User Manual

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Key feature
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Greater control of functional downward dispersion
Given that line-array speakers leverage the characteristics of the line source to limit the spread of amplied sound in the
vertical plane, installing these speakers relatively high off the ground can exclude the front-of-house from the coverage
area, reducing volume and clarity. Typical remedies are the installation of separate subwoofers for this zone or using
arrays with a J-shaped curve to increase downward dispersion. Meanwhile, certain types of line-array speakers offer
variable angles of vertical dispersion, but this mostly affects both upward and downward directions together, not just
downward dispersion. Clarity thus suffers as a result of undesirable reections from the roof surface. Alternatively, in
cases where dispersion is increased more than necessary, sound pressure will drop and the amplied sound will not
travel as far.
In contrast, the VXL series efciently reinforces sound only for the required coverage area, and using a switch on the
rear panel, it is possible to expand the angle of dispersion in just the downward direction. Expansion of this dispersion
angle is controlled by means of a passive delay on the output from the bottom units, and as shown in Figure 3, this
means that the effective downward angle can be expanded to 10° for the VXL24 and 15° for the VXL16, without the
need for any change in the shape of the array.
(a) Fixed coverage area
(b) Control over coverage-area expansion
Figure 3: Effective dispersion angle in vertical plane
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