Far trow speakers

Can anybody explain what makes a speaker a "far throw" or "long trow" speaker. Brands like HK Audio advertise their speakers as long throw and even Beringer advertise their 18" subs as far or long throw. Is it the design of the box? smiley13 smiley5

Bull shyte marketing mate end of.

It is a term that usually is attributed to boxes with a narrow dispersion pattern to give a high SPL within this region. Unless Behringer have developed a new cardioid bass box then that term with regards their speakers is just a bad joke.

Techies say it cant happen, 'cos speed of sound is constant.
My argument its that sound can travel on the wind, so as a horn uses the driver as a piston, go figure.

Rog Mogale uses the term throw as he understands the human perception of it. So as humans percieve it lets just call it throw, even if is because of spl, dispersion, waveform or whatever.

We all know for a fact the long throw cabs in small buildings can cause low bass on dancfloor and much bass in neighbors house.

If you want the science all you will get is a load of measurmants reasonsing whay the sound appears to throw. Search it on SP it has been covered to death.

Horn loaded cabs use the horn to make the sound in a big way, direct cabs use the driver. You want someone to hear you shout roll up a newspaper into a cone and shout through it, it goes further because its dispersion is narrower and controlled. It throws.

The marketing hype is IMHO needed, it needs to be simplified as jo public wants to know if her new speakers can reach the back of the hall, she doesn't want to know that it only appears to happen because of........yawn.

Good to see FSP on the move smiley20

Thanks for that answer. I thought that much. I must say it is a very good selling point and makes the speaker sound very impressive. But with sound traveling at the same constant speed.......Yip. it only makes one wonder.

Nicky,

Yes sound can travel on the wind. But this should cause a change in frequency of the waveform not a change in amplitude. If you were down wind then the successive wave crest would appaer to be emitted from a position closer to the observer than the previous wave. Therefore each wave takes slightly less time to reach the observer than the previous wave. The time between the arrival of successive wave crests at the observer would be reduced, causing an increase in the frequency. Its that phasey sound you hear at large outdoor festivals etc and happens more with line source arrays than point source as the line source has a wider effective radiating angle and so more area to be disturbed. The idea with multiple point source enclosures is that you don’t hear adjacent enclosures and the problems they are having with the wind blowing there sound around. With a line source you hear the whole output being disturbed by the wind and thermal effects.

You might have also heard the sound level raise and lower considerably at large outside festivals. This is especially true at greater distances and I believe its because of shear or transverse (side winds) blowing the sound away from your location. I’m not so sure it’s to do with the sound being carried with the wind and is therefore louder. As stated above the Doppler effect would come into play in this scenario.

I also believe we do perceive throw, but in reality they are only a few things that can change how loud something is at a given distance in comparison to another sound source at the same distance.

1st would be how loud the source SPL is.

2nd thing would be if the sound source were cylindrical or spherical.

3rd would be how large the radiation area of the sound source was.

So basically, if it’s louder to start with it will be louder at distance. If it’s a cylindrical radiation pattern then it would appear louder at a given distance over a spherical sound source, i.e. line array vs point source. And larger radiating areas are louder at a given distance because they behave more like cylindrical sources the larger they get.

Rog.

Many thanks. I should have made myself clearer though. I wasn't saying the wind could make it louder, just that although speed of sound is constant (the argument used by many to say throw cannot happen), it can be affected by other things. The wind being an easy example.
The rest a little above my understanding, unless explained by you etc.

Not a subject that will ever go away :lol:

ive read many an article on speaker throw, but i must say i love the way you explain stuff rog, straight to the point and very easy to understand......

why would the doppler effect some into play with wind. i imagine in a sudden burst of wind their may be a preasure front which causes some momentary change in frequency, but a steady wind should have very little effect on the distance between peaks right?

cheers
dave

Rog Mogale wrote: 2nd thing would be if the sound source were cylindrical or spherical.

3rd would be how large the radiation area of the sound source was.

So basically, if it’s louder to start with it will be louder at distance. If it’s a cylindrical radiation pattern then it would appear louder at a given distance over a spherical sound source, i.e. line array vs point source. And larger radiating areas are louder at a given distance because they behave more like cylindrical sources the larger they get.

Rog.

Dear Rog,

I would like to learn more about this and have some scientific sources as Meyer sound labs seems to be thinking quite differently about this. meyersound.com/support/papers/line_array_theory.htm