AES Fall Online Convention

In addition to audience experience and hearing health concerns, noise pollution issues are increasingly considered in large scale sound reinforcement for outdoor events. Among other factors, subwoofer positioning relative to the main system influences sound pressure levels at large distances, which may be considered as noise pollution.
In this paper, free field simulations are first performed showing that subwoofers positioning affects rear and side rejections but has a limited impact on noise level in front of the system. Then, the impact of wind on sound propagation at low frequencies is investigated. Simulation results show that the wind impacts more ground-stacked subwoofers than flown subwoofers, leading to higher sound levels downwind in the case of ground-stacked subwoofers.