[Mike 1960]

I'm wondering how many of you guys are wondering how the LS speakers worked for Danny and why he won't explain why he abandoned them.
I would like to start a discussion about how to revive this line of speakers for creators. What do you think?
I truly believe that it isn't as difficult as Danny makes it out to be. I am an amature speaker builder yes, but not a rank amature. I've been experimenting with speakers since the 1970s.
I know what good sound is. I had a good friend of mine tell me once that I didn't know what I had...The speakers I had built at the time. I didn't believe him. I don't go to HiFi stores.

I just hope that Danny, the most informed on this subject will say what is needed to be said.

[mlundy57]

Danny didn’t abandon them. The Neo 10 drivers became unavailable. He has been working on developing a replacement driver. It’s just going to take time. It took a couple years to get a replacement Neo 3 driver developed when they became unavailable and that was pre-pandemic and global supply disruptions.

[Hobbsmeerkat]

He's talking about the LS6/LS9 that had custom designed woofers and Neo8s

[mlundy57]

He's talking about the LS6/LS9 that had custom designed woofers and Neo8s

My mistake. I thought he was talking about the Line Source

[Mike 1960]

I'm wondering how many of you guys are wondering how the LS speakers worked for Danny and why he won't explain why he abandoned them.
I would like to start a discussion about how to revive this line of speakers for creators. What do you think?
I truly believe that it isn't as difficult as Danny makes it out to be. I am an amature speaker builder yes, but not a rank amature. I've been experimenting with speakers since the 1970s.
I know what good sound is. I had a good friend of mine tell me once that I didn't know what I had...The speakers I had built at the time. I didn't believe him. I don't go to HiFi stores.

I just hope that Danny, the most informed on this subject will say what is needed to be said.

And he has! This is what he said and it totally deflated my optimistic balloon 
Anyone else willing to chime in?

I am sorry but there's a LOT more to consider.

When you series/parallel groups of tweeters the groups have to be even loads. So you cannot wire a group of seven.
Regardless of the series/parallel groups of tweeters you gain no (zero) output in the top octave or top half of the top octave. Wavelengths are short and they will not couple.
You also need to target a series/parallel group of tweeters that will get you close to 8 ohms.
The dcr on that GRS tweeter is listed at 6.4 ohms. So you can wire them (6 of them) in two groups of three to get a 9.6 ohm load. Or wire 9 of them in three groups of three to get back to 6.4 ohms.
After you notch out the peak at the top of their range you are at about 90 to 91db.
So next you need to find a line of woofers that in a series parallel grouping will get you a matching SPL and impedance. That is not easy to find (imposible). Remember the oupt of the woofers will couple and give you a gain of 6db for each paralleled group.
For instance, if you use 12 small woofers they could be wired in three groups of four and need an impedance of 5 ohms and 81db sensitivity.
Or you can wire 12 small woofers in two groups of six. Now you need an impedance of about 2.5 ohms and 84db sensitivity.
If you went with nine 6.5" woofers you could wire them in three groups of three. They could have a 76.5 to 7 ohm impedance and you'd need them to have 81db sensitivity. 
You can get away with woofer sensitivity being one db higher or so if you know how to manipulate the output a little with the crossover.
Now do you understand why I had to have custom drivers made for them?
And FIY, if you paralleled seven of our M-165/16 woofers then the impedance would drop to 1.62 ohms and the sensitivity would hit nearly 130db. That won't match anything.

Danny Richie

[Tyson]

If I were going to do a line array, I'd get a 6 channel DAC and crossover module from Rich at HAL (Hollis Audio Labs).  He's here on AC too. 

Then you could run the speakers fully active with dedicated amps to each section of the speaker.  Then level matching is just a matter of adjusting gain within the active crossover module. 

HAL also makes a fully built out line array speaker called the Monolith, I believe.  It is also fully active and uses one of his active crossover modules. 

[Danny Richie]

Another thing to keep in mind is that once custom drivers are designed, prototyped, and tested then they need to be produce in 1,000 piece production runs.

I also have to weigh out the number of sales per year to decide if it is worth it.

And then since those kits would exceed the price of every other kit we offer, then those models would have to exceed the performance of every other thing we offer. So if I compared the performance of the older LS-6's and LS-9's to current NX-Otica's and NX-Treme's then I have to admit that the new NX Series models better them in just about every way and are less money. That would make the LS-6's and LS-9's a tough sale.