Aspect Training Berlin September 2005

1
Aspect Training Berlin September 2005

• A little history
• The Turbosound Philosophy
• Why not a line array?
• The Designers
• TA-880 vs TA-890
• TA-890H Training Sessions
• Success Stories
• The Shadows Tour
• Soundworks
• Roskilde
• The engineers view

2
Design philosophy
3
2-way Systems
4
Disadvantages

• Paper cone to metal diaphragm transition in
  middle of vocal range
• Low HF crossover point
• High distortion
• Low intelligibility

5
Vented enclosures

• Sounds OK close to the box but-
• insufficient throw
• no good outdoors
• poor directivity control
• HF keeps going beyond LF

6
1981 3-way System
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Advantages

• Paper cones throughout vocal range
• Higher HF crossover frequency
• Less stress on HF driver
• Lower distortion
• Better intelligibility

8
Modular One-box System

• One box full rangevs. bins and horns
• Modular enclosures
• Arrayable, stackable
• Horn loaded
• High power 1kW

TMS-3
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Horn loading

• Horn loading gives higher efficiency
• TurboMid device minimisesphase cancellation
• Better intelligibility

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TurboMid Device
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1990 4-way system
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Advantages

• Extends use of paper cone transducers up to 8kHz
• Very high efficiency111dB, 1W at 1m
• HF driver under very little stress
• Point and shoot aiming
• Hi-Fi sound to all seats
• Negligible distortion

13
Flashlight System

• Virtual point source
• Elegant, safe flying
• Ideal truck pack
• Integrated system
• Smallest, lightest

14
What was wrong with Flashlight?

• Poor horizontal consistency
• Dated rigging and trucking system
• Too many enclosures required for coverage
• Too big and heavy

15
Why Virtual Point Source?
Line array
VPS

• 2D system design
• Horizontal changes with Frequency and length
• Motor and point intensive
• Poor ground stacking
• Not Scalable several types of line array size
  needed with point source fills
• Power hungry
• Output Doubles with distance

• 3D system design
• Dispersion tailored to suit venue
• Good stacked or flown
• Scalable 1 box does all
• Extra efficiency through horn loading allows
  minimal power requirements
• Listener only hears 1 hi mid and hi cabinet at a
  time

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Why not a line array?

• Over crowded market place
• Fixed dispersion reduces flexibility
• A single box is not capable of doing 200 people
  or 50,000
• Line array effect is rarely relevant accept in a
  large array
• Potential Site line issues with large arrays
• System advantages are little to do with acoustics

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Some typical issues with using Line arrays

• Opening angles on lower enclosures has no effect
  on the dispersion of the system
• Despite theory, practical designs do not double
  with distance
• Attenuating the middle of the array has little or
  no effect on directionality of system

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Opening angles has no effect!
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Line Array at distance
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Audio hits the balcony
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Does this mean line array is terrible?

• Line array is like any tool in an engineers
  toolbox
• Use it when its dispersion and packaging is
  correct
• Use them for what they were designed for, 1 per
  side will not work!
• When these dont fit the venue use a point source
  box

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Turbosound Aspect
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Aspect Gurus

• Danny Cooklin
• Chief project engineer Aspect
• Mid range drivers unit
• Flying Hardware
• Laurence Dickie
• Mr. Polyhorn
• HF Drive Units
• Jon Crawley
• Everything below 400Hz!
• TA-880 Chief Engineer

• John Constable
• Mechanical engineer
• Flying hardware
• Dan Orton
• Amplifier Racks
• SDA
• Prediction Software

Successful products are usually the result of
teamwork..
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TA-880 vs TA-890

• TA-880 system
• Small ground stack regional touring companies
• Installations
• Cost effective flying and transport

• TA-890 system
• Medium to large format touring companies
• Theatre to arena tours
• Designed for quick flying and trucking

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TA-880H

• 3 way active
• 140dB continuous 146dB peak
• Arrays at a real 25 in the horizontal
• Between 4 and 15 in the vertical
• Trap angle set for close packing

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TA-880 Series

• Aimed at small rental companies and installations
• Maximum suggested system for rental 24 x TA-880H
• Simple cost effective flying for up to 3 deep
• Wheels available for TA-880L
• Wheel boards for TA-880H

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TA-880H Wheelboard

• Easy to fit
• Simple to stack

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TA-880H - Simple flying

• Swords and pins to connect cabinets
• Choked chains to connect boxes to bars
• Rear Biscuit to hold cabinets together
• Fixed 2 wide and 3 wide flybars
• Tilt Strap for kelping

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TA-890H

• 3 way active
• 140dB continuous 146dB peak
• Arrays at a real 25 in the horizontal
• Between 4 and 15 in the vertical
• Rotatable hornflare
• A system and B system integrated flying/stacking
• Extremely small package
• Ships with single wheel board
• 76KGS

A system
B system
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TA-890L

• 1200 w RMS
• 136 dB
• Couples for additional output
• Extremely small footprint
• Integrated A system hardware for stacking
• Ships with wheel board FOC
• 60KGS

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TSW-218

• Super sub for use below 100Hz
• Works best with 4 or more for low frequency
  extension
• Recommended as a 5th way for TA890 users when
  required
• Can be used in a 4 way system

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TA-890 Series

• Aimed at professional concert touring companies
• Capable of 400 500,000 with just 2 enclosure
  types
• Multiple flying options
• Full range of accessories available

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Aspect TA-890 training seminar

• Level 1 engineers
• Trained by Turbosound
• Toured to Level 2 standard
• Signed off to Level 1 by Turbosound or a
  qualified Level 1 trainer
• Level 2 engineers
• Trained to Level 3 by Turbosound
• Working with Aspect on the road with a level 1
  engineer or Turbosound
• Level 3 engineers
• Todays training!

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Level 3 training

• Acoustics
• System Packaging
• Flying Stacking

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Acoustics

• Polyhorn theory
• Lo mid coupling and dispersion
• 2 x 15 performance
• 2 x 18 performance
• Lo end directivity
• 4 way vs 5 way
• Picking array width
• Using EASE FOCUS

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CD Horn properties

• LF Directivity given by horn width
• HF Wavelength too short to provide pattern
  control horn beaming
• Phase is not uniform

HF
LF
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2 CD Horns Arrayed

• Holes in HF due to beaming
• Destructive interference
• Poor horizontal consistency

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The polyhorn

• Made up of multi tapered waveguides
• All equal path length
• High frequency directivity provided by hornlets
• Low frequency control by size of overall horn
  mouth

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The polyhorn

• Hornlets curved to provide array angle of 25
  degrees in horizontal
• Constructive interference
• Horizontal consistency close to line array

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The dome

• 50mm dome tweeter
• Takes compression from polyhorn
• First break up at 18kHZ
• Very low distortion
• Extremely powerful neo magnet 2,1 tessla at the
  gap

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10 Himid

• Spun Aluminium bowl for strength
• Neo magnet for weight and increased magnetic
  field
• 114dB 1w 1m on the polyhorn
• 400-4kHz no x-over in the vocal range
• Mounted on phase bung and poly horn for phase
  coherent wavefront
• Custom Turbosound design

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Polyhorn vs CD horn

• Very low distortion
• Horn reflections gone in 1ms
• No visible break-up
• No smearing

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LMF 2 x 10 Device

• Rear facing to ensure maximum air movement for
  cooling
• Heatsink Assembly over Neo Magnet for cooling
• Powerful Neo Magnet structure
• 107dB 1w/1m when loaded
• Custom to Turbosound
• Rising response

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Lo mid coupling

• 1 box naturally rises from 100Hz -400Hz
• As enclosures are flown deeply more low end can
  be heard
• No need for DSP processing- use the band gain and
  your ears
• Depending on horn rotation and width low mid
  response will clover leaf at 250-400Hz

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Aspect 100-400Hz 3 wide
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Aspect 1kHz to 5 kHz 3 wide
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Aspect 5kHz 10kHz
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2 x 15 stacking

• Stacking narrow but high provides wide horizontal
  and limited vertical
• 150Hz should be pulled out of band in quantities
  over 8 due to 100Hz coupling
• For the US market we suggest 1 x 18 to 1 x 15
  in a 5 way system

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2 x 18 stacking

• Works best in quantities of 3 or higher per side
• Should always be stacked to extend the horn for
  low frequency coupling of 4.5dB
• 4 units has a sensitivity of 110dB _at_ 1w 1m

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Bass arraying

• Long thin stacks cause beaming from ¼ of a
  wavelength
• Log spacing causes smooth coverage but may clover
  leaf
• Be careful of beaming low end, it may well be
  just as loud behind as in front!

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How wide do I go?

• Aspect arrays in 25 degree horizontal segments
• Most theatre gigs require 2 wide with infill
• Arenas are 4 or 5 wide
• Turn off boxes that are pointing at hard surfaces
• Use a protractor and a plan!

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EASE Focus / Turbosound Gigmate

• Turbosound in partnership with SDA
• Provide accurate acoustical prediction software
  for the Aspect Series
• Initially in the vertical with further updates to
  follow

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Gigmate- Setting up the room
Gigmate - Project Files

• Saving and opening project files
• Adding appropriate information

• Adding/Removing an audience area
• Setting up audience areas

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Gigmate - System setup

• Pick the correct flybars
• Select the number of enclosures needed
• Inserting TA-890L
• Ground-stacking
• The acoustic compensator!!

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Gigmate - Prediction

• SPL Mapping
• Frequency selection
• Weighting/Max SPL options
• Graph Options
• Relation to the real world
• What you should be trying to achieve

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Using the flying calculator

• Enter angles information from Gigmate
• Select narrow or wide pick up points on fly-bars
• Confirm motor requirements
• GO!

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Roskilde 1kHz 10kHz

• download from ftp.turbosound.com

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System packaging

• Amp racks
• 4 way vs 5 way
• Returns system
• Trucking

Flying and Stacking

• A System flying
• A System stacking
• Rotating the horn
• B System stacking

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AMP-890

• Complete Turbosound solution
• OEMd MC2 amplifiers
• Patchable between 4 way and 5 way operation
• Based on proven Flashlight Design
• Mono/Stereo operation by internal jumper
• Available as a kit or as a complete rack

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4 way or 5 way

• Most theatre work and small work should be run 4
  way with the 2 x 15
• Dance work can be run 4 way with either bin but
  may require a large number of 2 x 15
• Arena touring and large outdoor events should be
  run 5 way
• Amplifier racks make this very simple

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Complete Returns system

• Based on 24 way Veam connector
• 20 way used with spare lines
• A single stage send breaks into 4 x 5 way sends
• Provides 20 way system or 16 way system with
  returns

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Truck Packs
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4 High Wheelboard

• Allows trucking of 4 x TA-890H or L on a single
  wheel-board pre-flown
• Can be tipped to 26 degrees when 3 high
• Must be kept flat when 4 high or use separate
  stabiliser
• Weighs up-to 310 KGs
• Must have 4 people around when 4 high

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TA-890H B system

• Cabinet connects with small interlinks
• Internal captive biscuit holds cabinets apart
• Choked pick up chain connects cabinets to bar
• Tilt strap separates or kelps cabinets
• Hardware used for ground stacking

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TA-890 A system

• Completely integrated hardware
• Allows cabinets to be trucked pre flown
• Allows cabinets to be securely ground stacked up
  to 6 high without flying or ground support towers
• Allows cabinets to be flown 8 deep!
• Safety factor 131!!
• Simple to use
• Removable for testing

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TA-890 A system
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TA-890 A system Stacked
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TA-890 A system flown
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TA-890/1w
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TA-890A 2 wide A


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3 wide


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4 wide

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Setting up the system words of advise

• Use your ears!
• Phase check the system before anything else
• EQ is always the last resort