Consumer Electronics

PA SYSTEM CHARACTERISTICS

In speech reinforcement systems the listener hears sound from two sources. Part of the sound comes from the person making the speech; yet another part of the sounds comes from the PA system. The total sound that arrives is greater than that from either source alone, but the two portions do not arrive simultaneously. From a practical viewpoint, the maximum tolerable time delay between the two arriving wavefronts is approximately 25 milliseconds. A longer time delay is likely to result in a confusing separation of the two sound sources; the listener's attention jumps from one source to the other and becomes distracted. Since the human ear has a natural tolerance for echo effects, an echo tends to be disregarded under ordinary ...