— Speaker Coverage · Install line array
L-Acoustics A15 Focus — SPL & coverage in a 30 × 18 m hall
Problem. A 30 × 18 m conference auditorium needs confirmed SPL at the furthest listener before committing to a passive install line-array cabinet, and needs to know how far its horizontal pattern actually reaches before spacing hangs across the room.
Answer. At a 15 m listener position and 60 % drive, the L-Acoustics A15 Focus delivers roughly 114 dB SPL — comfortably inside its 140 dB @ 1 m rating — with a horizontal −6 dB coverage radius of about 17.9 m, enough to span the room width from a centreline hang.
02 / In depth
How this preset reads — the engineering view.
The A15 Focus is rated 140 dB @ 1 m, but that figure only means something once distance is applied. SPL falls with the inverse square of distance: at 15 m and full output the same cabinet delivers around 116 dB, and at the planner's 60 % drive setting — the realistic operating point that leaves headroom for programme peaks rather than running a cabinet at its ceiling — the figure at the listener comes down to roughly 114 dB. Reading the 140 dB spec sheet number as the number a listener will hear is the most common sizing mistake with this class of cabinet.
The cabinet's 100° × 10° (H × V) dispersion is what sets the planner's coverage-radius answer of approximately 17.9 m on the horizontal axis. The wide horizontal pattern is built for spreading across a seating plan from a single hang point; the narrow 10° vertical pattern is what keeps the wavefront off the ceiling and off the side walls, controlling throw and cutting the reflection energy that would otherwise blur speech intelligibility at the rear rows. Being passive, the A15 Focus has no onboard amplification — it needs a matched external amplifier channel sized to its stated power handling before any of these figures apply in the field.
Inside the planner, drag the listener-distance slider outward and the drive-level slider up or down to watch SPL move against the 140 dB @ 1 m rating in real time. The box-count figure the tool reports is a front-coverage estimate only — it divides the room footprint by the cabinet's usable coverage area to suggest a starting element count. SPL adequacy at the listener is checked separately from that count, because a room can pass on coverage area and still fail on SPL headroom, or the reverse.
The planner does not model room reverberation or RT60, so a hard-surfaced hall will show higher effective SPL at the listener than a treated one for the same input. It does not zone coverage across different seating areas, size a subwoofer pairing for programme material below the cabinet's stated range, assess the mechanical rigging a line-array hang requires, or configure the DSP delay and EQ settings that a real install tunes after the cabinets are hung.
What this preset deliberately does not solve
- SPL figures are free-field inverse-square estimates — real rooms with reflective surfaces will read higher at the listener than the planner shows.
- The 17.9 m coverage radius is a horizontal-axis estimate from the stated dispersion angle, not a validated prediction software output (EASE, Soundvision).
- Passive operation means the SPL figures assume a correctly matched external amplifier channel — under-powering the cabinet will not reach the values shown here.
How this preset differs from its siblings
Compared with other install line-array options in the catalogue, the A15 Focus sits at the higher-SPL, narrower-vertical end of the category: its 140 dB @ 1 m rating and tight 10° vertical pattern are built for rooms that need long, controlled throw down a seating plan rather than a wide vertical spread close to the stage. Point-source and touring-grade cabinets in the same tool answer different briefs — a point source trades reach for a simpler single-box footprint in small rooms, while a touring line-array trades architectural discretion for higher continuous SPL headroom on music programme. This preset exists because the A15 Focus's specific combination of passive operation, 100° × 10° dispersion and 140 dB rating produces SPL and coverage numbers that don't transfer to those other cabinets.
03 / Hydrated calculator
Try the configuration — live.
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— Planner · speaker coverage
SPL, coverage radius and quantity, estimated.
Pick a brand, model and application. An indicative free-field SPL at the listener, coverage radius on the -6 dB axis and a planning-level box count for the room — a starting point for design, not a final specification. K-array, KGEAR, JBL Pro, d&b, L-Acoustics, Fonestar, Ecler.
Max SPL at listener
116
dB · target 85 dB · headroom +31 dB
Coverage radius
17.9
metres · -6 dB axis
Quantity
1
boxes for 540.0 m²
A planning link — not a quote.
- model
- L-Acoustics A15 Focus
- max spl
- 140 dB @1m
- spl at listener
- 114 dB · max 116 dB
- dispersion
- H 100° · V 10°
- sensitivity
- 105 dB @1W/1m
- power
- 420 W applied · 700 W RMS
- bandwidth
- 50-20000 Hz
- impedance
- 8 ohm
- coverage
- r ≈ 17.88 m · area 1003.9 m²
A-Series install-friendly line array. Panflex elements adapt dispersion per cabinet. Default L-Acoustics specification for premium worship and corporate auditoria.
What changes this estimate
- Room drawings & obstructions
- Confirmed ceiling height
- Finishes & absorption in the space
- Final loudspeaker model & dispersion
Feasibility
116 dB max at the listener carries 31 dB over the 85 dB target — comfortable headroom; a smaller cabinet may be more cost-effective.
A planning link — not a quote.
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Presets are a typology starting point. The brief wizard captures the room geometry, programme and constraints we need to translate this configuration into a real design.