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SLS
LS8695 Line Array |
These boxes are for sale - click here!
| They ain't perfect,
but what is? All boxes have their resonances and "funny
spots", and these are no exception. But over all they sound
very nice from top to bottom. One of the best sounding rigs here
in town is either EAW KF695Zs or
Yorkville U15s,
driven by a DriveRack
and PL236s.
The guy who owns this rig likes my LS8695s a lot, especially the highs. I have
yet to hear of anyone who does not like them. If
Danley Sound
Labs made a
box that was say 90 degrees horizontal x 30
degrees (or less) vertical, that would be very tempting, since it would
no doubt play louder. But until then, I'll likely be sticking with the
LS8695s. The LS8695's claimed horizontal dispersion is 100 degrees. It seems to be quite a bit wider over a fairly wide bandwidth. When walking the room during a show, I can often understand most of the lyrics when standing where I cannot even see the front of the cabinets. Common wisdom is that one wants pattern control in a narrow or reverberant room, to keep sound off the walls and directed to listeners. Thus, the LS8695 would be contraindicated. Such seems not to be the case with these boxes. I've had them in rooms that were skinny and deep, wide and short, and large & square. As compared to both front loaded and horn loaded "point source" boxes, Intelligibility, SPL, and frequency balance have been more consistent throughout every room in which I have tried them, except for two. (In both rooms the speakers were very far from the side walls, which are very reflective, so the sidewall reflections arrived very late. However in another very wide room, a domed-ceiling theater that is a 72' x 72' reverb chamber, there did not seem to be any place in the room where the reflected sound came anywhere near to equaling the direct sound. The provider who rented them from me for that gig was very pleased, and the venue manager said that attendees commented that this was the only intelligible speech and enjoyable music that they had heard in that room.) (One downside to the ultra-wide dispersion is that these boxes spill a lot of sound onto the stage. This can compromise gain-before-feedback in a number of situations. I have a parametric inserted in my vocal subgroup to take care of it.) These speakers "throw" like crazy. My measurements confirm that as SLS claims, the SPL reduction as the distance from the speaker doubles really is only about 3dB, as opposed to the usual 6dB. And unlike "point source" boxes, you can walk right up to an LS8695 without getting your head blown off. In fact, as you approach them, past a certain point they get quieter. And, while you are there visually inspecting the pretty gold ribbon, you can hear the box on the other side of the stage. Keep in mind that these things have only 2 degrees of vertical
dispersion. If you are below or above the ends of the box, the
treble dies, so they must be ground stacked. But since they
don't kill the folks in front, and they are so skinny, you can get away
with putting them places that other boxes won't go. Once you know
where the front row is, play with the height a bit, and of course you
can tilt them forward if it helps. Having them "too
close" to the side walls does not cause much of a problem - in fact
after EQing out any hot spots you may find that the proximity to the
wall has fattened them up nicely. |
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