Camillo wrote: ↑Sun Jun 04, 2023 10:01 am
Bruce, (and other if u want) whats your opinion on crossover and tweeter choice, 2 ot15 used both outdoors and Indoors and mostly with a clooose distance to the audience. Does the dispersion beat the sound that some say is better in the cd with lower crossover point?
The closeness of the audience isn't an issue unless they are close, but off to the side. I always recommend the CD option with the 1.2khz crossover. Why? Because I have that option in two cabs and I have melded arrays in two other cabs. The arrays do have a wider dispersion, but the CDs just sound so much better to me.
With the cost of piezos at $15 - it would actully be cheaper to build the CD option....(unless the drivers are stupid expensive).
With the trade off being wider dispersion vs. better sound - I'll go with the better sound. Of course, I'm rarely in venues where I can't position the speakers to cover the room and that the wider dispersion would make that much of a difference. If you are constantly in small areas where people are close to the stage but outside of the speakers, then the melded may be the right tool. But, I believe that the audience will typically seat themselves where they want to be based on the volume of the sound. So, if I can give better sound to the 90% with the CDs, I'll trade off the wider dispersion of the array. And the array is 120 degrees vs. 90-100 degrees of the CD, so the difference is there, but not huge.
Full disclosure, I always run all 4 tops. The arrays on the bottom and the horns on top. Do I get a little better dispersion for the audience on the side? I'm sure I do. But, when I run a check after setting up by making sure each speaker is funcioniong, there's no question that the CDs sound richer.
The issue is not CD vs. Array - it's lower crossover point vs. higher crossover point. If I was considering the higher crossover with a CD, I don't think there would be a ton of difference between that and the array with both crossed at 2k.
And since I'm writing a book here - I'll state that the difference between 2 OTops and 4 is HUGE! The coupling of the cabs makes everything warmer in the vocals - it just flat sounds better. So, even if the venue could easily be handled by 2 cabs, I set up all 4 - just because it sounds better. Once we were playing in a really small spot where two was plenty, so I used a mono stack - putting the two OTs on top the sub (It was up against the wall). I got the coverage I needed, but still got the warmth of having them coupled.
On a side note, that night was with the band where we did a whole lot of Allman Brothers songs. A guy came up to me at the break and said, "Man, you sound just like Joe Allman!" Since the Allman brothers were named Gregg and Duane - I don't know if he was talking about their third cousin or if he was just clueness.....and considering the location of this venue and the collective IQ of their clientele, I'd go with the latter.
best would maybe be the j-array ot12, and build a couple every year 
starting on my second titan48 now aswell 
