So we've decided that we want to design a PA loudspeaker that sounds as good as commercial products costing many times more, with performance and sound quality far in advance of current budget far Eastern products. We want set out and publish the design so it can be reproduced as a 'self build' project for budget conscious musicians and DJs to build from scratch, to use as a template for loading existing or broken systems, or as an educational project that schools and colleges could use. Also to set out the design principles, decisions and ideas to offer an insight into the workings and functions of PA loudspeakers and design.
This part (two) will deal with the application and goals of the product (what it's designed to do), and the design priorities.
Part One of The Great Sounding Speaker Project (Introduction) Can Be Found Here.
So with a healthy disrespect for current far Eastern budget PA speaker products, we set out to design and build something superior.
The goal was to design an affordable PA loudspeaker system for musicians and DJs with the emphasis on sound quality and transparency rather than sheer power and efficiency.
The PA loudspeaker market seems to have developed into a kind of power handling 'arms race', with the increasing use of less critical power handling measurements such as 'peak power' or continuous 'music power'. We wanted honest specs, so clients could make a properly informed decision about the product.
Despite a focus on sound quality, we still needed a product that would deliver vocal clarity alongside other instruments and backing tracks/recorded music for solos, duos, bands and DJs for 100-150 audience size type venues.....reliably!
The target budget of £300 per pair would make it accessible to cash conscious musicians and artists and be ideal for partnering with powered mixers, PA heads and smaller power amplifiers.
Compromises...compromises.....
So with this design brief in mind we set a list of design priorities. Product designers and manufacturers will often describe their products as 'no compromise'. In the real world, there are always compromises, and given the budget constraints that we'd set, it was clear there would be some with our product. We thought it would be useful to set out a list of loudspeaker 'factors' and then place them in order of priority for our product. So here they are:
1. Sound Quality
2. Reliability
3. Price/budget
4. Level/power/efficiency
5. Versatility
6. Weight
7. Cosmetics/looks
8. Marketing.
1. Sound Quality:
We really wanted this to be number one. To develop a product that reproduced vocals, instruments and music crisply and clearly. With a warm and natural bass response, vivid mid range and a natural high frequency response that wasn't harsh or shrill. The vocal area would be critical, reproducing male and female vocals clearly and smoothly. We wanted something that sounded much more like higher end speaker products costing many times as much. The real goal in terms of 'sound' for a PA loudspeaker is to produce a response that is 'flat' (i.e. all frequencies are represented equally) and for the artist to make decisions about 'tone' and response using the EQ on their mixers. But the component choice and system design will always present a sound 'quality' factor and we wanted this to be central.
We also believe that the sound quality of the system contributes greatly to the next factor which is reliability. If the sound is muddy or unclear, then users will always be seeking to turn things up...and up.....until eventually something may break. If the sound is clear, then this becomes less of a problem.
2. Reliability:
You can create the best sounding loudspeaker there is, but if it can't do it's job reliably night after night then it's not really much use. In the real world PA loudspeakers have to stand up to some punishment. They should always be used within their stated parameters, but accidents do happen (dropped microphones, etc) so the system had to be robust and reliable. This would be a factor in the choice of drive units and crossover network components.
3: Price:
We'd set the budget goal to be pretty tight, as stated above. No way around this. They have to come in within budget so they are affordable.
4: Level/Power/Efficiency:
We are focusing more on sound quality than pure sound pressure levels, but the function of a PA system is to get a message across to an audience. A room full of people. So the power handling, efficiency and the resulting sound pressure levels would have to fulfil our goal of clear, undistorted music reproduction to rooms of 100-150 people and 200-250 for speech reproduction.
5: Weight:
Always nice if you can build something as lightweight as possible. Makes it more portable and easier to get onto stands, etc. The budget may be a constraining factor here. Neodymium drivers would be out and we would be using an off the shelf wooden enclosure rather than anything plastic or injection moulded, but if two components performed similarly and one was considerably lighter then this factor would certainly come into play.
6: Versatility:
This factor is largely down to the enclosure. Could the system be used a 'wedge' monitor? Could they be installed within a venue permanently wall mounted or 'flown'? Or would it be primarily a portable, stand mounted system? We were going to use an off the shelf enclosure, so it probably wouldn't be multi-angle for floor monitoring, and it certainly wouldn't have the necessary flying tackle or strength for safe suspension. Wall mounting should be possible via a 35mm stand mount fitting with suitable wall bracket and safety chains.
Please note: If you are using this system as a 'self build' project, don't attempt to suspend or wall mount any systems without specialist help or advice. Whatever enclosure you are using.
7: Cosmetics/Looks:
We were not going to overly concern ourselves with looks or cosmetics. It's going to be a black box, although there may be some visual enhancements we can make at a reasonable budget or offer as additional add-ons maybe. Anyway this is about sound, not looks. Why would an audience be looking at speakers anyway? So cosmetics are toward the bottom of the list.
8: Marketing:
Not really a design priority or principle, but we're not going to produce any glossy printed brochures or spend lots on flashy websites, etc. The marketing for the product would be done 'guerrilla' style using social media, blogs, pdf downloadable spec sheets, etc.
So we now had a pretty clear picture of what we were looking to achieve and what the priorities were. This would inform our choices when we started designing the speaker and choosing components.....more of which in Part 3.