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Why so few high end line arrays?

To me the intrinsic "wall of sound" of this design are compelling. I recently tried a very nice 3 way w/ stereo subs in my system after 2 years of line array-only listening and the lost impact and scale of eight midbasses/ribbons per side was profound. I was immediately aware of the music emerging from boxes, despite very nice imaging. And it's not that the arrays exaggerate the size of voices and instruments. Does the materials cost dissuade manufacturers? Is it the size? Seems like relatively unexplored territory in high end home audio.
jb0194

Showing 2 responses by ptmconsulting

ptmconsulting
1,000 posts
 
I've heard several line arrays. Like any design they seem to do some things wonderfully, but also seem to have issues of their own to contend with and overcome. It's always a trade off for what you consider important.

In my experience and on the ones I've heard, they seem to have:
- very good dynamics, both micro and macro
- very good imaging and soundstaging
- however the image can tend to be overly large, like a 6 foot tall saxophone or a 3 foot wide nose on the singer

From what I understand the overly large image can be compensated for in the design of the crossover and speaker connections. I'm sure newer designs have done this.

It's also important to have proper amp matching, but this is true of any speaker.
ptmconsulting
1,000 posts
 
I agree with those micro dynamics at low SPL's. Line arrays tend to sound louder than the volume knob would seem to show. Maybe it's all those speakers (duh)?

I think the one design issue with line arrays is the number of speakers themselves. They do sound good even with low quality drivers. But to get the true best out of them you need better drivers, and that gets expensive. Most of the ones I've heard have been the former, and that could account for my bias against their soundstaging size.
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