As you may be aware, steerable speakers have grown in popularity and in use over the last few years. Loudspeakers that use this type of technology are perfect for applications where intelligibility is of the utmost importance, and where the room acoustics may make it difficult to obtain good intelligibility with a more traditional loudspeaker system.
In the past, distributed systems were utilized when required. Since they were placed closer to the listener, the amount of energy exciting the room acoustics were kept to a minimum, ensuring the best possible intelligibility. While these kinds of systems work well for certain applications, they could be considerably more expensive over a traditional loudspeaker system due to having to use more loudspeakers which required more labor, additional cabling and more processing to properly delay and align the entire system.
Steerable speakers were born from the need to provide better intelligibility, while requiring less loudspeaker to accomplish a consistent sound pressure level. For churches, airports, and train stations are some of the places that can, and have greatly benefited from this type of steering technology. This technology uses drivers that are aligned vertically. Now, in the past this was thought of as a bad thing due to the negative interactions between the drivers. However, with the advent of very advanced digital signal processing, this technology can provide a very powerful solution providing a way to tightly control the coverage pattern. While this idea has been used in the past, it’s really not a new idea.
The length of the line array and the spacing between the drivers will be the deciding factor of the pattern control provided by the loudspeaker. Once the length of the frequency wavelength has exceeded the height of the column, pattern control is lost. Many of these systems feature sophisticated digital signal processing and amplification that provide all the processing power necessary to make steering a reality.
Many of the steerable products available provide the user the ability to use multiple beams to cover the entire room, allowing for better contouring of coverage and sound pressure levels. The ability to customize the coverage pattern, and provide better directivity control are just some of the benefits of a steerable product.
While it won’t solve all issues and may not work well in all applications, there are numerous applications where steerable speakers provide benefits over their non-steerable counterparts.
We represent Renkus-Heinz, the world leader in steerable sound. For more information on how steerable technology works, please visit the FAQ page here. If you would like more information or would like to set up a demo to hear the Renkus-Heinz steerable products in action, please go here.