Precision AV March 2018 Newsletter
March 2018 Newsletter
Welcome to Precision AV’s first newsletter! Every month or so we will highlight recent AV news or products, give a few interesting facts, and have a feature article about technologies or practices in the AV industry. Feel free to share this newsletter with others that may be interested and they can subscribe by sending an email to Brian@PrecisionAV.biz. If you are not interested in receiving future newsletters please email Brian@PrecisionAV.biz and we will remove you from the list.
Audio Training - Digital Consoles
Saturday, May 5th at Evangel Assembly of God in Bismarck, ND
Precision AV is hosting a training session on Getting the most out of your Digital Mixer. Topics include Compressors, Gates, Effects Processors and more. It is tailored for church audio techs that have experience on analog consoles, or have been using digital consoles but want to utilize the more advanced features of their equipment. We will go in depth on these concepts with about 5 hours of training. For more information and to register, visit our website at https://www.precisionav.biz/training-slides. Slides for all of the sessions are available on the web page to get a better idea of content covered.
Recent News - Wireless Equipment Rebates
The government recently sold off 616-653 Mhz and 663-698 Mhz frequency ranges for future 5G cell phone operation. These are common frequencies used for wireless mics, in-ear packs, etc. While not illegal yet, the government in the next couple of years will not allow devices, new and old, to operate in those frequency ranges. Shure and Sennheiser will soon be offering rebate programs for any equipment that operates in the 600 Mhz range, mid April for Shure and the end of June for Sennheiser. In addition to this frequency range becoming illegal, once 5G gets to our area you will start running into interference with wireless products that operate in the 600 Mhz range.
By returning a wireless unit in this range and purchasing a new unit from Shure or Sennheiser, you can receive some money back to offset the cost. You can find the rebate programs at https://wirelessrebate.shure.com/ and https://en-us.sennheiser.com/600-mhz-promo. If you want to know if your wireless equipment falls in this range or for help with replacement, contact us at Brian@PrecisionAV.biz.
Advances in Speaker Technology - Part 1
The first articles we are covering in our newsletters are based on sound system design and advances in speaker technology.
For close to 70 years, speaker technology has been based on the same design called point source technology. It covers the full frequency range well, but it has a few limitations that can cause coverage issues in most applications.
First, the loudest point is in the center of where the speaker hits, creating a hotspot. As you move to the edge of the speaker’s throw pattern the volume drops significantly, up to half of the peak center output. This leaves a designer with two suboptimal choices. You can aim the center of the speaker’s throw pattern at the center of the room, but as you move to the back of the room it loses volume due to distance and being at the edge of the throw pattern. Or the second commonly used option, you can aim the center of the speaker’s throw pattern at the furthest point in the room. This results in even volume coverage because as you move to the back of the room it loses volume from distance decay, but you gain it back by moving towards the hotspot of the throw pattern. However, with this method up to the top 50% of the throw pattern is unused and hits the back and side walls causing reverberation and reducing the clarity of the speaker.
The second issue with point-source technology is that only the higher frequencies are aimed through the directional cone. The mid and low-mid frequencies are not well-aimed which increases reverberation in these ranges, generally this occurs at 1000 Hz and below. This can cause feedback by increasing stage volume directly from the speaker, as well as increased reverberation causing additional loss of clarity.
In the next newsletter Part 2 of our series on speaker technology will cover Line Arrays. This technology became mainstream in the 1990’s as the first viable alternative to the conventional point source speaker. We will cover both how line arrays address issues with conventional point source speakers as well as the line array’s limitations addressed by newer technology that is available today.
Thanks for reading! We are going to be including answers to questions or interesting developments in our local community in future newsletters. Contact us at Sales@PrecisionAV.biz with any questions, comments, or suggestions about what you’d like to see in future newsletters.
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Precision AV
Brian Wangler 701-426-2582 Brian.Wangler@PrecisionAV.biz
