The same principle is used with loudspeakers to create beamforming arrays, albeit at sonic frequencies.
Beamforming speakers in acoustic applications are quite useful and often found in protected monuments or churches since it allows you to "aim" the acoustic energy mainly at the audience and to a lesser degree onto reverberating surfaces which you may not be willing (or allowed) to change by adding acoustic treatment. Nowadays these arrays are also often used at bigger (e.g. outdoor) stages to avoid shooting into the (complaining) neighbourhood.
An interesting side note is also that the principle also works in reverse for the receiving side, so you can have array microphones that can steer the beam of their "focus", either as a column or as a 2D-array that is ceiling mount (like the Sennheiser TCC2). All these arrays show there limits as frequencies go lower tho, so that is something to check for.
Indeed. Another advanced implementation of the concept (other than Danley unity/synergy horns and other diffraction-based solutions like the Seas DXT) is Keele's C(constant) B(eamwidth) T(ransducer):
Beamforming speakers in acoustic applications are quite useful and often found in protected monuments or churches since it allows you to "aim" the acoustic energy mainly at the audience and to a lesser degree onto reverberating surfaces which you may not be willing (or allowed) to change by adding acoustic treatment. Nowadays these arrays are also often used at bigger (e.g. outdoor) stages to avoid shooting into the (complaining) neighbourhood.
An interesting side note is also that the principle also works in reverse for the receiving side, so you can have array microphones that can steer the beam of their "focus", either as a column or as a 2D-array that is ceiling mount (like the Sennheiser TCC2). All these arrays show there limits as frequencies go lower tho, so that is something to check for.