I think this is a virgin field of research. On the practical design of "line sources" for large venues, it may be that we can only achieve "..more even coverage, as you increase the distance from a speaker system to the nearest listener. This also makes it rather more comfortable for the nearest listener."
Having had some success with designing stereo speaker for a larger listening area[1], my initial thoughts on speakers for domestic ambi were -- design for mounting near the ceiling with directivity such that maximum loudness would be on the opposite side of the room. All combined with (at the time, non-existent?) digital room & speaker EQ. But this discussion seems about much larger areas and apart from my crude efforts, no one else seems prepared to report their experiences. I note a deafening silence from the York & Derby Ambisonic Mafia who probably have more experience with large area playback than the rest of the world put together. > that's not really true. the sweet spot in the strict ambisonic sense is a > function of order and wavelength only. That's only strictly true for LF where Ambi is a (crude?) form or WFS ie when it attempts to recreate the soundfield at a point. An IEC Listening Room, 2.5 x 6 x 4m is a "point" at 20Hz. While MAG's rE appears to predict what happens when this no longer holds true on a domestic scale , we don't know how listeners react to large area Ambi soundfields. Please do pontificate on this subject but lets hear from those who have tried stuff out so we can test these prophecies. You probably do need special decoders for horizontal ambi with "line" sources, but what these need to do is a new field. I can only report from my small experiments, that a normal Classic Decoder seems to work well. > that's another thing worth exploring: the funktion one guys have reported > that ambi rigs have an advantage in this respect, because the ratio of useful > loudness inside to leaked emission outside of the array is better than with > stereo (or maybe even conventional four-point) playback systems. This is very obvious even for domestic ambi systems. As well as the very real sense of something real happening within the circle of speakers when "viewed" from outside. Peter Lennox thinks it's just glorified stereo but the effect is so startling that it must be more than that. [1] Loudspeakers and the Stereo Seat - G Millward, HFN, 1981? _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
