Introduction; The Sound Out Front; Vertical Array Systems - PROEL AXIOM - VERSION 2.0 Manual

1. Introduction

1.1 The sound out front!

The AXIOM project was born when a careful analysis of the professional market revealed that one of
its most urgent requests was for highly versatile and scalable products. Following the advances made
with the development of the EDGE modular array project, Proel's Research and Development Group
has created several vertical array solutions that will satisfy the most demanding clientele in the widest
range of applications.
The products of the AXIOM Series are the result of the many years of experience and research the
PROEL has put into professional sound reinforcement, striving always to obtain excellent performance,
proudly made in Italy.

1.1.1 Vertical Array Systems

In recent years, sound reinforcement with vertical array systems has known a huge success, which,
though undoubtedly highly deserved, has been pushed by aggressive marketing campaigns that have
oversimplified the way they physically function, and rhetoricized certain themes which are not fully under-
stood by many professional users. This has happened to such an extent that much imprecise information
has been diffused and a air of confusion has been created around these types of systems
From the outset, we need to debunk two myths associated with vertical array systems
being that they are always the best solution for any sound reinforcement need; and the second is that it
is possible to generate cylindrical waves (and that "real line arrays" are the only device that can do it).
Vertical array systems have clearly proven their value with an audio performance that overshadows
the so-called traditional systems, the only ones available in the past. This is possible thanks to a new
approach to sound reinforcement in very large spaces (with high sound pressure levels) that brought a
revolution to the design of professional sound systems. The associated technological research on single
components and advanced design and simulation techniques has also had a positive effect on sound
systems without vertical array
We went from an approach that aimed at optimising the design of each single element that had to be
multiplied to form an array, to a more structured approach that conceives an array as one single sound
source which then can be coherently divided into smaller parts. Before vertical array systems gained
their success, several attempts at finding a solution for the so-called "array-ability" were made. The
results were rather frustrating, though, as the problem is highly complex when studied in two dimensions.
What gave great impulse to the professional audio industry was the brilliant solution of trying to simplify
the problem, thinking of simple vertical arrays. The results of such an intuition are before everyone's
eyes (and can reach everyone's ears): sound coverage has never been so uniform and sound quality
has never been so high. Nonetheless we need to remark that downward scalability in these systems
is not completely painless, as they are conceived and designed as parts of a system with specific
1
A very good reading on the subject is a series of articles by Mario Di Cola, Line Array Theory Revisited: Analisi critica delle
tecniche per il Line Array, published by Sound&Lite Magazine (issues from 48 to 54, 2004-2005)
2
Here we speak of Vertical Arrays rather than Line Arrays, as these systems are never a line, they have finite dimensions, and,
very often, in order to obtain a wider angular dispersion on the vertical axis, they take a curvilinear shape. Therefore the definition
Vertical Array is more correct
3
Like concert systems Proel EDGE212P that, designed to work combined as traditional arrays, typically lined up side by side
horizontally, are sometimes staked vertically.
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