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The problem my duo occasionally has and I suspect other small groups have is in some acoustically challenging rooms, to get the sound to the back of the house means you are too loud for the people in the front. I suspect some louder groups have the same problem, but this solution probably won't work for them. We generally run the PA set at between 85 and 100 db (A weighted / slow response on a sound level meter). During a dinner set, we run it even lower, say about 65. If the room is very long or weird shaped, the people in the back cannot hear us. If we crank it up, the people in the front complain. Especially since we play to an adult crowd (some with hearing aids - always challenging). A few months ago we played at a Yacht Club that we have been doing for a few years. This is one of the quietest rooms we play (about 65) and it is L shaped. The club manager put a wireless extension speaker in the L and asked us to hook up the transmitter to our PA system. Reading the manual I hooked it up to the preamp out (actually the spare output of the sonic maximizer which goes between the mixer/pre and the pwer amp). It worked like a charm. So I bought one myself. Since then I have used it in 3 different challenging rooms. Two of them extremely long (about 150 feet) and another that simply has extremely live acoustics so we can't turn up the PA very much. Success!!!! Putting the speaker in the dead spot of the room filled it in back there so the people could hear the music without blasting the ones in the front of the house. Last night we played at a RV condominium in Okeechobee Florida. Okeechobee is a big country music town, but there is this enclave of northerners who own spots to park their motor homes and travel trailers in the winter (Lake O is one of the best bass fishing spots in the USA - for you northerners, it's the big, shallow lake in the middle of the state). They like a variety of music, and have been hiring us for a number of years, usually for their "Saturday before Valentines day party". It's a rather loud venue for us, about 100db off stage, but the hall is about 150 feet long (the range of the wireless). The people in the back have difficulty hearing and don't dance as much. Last night we put the extension speaker in the back, and the dance floor was full for the entire 4 hour gig - from the first song to the last. A few people commented on how well the extra speaker worked. Now the speaker itself has decent sound, about as loud as a good boom-box, and although I wouldn't use it as a main, it definitely works as a fill-in speaker. BTW, for those of you who wonder about such things, I have no connection whatsoever with the company that sells these things. In other words, if you buy one I won't make a penny and unless you tell me, I won't even know. I can't find any specs on this thing, so if there is a Brookstone store in your local mall, it might be the best place to buy one. If not, try here: http://www.brookstone.com/indoor-outdoor-wireless-speakersIt is supposed to work outdoors too and will run on batteries, but I used the wall wart indoors. If I'm outdoors at a pool party I generally separate the speakers and run a little hotter so I don't need one there. The sender and the speaker unit look like this:  And it the sender has both line level inputs and an iPod or other mp3 player speaker level input. I hook it up this way: Mixer/preamp out goes into the BBE sonic maximizer. ...... The Maximizer has two outputs per channel and the specs say you can use both, so from the output of the Maximizer I send a pair to the power amp and another pair to the wireless transmitter. That's all there is to it. And I get a fill-in speaker at the back of the house with no wires to string - which cuts down our setup time and saves us from getting sticky tape residue on the wires. I suspect that due to the speed of sound, someone who can hear both speakers at the same volume might have some intelligibility problems with spoken words, so that is something to consider (there seems to be a trade off for everything). But since most music has some kind of echo/reverb on it, I doubt it would matter much when playing music. I don't think it will go loud enough for a rock or rap act, but then they probably won't need it anyway. It works for me, it might work for you - but try it first - I don't want to be responsible if it doesn't work for you  Insights and incites by Notes
Bob "Notes" Norton  Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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great tip, Notes! Thanks for sharing!
I had no idea such a device existed, but your application of it sounds useful to anybody who plays live in rooms of varying size and shape
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It's a real help. It's a wonder a pro music gear company doesn't make something like that (or do they?)
Bob "Notes" Norton Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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Have you tried the Bose L1's? They are pricey but the sound dispersion is supposed to be even throughout a given room.
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Quote:
Have you tried the Bose L1's? They are pricey but the sound dispersion is supposed to be even throughout a given room.
Bose plays with physics quite a bit in their products. However, one thing they can't do is bend the laws of physics.
The physics law here is the distance law.
One thing the bose have going for them is I believe they follow a cylindrical radiation pattern. From Sengpiel audio's site:
For a cylindrical wave of a line source we get:
The sound pressure level (SPL) decreases with doubling of distance only by (−)3 dB.
The sound pressure falls to 0.707 times (70.7%) of the initial value of the sound pressure.
The sound pressure decreases with the ratio 1/√r to the distance.
It's still a -3dB for every doubling of distance, whereas a speaker that is behaving more like a monopole, would have a -6 dB for every doubling of distance from the source. So, there may be some advantage to using the L1.
However, what Notes has shown here is a way to distribute audio.
One small issue - if some of the halls are long enough, there will be a delay in the arrival of the main speaker sound, relative to the wirelessly transmitted sound - unless the delay of the feed through the wireless somewhat matches the source delay that is a function of the speed of sound.
Notes, if I were you, I would subjectively evaluate this. Do you have a dBX drive-rack PA unit in your main rig? If so, you could set the delay out to these types of units, so that the wavefronts from your main PA system speakers arrive simultaneously to the output of these cool jobs. Otherwise, you can get some really weird interference patterns. However, it's likely that since you are using these things, your power from the main speakers is probably so far down compared to these local loudspeakers, that most wouldn't notice.
As for the world likely most sophisticated distributed audio system at a concert venue, the outdoor amphitheater at Millenium Park in Chicago has a WAY cool audio system and framework.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Pritzker_Pavilion
Great find, Notes. Distributed audio can be a hearing saver as well if used properly.
-Scott
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Wireless...
portable...
in the back of the room...
Seems like the biggest problem with this idea would be keeping them from getting stolen
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A delaystack is commonly used in large (I mean LARGE) venues. In L-shaped rooms it is also a good solution. In most venues however it is sufficient to place the top speakers high on speakerstands. This way the sound will pass over the audience and will be clearly audible in the back without leaving the people up front with bleeding eyes. Speaker placement is pretty importand. Sometimes it is just not doable to place the speakers to the left- and right side of the stage (if there is a stage at all ) I always try to place the speakers so that they have a clear line of sight and that they are placed in a way that they gain maximum coverage in the room. I worry less about the stereo effect.
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I thought about the delay problem, but have no way to delay the signal to the remote. There is certainly some loss of ineligibility at the 'sweet spot' where the volumes of both the mains and the remote are equal. That would be worse when speaking and less when the music is playing. There is always a trade off. Hopefully the area that hears both speakers at the same volume is smaller than the area that previous to the installation of the remote couldn't hear the band at all. Admittedly, the solution is not perfect, but for a little more than $150, it isn't bad at all. And at the volume we play, and the volume I set the remote, the problem is minimal. I do a solo song and send Leilani out there to subjectively set the volume of the remote. In the problem rooms that we have used it in, the result has been good. I remember the first time I went to Disney World (when it first opened) and I stood there watching the main street parade. I was amazed that with the speakers up and down the road, all the sounds meeting me were in sync. At the time I was used to speakers in stadiums with that time induced slap-back echo effect. I think this was new technology at the time. I'm not worried about someone stealing it since I play "senior citizen" gigs and most of them don't even understand the technology
Bob "Notes" Norton Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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Notes There is certainly some loss of >>>ineligibility<<< at the 'sweet spot' I think you meant legibility!! Yes? I remember a couple of years back achieving the same thing with a pair of powered speakers and the wireless unit that I sometimes used with my guitars and headset mike. There is a way to delay the signal at the rear speakers if that becomes a problem by using a digital delay unit and only using the wet signal. You can place it before or after the wireless unit. With inexperienced fingers wanting to push buttons though it would be better at the desk! There are specialist boxes that do deal with line arrays but in this case those would be overkill. Kevin 
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Quote:
There is a way to delay the signal at the rear speakers if that becomes a problem by using a digital delay
I've done it. There's a simple formula to convert distance to delay time in milliseconds* so that the signal from the mains arrives at the same time as it leaves the remote speaker(s). Works a treat.
*Don't ask, I'd have to look it up. I have seen it posted here before.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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We have sort of gone in the opposite direction. Just mentioning it for those who might play in smaller venues such as we do. We were using a Roland Cube cm-30. Even thought it's pretty small, we rarely had the volume up more than half even in church (a smaller church). In the dining rooms of retirement homes, classrooms, and hospital dining rooms, the volume is set even lower. Our solution ended up being the Roland micro cube. It's actually a little elec guitar practice amp, but works well for our gigs. It's not quite as powerful as the cm-30, but it runs off of 6 AA batteries or AC. Since we are using battery power, we no longer have to haul our equipment in on a cart since the micro cube isn't heavy at all. The strength of it's output is amazing! We got ours at Amazon for $129 with prime free 2 day shipping. Not trying to hijack Notes's thread either Stan
Cornet Curmudgeon
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))) There's a simple formula to convert distance to delay time in milliseconds* so that the signal from the mains arrives at the same time as it leaves the remote speaker(s). Works a treat.
Sound travels about 1.1 feet per millisecond, ( or you could call that roughly 1 foot per millisecond)
So if you are 100 feet away, the delay would need to be 110 ms
Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.
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