Nobody chooses a loudspeaker. They choose a coverage pattern.
The brand argument is a proxy for four constraints, and the constraints are what the design is actually solving.
A line array is a tool for putting a defined amount of energy on a defined set of seats and as little as possible anywhere else. Every decision that follows is downstream of the geometry: how far the furthest listener is, how steeply the seating rakes, how wide the room opens out, and what sits behind and beside the audience that you would rather not excite.
Both manufacturers make boxes that will cover most rooms competently. Where they differ is in how they get there, and that difference shows up as practical consequences — cabinet count, rigging weight, amplifier channels, truck space and load-in hours. Those are the terms the decision is really made in, and none of them is a matter of taste.
So the useful comparison is not tonal. It is: for this geometry, which system puts the right level on the back row without lighting up the balcony face, the car park or the neighbours — and what does each one cost in weight, power and time to achieve it?
Self-powered or externally amplified. Everything else follows from it.
The single structural difference between the two approaches, and the three practical consequences it creates.
- Where the amplifier lives
Meyer Sound built its reputation on self-powered cabinets: the amplification and processing are inside the box, one per driver, matched at the factory. L-Acoustics runs externally amplified, with amplified controllers in a rack driving the hangs. Neither is better in the abstract. They fail differently, they cable differently, and they put weight in different places.
- What that does to the cable run
Self-powered means mains and a signal path to every cabinet. Externally amplified means speaker cable from a rack that can sit at the dimmer beach or under the stage. On a field with a long distance between generator and stage, that distinction stops being academic and starts being a copper order.
- What that does to redundancy
A failed amplifier channel in a rack is a channel you can repatch from the ground during a changeover. A failure inside a flown self-powered cabinet is twenty feet up. Both systems are reliable; the question is what a fault costs you at eight o’clock with a house in.
- What that does to the rigging plot
Per-cabinet weight and the weight of the rack are two different loads in two different places, and the roof or the ceiling cares about both. This is where the choice most often gets made for you — see section 03.
The roof has a number, and the number is not negotiable.
Most of the time the system is chosen by the building, the structure or the rider — not by the person who prefers one of them.
A venue publishes what its hang points will take, or a mobile roof carries a rating from its manufacturer, and that figure is the ceiling on every conversation that follows. Once the design has a cabinet count, the arithmetic is simple and unforgiving: cabinets times per-cabinet weight, plus bumper, plus motor, plus whatever else shares the point. If the answer is over, the design changes.
That arithmetic is worked in full, with every step shown, on the staging and rigging page. The relevant part here is that it is usually the binding constraint — and it is indifferent to which badge is on the box.
The second thing that decides it is the rider. A touring act that specifies a system has specified it for a reason, and the production company’s job is to supply it or to agree an equivalent in writing, in advance, with the act’s engineer. An equivalent agreed on the day is not an equivalent; it is a problem with a deadline.
Four questions, and none of them is which brand.
If you are specifying audio for an event, these decide the design. The badge follows from them.
- How far is the furthest seat, and how high is the hang?
Throw distance and trim height set the cabinet count before anything else is considered. Everything downstream is arithmetic from these two numbers.
- What will the structure take?
The published point load, or the roof’s rating. This is the figure that most often rules a design out, and it is knowable weeks early rather than on the morning.
- Where is the power, and how far from the stage?
It changes the cable order, the distribution and, if the run is long enough, the voltage at the far end. It also makes the self-powered question concrete rather than theoretical.
- Is there a rider, and has anyone read it?
If an act has specified a system, that is the specification. Any substitution is agreed with their engineer in advance and in writing, or it is not agreed at all.
The badge is the last thing decided.
Both manufacturers make systems that will do the job well. The design is decided by the geometry, the structure, the power and the rider — and a production company that starts from those four will arrive at the right answer whichever badge it ends up wearing.