Question, if you're doing 500, could you do it with 2 pairs of 50s or go another route?
For music that might work. It too, depends on the application and we have to remember that these cabinets sit on the floor and crowd density matters. We can't simply raise them up without also tilting them due to the vertical coverage pattern.
We can get away with a lot for a dance floor because atfer the first beverage loud trumps clarity every time. But what about the rest of the shared space? If I'm not drinking can I still have a conversation at my table in the back of the room? Are the reflections (as in your example of it actually being louder further back) so strong and destructive that converstion is nearly imposible?
This is the skew that confounds wedding DJs who's dance floor sits in the sweet spot, while continuous complaints come from people at tables somewhere off in the back or side of the room.
I once had a long time DJ residency in club where the dance floor was in the center of the space, surrounded by a large bar area on one side, and numerous booths on all others. You could have a conversation even at the front side of the bar (just 7' from the dance floor) because the louder sound was on the ceiling, and
directional. The rest of the space was addressed by local speakers at a different level.
Another issue arises when you start lining up multiple pairs of these column speakers. When the dispersion is that wide - comb filtering could be inevitable and this will affect individual listening experiences on a seat-by-seat basis. You could literally be sitting at a table - and by moving one seat to the right or left notice a totally different sound quality. Comb filtering is exacerbated by strong reflections, and together with the time differential can really wreak havoc as the volume level increases.
A single pair of the EV50 worked well in my seminar example because the disctance from presenter to front row audience was short, and the dispersion wide. The distance to the rear wall or either end wall was significantly longer than the direct path to audience (decay before reflection.) Note, that I had these speakers placed about 50ft apart! The trick was to align them so the coverage was complete in the audience while dropping off significantly at the rostrum (making it easier to get high mic gain,)
There are situations where conventional PA speakers on sticks (60 deg, vs 110 deg,) provide better control because of the more narrow directionality.
