Even Dispersion Design for a Compact Linear Loudspeaker Array with Adaptive Genetic Algorithm

Abstract

Even dispersion is important for live sound reinforcement systems; however, it needs to be carefully designed when using a linear loudspeaker array. This is because the audience area is often large, while the loudspeakers are placed centrally in this case for convenience, and thus both the level and the frequency balance may not remain reasonably constant for all audiences. To solve this problem, the adaptive genetic algorithm is firstly introduced in the parameters optimization. Secondly, taking the radiation characteristics at different frequencies into account, a linear-phase non-uniform filter bank is proposed to decompose the broad frequency band into several sub-bands. The audio is re-synthesized with the optimized parameters in each frequency band for a linear loudspeaker array. To show the validity of the proposed method, the simulations and the experiments are conducted to demonstrate that the sound pressure level in the audience area is distributed within ± 1.33 dB, ranging from 200 Hz to 4000 Hz.