Since 1990, Italian company K-array has been offering innovative audio products that don't fit the conventional mold. Their product catalog is a menagerie of speakers of all shapes and sizes, and to these a new curiosity has been added: the Rail. As its name implies, the Rail is a 4-foot long, thin speaker designed to blend into a wall or ceiling. Each Rail houses a trio of 1x5" full-range drivers with a tightly controlled coverage pattern, and up to 12 Rails can be daisy-chained onto a single amplifier channel.
...churches could find it useful under balconies, in lobbies, cry rooms, coffee shops and more.
In full-range mode, the Rail will handle 35 watts of power and deliver 84 dB max SPL. This mode should be adequate for background music in most settings. Add a high-pass filter (remove the bass), and the max output jumps to 97 dB. This could be considered "speech" mode, and here the Rail should get plenty loud for public address duties including church lobbies and cafes. Connect multiple Rails together, and they should be able to fill a room with sound and cause some head-scratching if anyone tries to discern the source. To say the Rail doesn't look like a speaker is an understatement.
Surprisingly, audio is only half the Rail's story. The Rail also includes white LED lights configured for simple on/off operation (24-volt) or DALI (Digital Addressable Lighting Interface) control. There are several options for LED configuration, including symmetric, asymmetric, diffuse, and symmetric with mini spot. Rail even offers an electrified track option for ceilings, where small lights can be positioned anywhere on the rail and held in place with a magnet. Finally, an indirect option places LEDs on the opposite side of the Rail for ambient light (i.e. bounced off the ceiling). Lights are 3,000 K color temperature (warm white) by default, with 4,000 K and 5,000 K (daylight) options available.
The Rail has several mounting options, including directly on the wall or ceiling, semi-flush mounted or fully flush-mounted. We hope to test how these options affect sound and lighting performance. With such tight audio coverage (10 degrees by 100 degrees), we expect placement and orientation of the Rail will have a significant impact on sound quality.
The Rail is designed for permanent installation, and is available in black or white. With some careful planning for wiring (48-ohm speakers plus 24-volt lighting), churches could find it useful under balconies, in lobbies, cry rooms, coffee shops and more. We look forward to putting this unique speaker to the test.
