Bertha:
Obviously these are at different stages and she's now got sheep's wool and 12mm ply on top of the closed-cell spray you can see in these. The engine will have a bulkhead in front of it which will become my notional internal/external point. The middle "tumblehome" section is living space, the front cabin is a bedroom/berth and I'll use 2'x2' moveable modular furniture so I can make sofas/beds anywhere I want. I originally wanted a wall of speakers in an enclosure built off the front bulkhead leading to the berth with all my electrics being fed to it in the soffit. I'd love to take advantage of the angled tumblehome if I can. Any suggestions welcome 🙂
Obviously these are at different stages and she's now got sheep's wool and 12mm ply on top of the closed-cell spray you can see in these. The engine will have a bulkhead in front of it which will become my notional internal/external point. The middle "tumblehome" section is living space, the front cabin is a bedroom/berth and I'll use 2'x2' moveable modular furniture so I can make sofas/beds anywhere I want. I originally wanted a wall of speakers in an enclosure built off the front bulkhead leading to the berth with all my electrics being fed to it in the soffit. I'd love to take advantage of the angled tumblehome if I can. Any suggestions welcome 🙂
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I think they're showing up now. Now's the time for any suggestions anyone has.
Out of interest, what kind of amplification would you recommend researching if I went down the floor-to-ceiling array route? Thanks.
I think I saw someone mention a class D, didn't I?
I was part of the crowd that was impressed with the low price and good-enough quality.
I knew they were not the end of the search for music nirvana, but I thought some could give a good sound.
Then, one day, I went the subjective route and gathered all my little D amp boards, and pitted them against the amp I am using at the moment.
Now, those little D amps are doing background music duty.
For myself, I really like a class AB amp. They have a lot more grunt and meat to the bass, easier to manage than class A, and cheaper than esoteric tubes.
For a libe array setup, best is using a computer, DAC, and amp. With the computer, you can add DSP, EQ, that arrays need. Easy to manage a music library. A laptop, or a headless small form factor computer, controlled by phone or tablet works well as well.
In your case, it would be easy to add columns of drivers along the wall and "bulkhead" between the living area and the room. Space saving, and smashing sound.
Class-D amps have improved quite a bit in recent years. The Hypex modules and those from B&O are very good, along with one or two other makes. Their compactness and lack of heat makes them ideal for this use.
Excellent, thank you. I understand all of that with the exception of perhaps one fundamental thing. Do all the speakers in the array receive different signals to elicit different responses? Ie. will I need a multi-channel amp to give each speaker it's own input? Atm I can't understand how eq would work without each speaker being treated differently by the amp.
I like the array idea with columns flanking the end wall as my listening zone will only be 10-12ft deep. I also think I can make a symmetrical sub layout with 2 or even 4 subs sat equally in the room. I suppose the only real question left is do I take the opportunity at this stage to allow for additional speakers within the room itself, either for surround sound in the future or to compliment my stereo.
PS. The last woman who stole my heart took it back home with her to Taipei. I may have to visit one day to see if I can get it back off her 🙁 🙂
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Thank you, I'll take a look. I suppose I still don't know whether I should be spreading speakers out horizontally or vertically or both. Not sure if you can see the photos now but if you have any suggestions I'll read up on anything. I looked at Class-D amps when I was researching subs as Peerless do those Peardrops that looked like an interesting mono-block option.
You only need a stereo amp with line arrays.
Instead of only one driver working for a given frequency range, in line arrays, all the drivers share the workload. So, individually, they work a lot less for the same output... which lowers distortion.
By wiring them in series/parallel, we can keep a normal 4 to 8 Ohms fro the amp.
I doubt you will have space for 25 drivers like in the Two Towers, so indeed, a sub or two will be needed.
The important thing for line arrays is to have drivers from floor to ceiling (or at least 75% of the wall).
How far will your sexting/listening position be from that end wall?
Line arrays have an effect called combing, where some of the high frequencies get canceled out and create a null, which is worst at close range (near field) but not so much if one listens a bit farther back. 3 meters back would be preferred. Although, in such a small space as your boat, early wall reflections might balance it back.
PPS. Taiwanese women are quite lovely indeed.... and I married one. I'm sorry about your stolen heart, but it is never too late to run after your dream.
I don't live in Taipei, but on the East Coast, where the mountains are green, and the Pacific blue. A lot less people too... but more snakes! 🙂
Instead of only one driver working for a given frequency range, in line arrays, all the drivers share the workload. So, individually, they work a lot less for the same output... which lowers distortion.
By wiring them in series/parallel, we can keep a normal 4 to 8 Ohms fro the amp.
I doubt you will have space for 25 drivers like in the Two Towers, so indeed, a sub or two will be needed.
The important thing for line arrays is to have drivers from floor to ceiling (or at least 75% of the wall).
How far will your sexting/listening position be from that end wall?
Line arrays have an effect called combing, where some of the high frequencies get canceled out and create a null, which is worst at close range (near field) but not so much if one listens a bit farther back. 3 meters back would be preferred. Although, in such a small space as your boat, early wall reflections might balance it back.
PPS. Taiwanese women are quite lovely indeed.... and I married one. I'm sorry about your stolen heart, but it is never too late to run after your dream.
I don't live in Taipei, but on the East Coast, where the mountains are green, and the Pacific blue. A lot less people too... but more snakes! 🙂
Dunno mate.. that space.. no matter How much lipstick you apply is Not conducive to ideal Audio Weenie level sounds. Pis**** into the wind comes to mind
Silly (pedestrian?) as it may sound: a Bose (or similar) mini speaker setup could be the best bet. Borrow one and try it ? Then decide... before... going on some wild goose chase.
Silly (pedestrian?) as it may sound: a Bose (or similar) mini speaker setup could be the best bet. Borrow one and try it ? Then decide... before... going on some wild goose chase.
Yep, perfectly happy to accept that. As I mentioned before, I've got four lovely Kef bookshelfs and an Audiolab integrated amp that I could happily rehouse in an acceptable manner. I was just hoping others might have some ideas whilst I'm at first-fix electrics stage. I am genuinely interested in whether a space that small can accept subs but maybe that's for another forum.
If I was going down the mini-speaker route, I've heard the Riva stuff and they're better than any of the other alternatives I've heard. A few of them placed around the boat would be as good as any normal people would have heard. Hi-fi's been quite important to me for a long time so wanted to optimize as much as possible.
Yeah, it's been brilliant for what I've needed it for. Was tempted to sell it as they hold their price well, but I've decided to keep hold of it so I've got something to use to test my new system before I get into the amp side of things. Then I can give it to my parents with my Kefs.
Thanks for that info. Much appreciated. I need to do some research on drivers now then - different sizes etc. Seems from my initial research that people only use one size mid and one size tweeter and just use loads of them! I'll do some reading...
Re. combing, can the angle/arc of the array be tweaked to help..? Ie. making it convex in section to angle down to the listening position? The listening position will be about 3m away but I'm hoping that some serious wall-treatment will help.
Do line arrays need to be literally linear or could they work in any pattern? ie. could I wrap them all the way around an opening/wall? If you look at the photo the opening to the berth obstructs the vertical line. This is going to be fun!
PS. Yes, she was amazing. To make things worse, if I'd gone over to Taipei a couple of years ago she would be mine - I messed up. Lessons learnt! Strike whilst the iron is hot!
I had forgotten about your angled walls...
There are both convex and concave versions of line arrays, each trying to correct different aspect of the arrays. Concave creates a very narrow listening area, and convex tries to spread it around, of course. I'm not a fan of either, but that shouldn't stop you from researching and trying to find if they would work for you.
I'm looking at the layout of the boat and I'm having a hard time trying to think of a good setup.
PS . 😉 . When it doesn't happen, I usually think it's because at least one of the parties involved was not ready. That's life. Time will tell.
There are both convex and concave versions of line arrays, each trying to correct different aspect of the arrays. Concave creates a very narrow listening area, and convex tries to spread it around, of course. I'm not a fan of either, but that shouldn't stop you from researching and trying to find if they would work for you.
I'm looking at the layout of the boat and I'm having a hard time trying to think of a good setup.
PS . 😉 . When it doesn't happen, I usually think it's because at least one of the parties involved was not ready. That's life. Time will tell.
Look into D.B. Keele's CBT arrays. They use geometry & driver shading to perform similarly to a much taller, linear array. Lots of posts about them here, Parts-Express has kits, & see this Audioholics page (including link to their recent review).
CBT technology was initially developed for military sonar applications, so it's obviously the best choice for a boat. 😀
CBT technology was initially developed for military sonar applications, so it's obviously the best choice for a boat. 😀
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