AV Group Newsletter

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Let's Learn

We at AV Group believe that not only should we be providing the highest quality service, but it is also our duty to help educate our clients to help them make the most of their AV productions. In that spirit, we present the this series of articles examining various aspects of the AV industry.

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What did he say ? I can't hear the speeches

One of the most critical, yet overlooked areas of audio is speaker placement. Speaker placement will not only determine whether or not you can hear the audio, but it will also effect the tonal and intelligibility of the sound. In the next few articles we will look at some of the factors that go into proper speaker placement.

Speakers produce sound in a cone starting at the speaker and radiating outward at a wide angle. You can even measure the width of that cone by replicating this simple demonstration. Set up a speaker in a large empty room. As the speaker is playing, walk accross the front of the speaker perpendicular to the direct the speaker is facing. You will notice a point where the sound becomes clear and louder, and a point where the sound seems to muffle and decrease in volume. If you were to mark those points, and measure that angle, you can find out the “dispersion angle” of the speaker.

Typical public address (PA) speakers have about a 90 degree dispersion angle. In other words, the sound exiting a speaker box (at certain frequencies) will disperse out from the speaker in a cone whose angle of dispersion is about 90 degrees. In the diagram above, you can see that the sound dispersion (indicated in blue) does not cover the area directly in front of the stage.

To enable the audience directly in front of the stage, we simply angle the speakers into the audience. As you can see in the diagram above, by changing the angle of the speaker in relation to the audience, we can cover more of the front of the room.

Not only does a speaker have a horizontal angle of dispersion, but it also has a vertical one.

Typically, PA speakers have about a 60 degree vertical dispersion. You may note that audience members sitting closer to the speaker may have a harder time hearing that those in the middle of the room. Care should be taken to ensure that all members of the audience are within the dispersion pattern of the speaker.

The rule of thumb is this …. “If an audience member cannot see the front of the speaker, they can’t hear it” While there are other factors that will come into play (which we will delve into in later articles) the rule is a good one to keep in mind.

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