Im curious to explore something. A line array is composed of many speakers in a line. The result is sound that is 'projected' and has little loss over distance. The advantage being that a listener near the source hears roughly the same intensity of sound as the listener many times further away. Is it possible to get a somewhat similar effect with a smaller, less than massive, array?
According to
this "to achieve directionality a sound source (line array) needs to be larger than the wavelength it is producing. To achieve focus, or near–zero dispersion, which is a more stringent requirement, it needs to be somewhere approaching four times the wavelength"
Is it possible to get some of this line array effect without having to go the full fledged line array route? For example would it be possible to build a loudspeaker with 5 drivers in a line instead of 100 and still get some of that line array effect?
