9xDayton 6.5" wired 3 parallel x 3 series to keep an 8 ohm rating per speaker.
18xGT1016 piezo tweeters cut into a 44"x2.5" array wired 6 parallel x 3 series.
Speakers came out to a finished height of 70" with the 44" tweeter array located 3" from the top of the cabinet. Behind the grille cloth the tweeter array looks like it might be one of these: http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdet ... er=264-702
Wall mounted ~36" from the floor on swivel adjustment LCD monitor supports to allow toe in and vertical angle to be set to best cover the congregation in a church. The room where they're installed is about 15' tall, 60' wide and 40' deep with a 28" raised stage set into the front wall about 15' deep and 30' wide centered on the 60' dimension. The room seats 2-300 as my best guess.
The previous setup was a pair of dipole capable 15" w/ horn cabinets from JBL with an additional 15" w/ horn cabinet hung along side at ceiling level. The dipole capable speaker is basically two 15" w/ horn speakers built into one cabinet including splay angle for horizontal clustering and wider dispersion. I said capable because only one side was ever filled due to budget constraints. Instead of filling the cabinet a pair of JBL JRX type speakers was purchased and hung next to the cabinets to allow occasional use as a portable PA. Drivers between the original and subsequent speakers were not a match other than all being purchased from JBL and the house EQ had been removed in a series of activity targeted at removing hiss and noise from the system. Everything was running just fine off a single Mackie 1400i.
Noted problems with the prior system were predominately the lack of clarity, consistent coverage and the need for subs to add low-end response. The plan we developed was to build the full-sized quadrilateral TLAH Pros painted and grilled to match the room. In addition a 22" high 3015LF loaded T-48 (suomeday maybe 2) would tuck into a compartment to be built under center stage with the risers of the steps removed and replaced with dyed grille cloth to keep the design mothers of the church happy.
We needed to keep the total budget including crossover/EQ and cabling to about $1000 and wanted to re-use whatever we could manage from the current system. Given the output capability of the mains and subs as well as moderate output needs for the system we calculated we should be okay keeping the mains in mono on one side of the 1400i and putting the T48 on the other side. When budget allows, a second amp dedicated to the subs will be added (looking at the SHS1500 from bltsound).
So, after a month or so of sporadic building we completed the TLAH Pro's (sounded pretty good hooked up to a home stereo amp for testing) and after services yesterday spent the afternoon pulling down the old clusters and mounting the TLAH's. I have a pair of T48's and only one is truly necessary for my regular use, so I'm temporarily loaning my second until the under stage sub gets finished. Hopefully it'll be completed by early January if not the end of December. The sub is temporarily wall loaded up on the stage next to the bass player's spot. Imagine he'll like that one.
We took some time with my DEQ2496 to EQ and set the crossover to get a balanced sound in the room with mains and aux fed subs set at unity at the board. First thing we had to do when firing the music back up was to remove the rather extreme channel EQ previously used to get the music sounding tollerable. In attendance were the worship leader I've been working with on the build and another guy who helps out on sound. One additional problem we identified was that the mains had been wired to a junction box we re-used with their polarity swapped on one side.
So, how do they sound? Even without EQ and subs they sounded significantly better to my ears than the previous mains. Once EQ'd and balanced with the subs they sounded gorgeous. The line array I figured as opperating in the near field down to around 100Hz out to ~4m which gets us a decent way across the room and through two doubling of distances with 6db higher volume than with traditional speakers. Even with the volume at a level that started to make conversation past a few feet difficult they sounded loud, clear and effortless from front to back of the room. Coverage across the wide room was amazingly even, with the front row middle of house seats having substantially better mid and HF response than before. Pushing a decently loud volume the 1400i was only hitting about -10db on its input meters for the mains and the sub side was barely measuring a signal.
Next project, build a similar pair for the church I attend with a pair of 30" wide T30's disguised as an altar table up front and center so I can have my T48's for permanent road use. In a room that seats about 350, nobody'll be blowing those puppies
