Excellent Sound in Every Seat in the House

MATTIA COBIANCHI AND ROBERTO MAGALOTTI, B&C SPEAKERS S.P.A.

Projecting high-quality sound to large audiences often involves a linear array of speakers. However, to make sure that every audience member hears every word clearly and every sound with full fidelity, the wavefronts from the individual speakers inside the array must be in phase with each other, and the frequency response must be as smooth as possible — ideally flat. The traditional method has been to combine megaphone-variant horns in a coherent array, but even the best such horns produce unintended side effects such as diffraction, reflection and distortion. These waveguides leave considerable room for improvement when trying to combine multiple loudspeaker enclosures in arrays without destroying the coherency of the wavefront.