but only 5 to 20 degrees vertically. This allows fewer cabinets to be used to cover a large area. For large events it is also easier to hang and cable, etc. Coverage is usually more even across the horizontal plane because of one speaker covering that area instead of packing and “arraying” several cabinets to cover a large area.

Think of a line array this way…Think about a pancake. That’s what a line array is doing. It’s projecting the sound in a pancake shaped coverage pattern tightly controlling where the sound is being projected, keeping the sound off of walls and on the audience.

Up until recently line arrays have been somewhat large and awkward for groups in the southern gospel industry. Most groups in this industry either stack or pole mount speakers for obvious reasons. With the size and odd “vertical” shape of a line arrays, it’s not been practical to us on a smaller scale. Recently there has been an uprising of compact line arrays from all of the major companies. Some line arrays now are even smaller than a lot of conventional trap boxes being used. Many of them are also available to ground stack now and/or small enough to rig up between a couple of standard speaker stands (heavy duty ones).

Some line arrays are also powered now, making them even more attractive. The only thing making them still a bit unattractive is the price tag. However, most of them are in the same price range as a good regular speaker. One I heard recently is made by Dynacord and is very user friendly and has pole mounting options on top of their subs via 2 poles. They sound really good and are moderately priced for the bang you get. They are also pretty small. The subs rock! Other very small line arrays are also available by JBL, EAW, EV, L-Acoustics, Meyer, SLS, Renkus-Heinz, and I know I’m leaving out some others. I’ve heard most of these brands and they are all very effective. Only a couple have powered versions though, that can really be a plus as most of them require at least bi-amplification. For powered line arrays, I was impressed with the Renkus-Heinz who also makes a lot of other good powered gear.

Anyways, don’t be surprised if you see a line array system with a group in the next couple of years. Again the big challenge is what to do with them once you got them. I’m working on some ideas on how to accomplish this other than floor stacking.

Merry Christmas

Josh Hoevelmann