Hi Dumbass (man, do I feel weird calling someone that!),
Happy to post impressions... if I go ahead with this project; I am still a little concerned about beaming and the rising FR, tho those who have heard it claim that it sounds nothing like its FR. A diffuser may help; also an inductor on the B200 + 1st order tweet should do the trick if my concerns are evident in practice.
Most criticism of this driver seems to come from those who have not heard it. I am yet to read / hear a person who has listened to this driver at length provide a detailed criticism of it... I would like to tho, if someone was willing to share.
I will probably drop these in a ~60L light and stiff (tho heavily dampened may be better?) aperiodic. If this driver sounds as good as some describe, it would be a good value and meet the needs of many people.
Cheers, Raymond.
Happy to post impressions... if I go ahead with this project; I am still a little concerned about beaming and the rising FR, tho those who have heard it claim that it sounds nothing like its FR. A diffuser may help; also an inductor on the B200 + 1st order tweet should do the trick if my concerns are evident in practice.
Most criticism of this driver seems to come from those who have not heard it. I am yet to read / hear a person who has listened to this driver at length provide a detailed criticism of it... I would like to tho, if someone was willing to share.
I will probably drop these in a ~60L light and stiff (tho heavily dampened may be better?) aperiodic. If this driver sounds as good as some describe, it would be a good value and meet the needs of many people.
Cheers, Raymond.
Aperiodic seems a good way to go (after all that's what Omega does with them).
For full-range beaming, I recommend (as Ted Jordan does) overtoeing the speakers so their axes cross in front of listening position. I think most full-rangers sound best slightly off-axis anyways, and overtoeing counteracts the proximity effect, i.e. the "sweet spot" becomes quite large. If the axes go to either side of the listener, then beaming only worsens the proximity effect for listeners outside the sweet spot.
When I overtoed my FE207E in vented cabs, the improvement was immediately noticeable and I kicked myself for not trying it sooner.
Visually, the effect is somewhat counterintuitive.
For full-range beaming, I recommend (as Ted Jordan does) overtoeing the speakers so their axes cross in front of listening position. I think most full-rangers sound best slightly off-axis anyways, and overtoeing counteracts the proximity effect, i.e. the "sweet spot" becomes quite large. If the axes go to either side of the listener, then beaming only worsens the proximity effect for listeners outside the sweet spot.
When I overtoed my FE207E in vented cabs, the improvement was immediately noticeable and I kicked myself for not trying it sooner.
Visually, the effect is somewhat counterintuitive.
Thanx for the guidance re overtoening the spks; I thoughts this was for couteracting the rising FR, as off-axis FR increasing drops with freq. I did not realise this may also help w/ beaming.
So, rising FR may be a good thing - when spks are overtoed for larger sweet spot, the FR may be decently flattened out. I am sure there are people who would disagree however - I think I saw some experienced baffle-step compensation proponents refuting this type of thinking on the Fullrangedriver forum...
That said, as I have stated in another post: it would be nice to see a company replicate a PHY-HP 8" (nice FR for a wide-band driver), minus the bling, alnico, and high $$$; plus a hemp cone... surely the PHY-HP performance could be approximated, and in some ways possibly improved, with said changes. Then again, it may be that I am being naive (which can have its benefits tho.)
Okay, I've crapped on long enough. Keep well, Raymond.
I hope I don't get flamed but here goes.
hugz, I've built a simple full-range speaker system (using Hi-Vi 3BN drivers) and while it is nice, my 2-way DIY speakers blow it away in the bass department. There are better full-range speakers than mine, but I think you should start with a 2-way. I'm trying all my DIY speakers with a new amp I got, and so far this seems to further put 2-way systems ahead of fullrangers. If you're coming from headphones, what speakers offer over the best headphones are in the bass and treble (frequency extremes). Fullrange is unlikely to do treble as well as a good tweeter (my Hi-Vi's can, but it can't do bass). And do you really think a 4.5-5.5" driver can do bass as well as a dedicated 10" woofer with 18mm of p-p excursion?
Fullrangers are much harder to do right than a simple 2-way. I vote for the 2-way. Its advantages more than make up for its drawbacks.
hugz, I've built a simple full-range speaker system (using Hi-Vi 3BN drivers) and while it is nice, my 2-way DIY speakers blow it away in the bass department. There are better full-range speakers than mine, but I think you should start with a 2-way. I'm trying all my DIY speakers with a new amp I got, and so far this seems to further put 2-way systems ahead of fullrangers. If you're coming from headphones, what speakers offer over the best headphones are in the bass and treble (frequency extremes). Fullrange is unlikely to do treble as well as a good tweeter (my Hi-Vi's can, but it can't do bass). And do you really think a 4.5-5.5" driver can do bass as well as a dedicated 10" woofer with 18mm of p-p excursion?
Fullrangers are much harder to do right than a simple 2-way. I vote for the 2-way. Its advantages more than make up for its drawbacks.
cotdt said:
I can only disagree with this. 1st off judging all full-range systems based on a $10 3" is a pretty big stretch... sure you can do a 2-way that will extend lower or higher (or both) better than a FR, but you end up putting a crossover in the middle and end up destroying the midrange. And the midrange is where most of the music is.
I always start a speaker system with a driver that all by itself can deliver a musically satisfying experience. then, if i feel the need i'll add a supertweeter and/or a woofer (usually not a subwoofer per say since they aren't extended enuff to integrate well).
A 125 mm driver may not be able to deliver the quantity of bass as a big *** 10", but i have heard ones that will deliver better quality than a lot of 10".
dave
Seconded. I like my rock, so I'm playing more with multi-ways at present, which single drivers are not usually best at, but that doesn't mean to say they can't. The B200 is a killer if loaded right. To be fair, I take the point that it's not always easy to extract their potential, but then, with multi-ways, you have the problem of tweaking crossovers etc, which adds a whole new dimension and set of difficulties that need to be considered. I reckon the reverse: start speaker-building with a good full-ranger, then move into other types as and when you want to / need to. Many never do...
Well here's a nice update for you all.
A kind local DIYer by the name of phil saw my thread here and threw me an email inviting me to listen to his horns. Today two friends and I headed around and gave them a good long listen (and compared them to some other speakers).
I'd like to give my basic impressions of the horn speakers that I heard today, because in my short time trying to learn about horn speakers I have heard so many varying opinions of them. A lot of the opinions that I've heard have been quite extreme ("absolutely no bass") and I suspect that many of them would have been made by people who have never actually heard horns, and are just saying the same thing that they've heard other people say. (i'm not nessesarily saying this is from DIYaudio. i've asked on a few different places and continually get different opinions).
The following impressions are for fellow horn newbies who were wondering how they sound, like I was. It's not intended to be a scientific analysis of horns. I'm just trying to clear up a few points that i came across when i was reading about horns.
The horns i heard today used some small fostex drivers. I couldn't say for sure, but I think they were Fostex FE126E (4.5"). They were build in the fostex recommended enclosure. They were powered by a variety of different amps at different stages in the day (15W t-amp, 16W tube amp. and a solid state amp that i'm not sure how powerful it was). A number of different sources were also used.
The first thing that I'd like to say is this:
Full range horns do NOT sound remarkably different to normal speakers. Many of the comments I've heard on them had me expecting them to be a whole different ballpark to "normal" speakers. This is not true in my short experience. They are just a different flavour of speakers. Essentially they sound quite similar, with a few different characteristics.
The bad:
Horns DO have less bass than a standard 2 or 3 way. We had at our disposal a pair of 2 way speakers, a pair of 3 way speakers and some sub woofers. Through comparison it was easy to tell that the horns had less bass. However (and this is important), the lack of bass isn't offensive or ugly. I describe the bass rolloff as "graceful". Even though there wasn't as much bass, it didn't feel like there was a big ugly gap in the music.
For the vast majority of music the bass was perfectly fine. We added subwoofers at one stage and i didn't prefer it that much more. The only time that the lack of bass was obvious to me was when playing "angel" by massive attack. Even then, we still found the music to sound very nice.
There is also less upper trebble but this was rarely noticable at all.
The good:
When listening to a string-heavy track, they were able to do the highest violins without a problem, and the deepest double bass notes. This is a song where I expected the horns to suffer a bit. This is an example of how the lack of bass and trebble is often exagerated by people.
The large soundstage gave the speakers a presence way larger than their size. We were all initially very supprised to discover that the music was coming from the small horns. The soundstage was bigger than any of the speakers there that day, and was wonderful. This was maybe the thing that really made me fall for them today. The soundstage was so large and natural.
The mid range is great. I'm not sure what I can really say about them, but I dont think that anyone is confused about mid range on horns anyway.
On tracks with strong vocals they're really amazing. The voice just sounds real. Likewise, most accoustic instruments sounded incredibly real.
On vocals and accoustic tracks they were able to acheive transperancy. When I closed my eyes I really felt like the music was being played live in front of me.
When listening to bjork, the music sounded a tad congested but her voice shined. I think they're a bit better with real instruments as compared to electronic sound. However that's not to say they only sound nice with accoustic instruments. They just sound better with pure accoustic as compared to pure electronics as is the case with bjork.
Sorry for the long post. I'm sure most of the diyaudio pros were reading it and saying "duh" step by step, but this is one for the newbies. It's also to put down on the record that I disagree with some of the things people say.
A kind local DIYer by the name of phil saw my thread here and threw me an email inviting me to listen to his horns. Today two friends and I headed around and gave them a good long listen (and compared them to some other speakers).
I'd like to give my basic impressions of the horn speakers that I heard today, because in my short time trying to learn about horn speakers I have heard so many varying opinions of them. A lot of the opinions that I've heard have been quite extreme ("absolutely no bass") and I suspect that many of them would have been made by people who have never actually heard horns, and are just saying the same thing that they've heard other people say. (i'm not nessesarily saying this is from DIYaudio. i've asked on a few different places and continually get different opinions).
The following impressions are for fellow horn newbies who were wondering how they sound, like I was. It's not intended to be a scientific analysis of horns. I'm just trying to clear up a few points that i came across when i was reading about horns.
The horns i heard today used some small fostex drivers. I couldn't say for sure, but I think they were Fostex FE126E (4.5"). They were build in the fostex recommended enclosure. They were powered by a variety of different amps at different stages in the day (15W t-amp, 16W tube amp. and a solid state amp that i'm not sure how powerful it was). A number of different sources were also used.
The first thing that I'd like to say is this:
Full range horns do NOT sound remarkably different to normal speakers. Many of the comments I've heard on them had me expecting them to be a whole different ballpark to "normal" speakers. This is not true in my short experience. They are just a different flavour of speakers. Essentially they sound quite similar, with a few different characteristics.
The bad:
Horns DO have less bass than a standard 2 or 3 way. We had at our disposal a pair of 2 way speakers, a pair of 3 way speakers and some sub woofers. Through comparison it was easy to tell that the horns had less bass. However (and this is important), the lack of bass isn't offensive or ugly. I describe the bass rolloff as "graceful". Even though there wasn't as much bass, it didn't feel like there was a big ugly gap in the music.
For the vast majority of music the bass was perfectly fine. We added subwoofers at one stage and i didn't prefer it that much more. The only time that the lack of bass was obvious to me was when playing "angel" by massive attack. Even then, we still found the music to sound very nice.
There is also less upper trebble but this was rarely noticable at all.
The good:
When listening to a string-heavy track, they were able to do the highest violins without a problem, and the deepest double bass notes. This is a song where I expected the horns to suffer a bit. This is an example of how the lack of bass and trebble is often exagerated by people.
The large soundstage gave the speakers a presence way larger than their size. We were all initially very supprised to discover that the music was coming from the small horns. The soundstage was bigger than any of the speakers there that day, and was wonderful. This was maybe the thing that really made me fall for them today. The soundstage was so large and natural.
The mid range is great. I'm not sure what I can really say about them, but I dont think that anyone is confused about mid range on horns anyway.
On tracks with strong vocals they're really amazing. The voice just sounds real. Likewise, most accoustic instruments sounded incredibly real.
On vocals and accoustic tracks they were able to acheive transperancy. When I closed my eyes I really felt like the music was being played live in front of me.
When listening to bjork, the music sounded a tad congested but her voice shined. I think they're a bit better with real instruments as compared to electronic sound. However that's not to say they only sound nice with accoustic instruments. They just sound better with pure accoustic as compared to pure electronics as is the case with bjork.
Sorry for the long post. I'm sure most of the diyaudio pros were reading it and saying "duh" step by step, but this is one for the newbies. It's also to put down on the record that I disagree with some of the things people say.
Interesting points. Only one thing to remember: one horn isn't the same as another: they don't all sound alike in the same way reflex enclosures don't all sound al... curses. Bad example. But you know what I mean.
Horns are pigs to design, or more to the point, it's very hard to design a decently performing hybrid back-horn. Horns themselves are easy, providing, of course, you have room for a pair with 400 square foot mouths (ie 20' x 20') each. Because that's the sort of size you need to get bass from a 'genuine' horn. Most are really quarter-wave resonators at low frequencies shifting to horn-loading as the frequency increases, and that's the hard bit. Most of these are not properly designed, or have lots of compromises in them. The ES-R and ESigma Fostex enclosures are good. Terry Cain's Bigger Is Better TQWT (actually an unusual type of horn, also of Fostex origins) when positioned correctly are also impressive. I can't think of many other DIY designs that are what I consider to be 'full-range' though, which I define as actually having some performance under 70Hz or so. The Replikon is supposed to be very impressive, and from the models I've run in MathCad, is a very solid design.
Best
Scott
Horns are pigs to design, or more to the point, it's very hard to design a decently performing hybrid back-horn. Horns themselves are easy, providing, of course, you have room for a pair with 400 square foot mouths (ie 20' x 20') each. Because that's the sort of size you need to get bass from a 'genuine' horn. Most are really quarter-wave resonators at low frequencies shifting to horn-loading as the frequency increases, and that's the hard bit. Most of these are not properly designed, or have lots of compromises in them. The ES-R and ESigma Fostex enclosures are good. Terry Cain's Bigger Is Better TQWT (actually an unusual type of horn, also of Fostex origins) when positioned correctly are also impressive. I can't think of many other DIY designs that are what I consider to be 'full-range' though, which I define as actually having some performance under 70Hz or so. The Replikon is supposed to be very impressive, and from the models I've run in MathCad, is a very solid design.
Best
Scott
but horns are big and diffifcult to design, why not just go multi-way? in my experience crossovers are not evil, they don't degrade the sound to my ears. and do any of these horn drivers have that airy sound that good tweeters, especially ribbon tweeters, give you? Not even my Hi-Vi 3" fullrangers can do that, and their treble is probably much better than the bigger 8" fullrange drivers.
i've never heard a full-sized horn, but judging by the theory wouldn't it be better to just add a big woofer for bass duties? bass should sound tighter.
i've never heard a full-sized horn, but judging by the theory wouldn't it be better to just add a big woofer for bass duties? bass should sound tighter.
I never claimed crossovers were evil. Some of my favourite designs are multi-ways. The difficulty with crossovers lies in the fact that there are very few good ones!
Better? Well, it'd be easier, that's for certain, but then, we're back to personal preference again. Horns can sound 'impressive' Whether that means 'accourate' or not is open to debate. They are also spectacularly efficient, which often appeals to the SET brigade (I'm not a member of that club, though I do like some of the good examples), and that's not usualy the case with multi-ways (I acknowledge exceptions like the monster Tannoys). People tend to go for horns and single drivers due to the subjective midrange purity. Make of it what you will. The other point to consider is the way they couple to the air. Horns can shift more air in a room than, say, a reflex design in certain circumstances, and that can be quite significant.
Best
Scott
Better? Well, it'd be easier, that's for certain, but then, we're back to personal preference again. Horns can sound 'impressive' Whether that means 'accourate' or not is open to debate. They are also spectacularly efficient, which often appeals to the SET brigade (I'm not a member of that club, though I do like some of the good examples), and that's not usualy the case with multi-ways (I acknowledge exceptions like the monster Tannoys). People tend to go for horns and single drivers due to the subjective midrange purity. Make of it what you will. The other point to consider is the way they couple to the air. Horns can shift more air in a room than, say, a reflex design in certain circumstances, and that can be quite significant.
Best
Scott
Hmmmm... I think I want to try the horns for my computer gaming speakers after reading hugz review and this discussion. But I think their huge size makes them impractical for this purpose. But the idea that you can get great bass from small fullrange drivers GREATLY interests me. If you guys know of a way to keep the enclosure and horn small I would build it! I think I'll select the new Hemp Acoustics fullrange driver.
cotdt said:
Well it's worth noting that for the horns that i heard, they sounded much larger than they actually were. They weren't actually that large in size. According to the fostex site, this enclosure is 60cm high (23in), 18cm wide (7in) and 35cm (13.5in) deep.
This is certainly not huge. However it is bigger than your average pc speakers. Also people say that room position is important with horns and this may be a drawback for gaming use, i'm not sure because we didn't move ours around to experiment.
IMO, there should be a dinstiction made between a Front Horn and a Back Loaded Horn. I've heard Lowthers in both configurations and the Front Horn gives the Lowther a whole different perspective.... soundstage becomes huge and the Lowther becomes much easier on the ear.. 
Of course the cutoff frequency will be determined by the horn and you'll need to add a bass system.
IMO a Back Loaded Horn is more like a Transmission Line type of system sonically much closer to a convetional box system... indeed very unlike a Front horn type system.
Of course the cutoff frequency will be determined by the horn and you'll need to add a bass system. An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
IMO a Back Loaded Horn is more like a Transmission Line type of system sonically much closer to a convetional box system... indeed very unlike a Front horn type system.
Here’s the actual setup of speakers etc we listened to on Saturday.
Hugo was kind enough to do a review for my site on: -
http://www.greenie512.net/greenie512/html/small_meet.html
Cotdt – those horns are stood on the BR boxes Fostex recommend for the FE126’s. I used these on my computer desk for a few months and with a cheap sub under the desk they stood up quite well and were heaps better than your average computer setup.
Hugo was kind enough to do a review for my site on: -
http://www.greenie512.net/greenie512/html/small_meet.html
Cotdt – those horns are stood on the BR boxes Fostex recommend for the FE126’s. I used these on my computer desk for a few months and with a cheap sub under the desk they stood up quite well and were heaps better than your average computer setup.
Attachments
It is a real stretch for Fostex to call this design a horn. A TL/BR daline hybrid with an expanding line would be more accurate. This is a really cute little speaker -- especially if built with the bottom void sliced off. When we built it we expected to be dissapointed (our results with Fostex rexcommended designs up till that point), but we weren't. The bottom is sort of round & fuzzy and not real extended but not objectionable. The same driver in the RonHorn A126 (an evolving design -- ours has a larger compression chamber, and a false baffle to move the BS point down to where the horn takes over) is WAY better. Bass, probably good to 50 Hz, is incrediably refined & sounds so right. This driver doesn't have the finesse of the FE108eS but is half the price, better bass & 3 dB more efficiency.
dave
cotdt said:
since how low a horn goes is directly proportional to mouth size, small & horn aren't 2 words that go together -- unless you are talking horn tweeters.
That said, the HornShoppe Horn -- if you have a pair of suitably placed corners to put them in are eminently pleasant little (for a horn) back loaded horns that reach to ~50-60 Hz. 6" x 30" front panel ....
dave
Hi Scott!
Like you I also enjoy listening to everything from Prog-rock bands like YES and Led Zeppelin. On occasion I'll be the playing the music so loudly, my wife has had to come into the kitchen ---{which is just to the left of my audio room}--- and make hand signals for me to come follow her. So I get up and follow her through the kitchen, into the dining room and finally into the family room, which is about 35-40 feet away from the audio room. Then my wife says directly into my ear saying; "Tell me if you can hear the exercise video I'm playing on the TV!" In all honesty I couldn't hear a thing. However I thought my wife had put the TV on mute just to get me to turn the music down, but when I went to turn up the TV's volume up, the numbers started at 75 and let me tell you the TV volume at 75 is quite loud, with the maximum volume being 100.
Now that is playing the music LOUDLY and this Sachiko/PS220-8 combo can play ay those volumes all day without distorting. Still I also equally enjoy listening to bands like Fourplay, Acoustic Alchemy and singers such as Jaimee Paul, Jackie Allen, Sophie Milman as well as acoustic guitarists such as Glen Hegelson, Jump in The Water, Brooks Williams etc. The Sachiko/PS220-8 drivers can play this music as softly and delicately as any other speakers I've heard. All this wonderful listening is done via a pair of Dayton PS220-8 fullrange drivers with a special cone treatment loaded into Scott's marvelous Sachiko cabinets. Besides having the PS220-8's cones treated I also stuffed the cavity directly behind the PS220-8 drivers, both above & below.
These speakers now play so deeply & loudly that people go over to see if I hooked up the NHT SA-2 subwoofers! FYI: I play the PS220-8 drivers "fullrange" sans any XO attached. Hooked up directly to the amp. I also added a pair of Fostex T900a super-tweeters that I'm crossing in about 10Khz or so just to add that last bit of sparkle and air to the sound. I've been using Scott's wonderful Sachiko cabinets since July 2008 and I cannot foresee them out of my system for a long, long time to come. I highly recommend building a pair of Scott's double-back-loaded horns. I've never been happier with any other speakers I've owned or heard in at least 90% of the people's homes and audio salon's I've visited. I think that speaks volumes about Scott's incredible Sachiko cabinets...
PS: Anyone planning on being in Orlando, FL. area either on vacation or just traveling through for business is free to contact me and come over for a listening session. Just send me an email from this site or your personal email and let me know when you'd like to come over...
Thetubeguy1954 (Tom Scata)
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