Is the Mackie C200 and similar 10" speakers enough?

[vwflyer]

I'm wondering if a pair of 10" Mackie C200 will be enough for the sound system we are installing in our multi-purpose room.

The room is 54' deep, 35' wide and has a 9' drop ceiling. It will max out at about 100 people. It is a hard room with tile floors and plaster walls. The speakers will be used for speech reenforcement, musical dramas, and small acoustic bands. The front of the room has a stage platform only a couple of feet high and about 12' deep. The back most 8' of the room is reserved for the sound booth and such (no seating). The stage and normal seating is offset to the left of the room to leave room for foot traffic along the right 1/4-1/3 of the room.

We want small inconspicuous speakers that will probably have to be mounted to the walls to keep them out of the way. The ceiling is too low to have them in the middle of the room I think. That is unless somebody thinks that multiple 8" ceiling speakers and a subwoofer would fill this job better. I'm open to other ideas as well.

Thanks in advance,
John

[cmchamp]

I sang on a set of Alto 10" in rooms of similar size, but higher ceilings. In my opinion, you should look for something with a 80 or 90 degree horizontal and 40 or so vertical to keep the horizontal covering the audience.
That said
Yorkville E10
Yorkville YX10
Behringer B210D
Behringer B208D
ElectroVoice ZX1
ElectroVoice Evid 4.2 or 6.2

A good start - off to put my 4 year old to bed.
C.

[vwflyer]

Hey, thanks for the response and thank you for the suggestions. I hadn't seen most of those in my searches for speakers.

I'm leery of installing anything self powered because the mixer we have at our disposal has built-in amps with speakon and 1/4" amp outs. I could plug the active speakers into the 1/4" line outs but I'd be afraid that somebody would someday plug the 1/4" speaker line into the amp out and blow our speakers. The board is used at other locations a few times a year so different people might be taking it down and setting it up. That is why I wanted our speaker cables to use the speakon jack, nobody can plug into the wrong hole with those.

The Mackie has a 90H x 80V dispersion pattern. The 90 degree horizontal beam is wide enough to cover our room. Are you saying that the 80 degree vertical beam is too wide for our low ceiling and something with a 40 degree vertical beam would work better?

Thanks again

[cmchamp]

Yes, something with less than 80° would be preferable in my opinion.
Something that could be flown from the ceiling would be a better option, so if the horn were rotatable, for horizontal mounting, even better.
Or, something like the Yorkville C2891.
The trouble with some of the smaller compact 8" or 6" install speakers such as the Community Veris28 or 26 series is that the crossover point for the horn is very high - 4k. The EAW VR62 or 61 might work well also as the horn can be rotated.
C

[vwflyer]

Why is flying them from the ceiling better? Is it to bring them closer to the audience or avoid a low frequency boost from being wall mounted? The Mackie can be flown horizontally but it would mean buying two brackets per speaker and it would then have a 80H x 90V distribution. It's also fatter then the speakers you've shown me which means it would come lower in an already too low ceiling.

So you think that two of any of these 6" & 8" speakers you've point out to me (Yorkville C2891, EAW VR62, etc) would handle this application well without additional subwoofers or anything? We don't play rock or anything. It's biggest challenge would probably be playing drama soundtracks at foreground levels without distortion or tinniness.

[Tim Padrick]

Ceiling mounting is so you don't deafen the folks in front when you turn it up enough for the folks in back to hear.

[vwflyer]

Thanks for the response Tim!
Are you talking about in-ceiling speakers covering the whole area or flying one or two speakers from the ceiling at the front of the crowd?

[Tim Padrick]

Flying. But the speakers must have factory installed flypoints, and they should be flown by qualified persons only.

[vwflyer]

Thanks Tim.
I'm pretty new to this. Could you explain to me how flying speakers from the ceiling prevents blasting the front rows compared to wall mounted speaker?

[Tim Padrick]

Ah - I missed the 9- ceiling. Still, having them above the heads of the front rows will mean that they are a little farther from the front folk's ears, and thus not as loud.

[Brad Weber]

Originally Posted by Tim Padrick

Ah - I missed the 9- ceiling. Still, having them above the heads of the front rows will mean that they are a little farther from the front folk's ears, and thus not as loud.

Tim is right the the potential advantages would be very limited with by the 9' ceiling, however the idea of flying speakers is typically two fold.

First, as you move the speaker higher the distance to the closest and furthest listeners gets closer to being the same, thus the relative difference in sound level losses due to distance get smaller. For am example, say you have a situation where the closest person is 5' in front of the speaker and the furthest is 40' in front of it. If the speaker is at ear level (4') the relative difference in distance to the furthest and closest listeners is 40'/5' or 8, which based purely on distance loss basis would mean the level at the further listener would be 18dB lower than at the closest listener. Now fly that speaker 14' above the floor and the distance to the closest listener is then 11.18' and to the furthest listener 41.23', so now a 41.23'/11.18' or 11.33dB difference, almost 7dB less. Make the height 24' and the distances go to 44.72'/20.62' or 6.72dB difference, more than 11dB less than with the speaker at ear level.

One thing people often pick up on right away is that by flying you have greatly increased the distance and associated losses for the closest listener, thus reducing the sound levels at that person. And that is true, in the examples above the distance from the speaker to closest listener went from 5' to 20.62', relating to a 12.3dB reduction in the direct level at that listener. However, also note that the distance to the furthest listener went from 40' to just 44.72', a 0.97dB or imperceptible difference. So flying the speakers will indeed generally noticeably reduce the direct level at the closest listener, however it will also typically not significantly reduce the direct level at the furthest listener.

Adding to the reduction in level differences due to distance, flying can help by taking advantage of the resulting angular relationships and the pattern of the speaker. With a speaker at ear level both the closest and furthest listener have the same relationship to the speaker and both are basically on axis of the speaker. If you fly the speaker and have it aimed more at the furthest listener then the the furthest listener is on axis, which is usually relates to the maximum output of the speaker, while the closest listener is some angle off axis, which typically relates to some lower level, at least at many frequencies.

Combine these two effects and flying the speakers can typically allow reducing the difference in level between the closest and furthest listeners.

At the same time, an ancillary benefit is that a flow speaker tends to have more of its energy directed at the the listeners rather than at the walls and ceiling above them. This can have several benefits, especially in acoustically 'live' spaces.

The downsides to watch out for with flying a speaker include the relationship to the performers in terms of the levels from the speaker at any microphones and the microphones rejection of that as well as the time the sound arrives at the performers, too great a distance and the sound from the speaker may be perceived as a discrete echo from the original sound. And, of course, one must be very careful with the safety issues related to flying a box over people's heads.

[vwflyer]

Thanks for that explanation! It makes a lot of sense. I think that the 9' ceilings makes side mounted speakers the better choice here. A center speaker would put the speaker about 3 feet over the head of the closest listener and 40' from the furthest listener and the sound guy. With the listening area being less then 40' deep and 35' wide I'm leaning towards two side speakers being sufficient for this room but if you think I will blast the front row I guess I could go with four side mounted speakers by adding speakers halfway back. I just thought that at less then 40' deep that wouldn't be necessary.