EAW DSA250i, DSA230i owner manual Applications, Engineering Design

4.3 Applications

The DSAi Series provides a significant advance for cost-effective implementation of line array technology in a variety of applications. As is typical for line arrays, the DSAi Series is an excellent choice for voice- only applications. However, unlike typical voice-only line arrays, the DSAi Series can also provide the wide frequency range, fidelity, and output levels needed for excellent music reproduction. This significantly extends its range of applications to a wide range of venue types including theaters, theme parks, retail spaces, and government facilities. Its unique capabilities, however, make it particularly well suited to applications that present a challenging acoustical, physical, or aesthetic environment.

The DSAi Series is ideal for a variety of venues where achieving good vocal intelligibility is critical. These include theatres, auditoria, houses of worship, theme parks, retail spaces, government facilities, lecture halls, large conference rooms, museums, and shopping malls. It can solve acoustically difficult challenges in reverberant environments such as cathedrals, concert halls, ballrooms, rail/air/sea terminals, large lobbies, and athletic buildings. Its low profile further enhances its applicability in aesthetically sensitive environments.

Designers can use DSAi modules in a variety of factory-supported DSAi cluster configurations to meet specific output or directivity needs. For voice-only applications, single DSA250i modules can be placed to provide adequate output and horizontal coverage. In these cases, designers enjoy control of the vertical pattern throughout the vocal range. For broadband music reproduction, the addition of a DSA230i to each DSA250i will extend pattern control well into the LF range and provide additional LF output.

Each DSAi module has a FAULT DETECT interface allowing an external supervisory circuit to monitor the module's operational status. Multiple DSAi modules can be connected to a single supervisory circuit so that any one module will trigger the supervisory circuit's fault alarm.

4.4 Engineering Design

The core acoustical design of the DSAi Series dates back to the late 1930s in Harry Olson’s book, “Acoustical Engineering”. He showed that, by using different signal delays on the input to each transducer in a

	simple line array, the array’s main output lobe could be effectively
	“steered”. While this concept has certainly been used before, the design
	of the DSAi Series goes far beyond this simple concept.
	Rather than simply steering the vertical lobe, the shape of this lobe in the
	vertical plane is also made variable. This allows changing the depth of
	the coverage to precisely fit the listening area thereby reducing
	troublesome near-to-far SPL differences.
	The digital signal processing involves parametric equalization, micro
	signal delays, sophisticated frequency filtering, gain, and limiting. These
	parameters are individually adjusted by DSAPilot for each transducer in
	each module. The available DSP resources provide a broad range of
	possible coverage patterns and SPL control over distance as well as the
10	voicing required for exceptional music reproduction.