Photo from the event.
On the evening of May 30th, 2019 the AES student chapter at The Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences held an after-hours event on Line Arrays and more specifically the Kudo System. The event began at 8 PM and was hosted by CRAS instructor Keith Morris. Keith is a highly skilled engineer that teachers live sound at the conservatory and works shows around the Phoenix valley setting up line arrays.
The event started with a brief presentation on the core features and criteria that make-up the Kudo System. The system focuses on four major principles that it must meet to be used to its full potential. The first is that each individual source radiates a flat, constant phase (isophere) wavefront. They must be flat. The second is 80% of the array should cover 100% of the target area. In other words, overshoot your target otherwise you'll miss it when the everything sums together and gets crunched together by the cylindrical projection of the Kudos. The third rule is that the maximum space between two speakers can be from each other is one-quarter the wavelength of the highest operating frequency. That is the center spacing of any two drivers. Lastly, the fourth rule says that for curved arrays, enclosure told angles should be inversely proportional to the listener distance. After going through these principals and showing examples of how these work in relation to the flexibility of the Kudo System with its ability to adjust each sides angle of projection independently from the other, so you can have the left side set to 25o and the right side to 55o as an example, we proceeded to a hands demonstration of tear down and set up with Conservatory's very own Kudo system.
This demonstration reinforced safety standards for live sound environments as well as etiquette. This allowed students the opportunity to really dissect the setup and put their notes into practice. The hands-on portion closed out the event and Keith left students baffled with the simplicity and power of the Kudo System and wave theory he covered.
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