I'm in the fun experimenting/building/critical listening mode (went way off track for months trying to get the most out of a Tannoy 12" dual concentric) so the midrange and treble horns are undecided. Right now I'm listening to Community L&S M200 (low compression non metallic large format compression driver) crossed in at around 600 Hz in a narrow radiation radial horn (280 Hz flare) then at 2.5K to the Celestion CDX1730 (non metallic neo magnet wonder) in SEOS 12 horn, Passive line level crossovers triamped array. Any contouring is done passively. I've tried several six and 8 inch drivers in these horns and like the B&C 8PE21 best. Here is an old system from 10 years ago lol I had with the current midbass horns driven by the massive Emilar EC600 compression driver - the 8" B&C is better but required a modified throat and a tiny back chamber. Maybe the best mid bass I've experienced with very pure sound. I have pretty extensive collection of mid treble horns and drivers. The current configuration is "clicking" for me. Lot's of vibrant tone and immediacy I crave.
Bass is done. Five JBL 2242 18's up front (two stereo subs with twin 2242's to meet midbass horns and a center mono folded horn 40 cycles down) and two Dayton 18's behind in a corner behind me (adjustable delay and phase) - the bass is triamped with 3rd and 4th order electronic crossovers.
Room is rectangular 7.5' high, 14.5 wide by 24.75' deep - a half underground bunker that opens to the outside and a much larger space to the side. Listening distance to the midbass driver is 15 feet 8 inches.
playing with unloaded midbass low mid horns lol
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Right, though someone noted at the time of startup that the tooling was well worn and don't know if any of it has been repaired/replaced if true, so may not necessarily look exactly like a 'matching' vintage driver or have as 'sweet' a HF breakup modes BW.
In short, they can no doubt match a reference frequency response in the doping stage, but it doesn't mean it will sound the same, so the higher the XO point, the more chance of audibly mismatched systems if not done in pairs/whatever.
This was really obvious with a vintage 604-8H Vs an early new, but well broken in, GPA unit to the point where he sold the vintage and bought another new one, then sold the pair because it didn't sound as good at his normal fairly high average [studio] volume and still kept 'money in his pocket' for his loss.
He got over it though once he gambled on stepping up to my idea of an M19, i.e. all GPA driven large 416-8C MLTL tuned to Fs with a foam baffled 511 horn, but still with the nominally 1200 Hz XO. Been awhile since I've heard from him, but the only upgrade he was considering was swapping to 416-8Bs, otherwise he wondered what he ever 'saw' in 604s for relatively large room HIFI apps.
GM
Phooey!
I know this is a 'tongue in cheek' response and glad you could afford to laugh at it in retrospect and I could/did too once upon a time, but for many [most?] of us on the forums don't have the 'deep pockets' to [still] fund it, at least at this level of unit [repair] cost.
GM
not trying to disrupt this thread, but it seems to me that at this point, or perhaps somewhere a bit earlier, a new thread on GPA drivers might be suggested.
i have no idea as to the value of buying GPA vs. good or 'best' drivers from PE or other sources. the detail following from these points and others probably is due in a separate thread?
I've just created a new thread regarding the project "Beyond the petite Onken":
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/285828-beyond-petite-onken.html#post4593763
Do the moderators could transfert from this thread to the new one the relative informations discussed recently? I know it works like this on some forum but not sure if DIYaudio can do this. So much people, subjects, threads, etc...
Thanks,
Sébastien
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/285828-beyond-petite-onken.html#post4593763
Do the moderators could transfert from this thread to the new one the relative informations discussed recently? I know it works like this on some forum but not sure if DIYaudio can do this. So much people, subjects, threads, etc...
Thanks,
Sébastien
No, the room placement, horn, driver as a whole id the question and really the question cannot be answered without full knowledge of the question - i think the Fane 8" should do a fine job in that range provided all else is considered including what exact sound you seek in the end and how it will be integrated into the complete horn array. Sorry - You asked a simple question that is incomplete so I must simply answer incomplete.
Current room is about 7x4.5 meters, dedicated room so I can set it up however I like (and the plan is to always have large, dedicated listening space). For bass below the midbass horn I was thinking about distributed subwoofers, probably adding two more JL Fathoms. Above the midbass/lower midrange horn I have TAD4001, but haven't decided on horn since I am still thinking about the midbass and how high I can use it... which is why I haven't come up with any concrete horn ideas yet. As for the rest of the horn system, in my head it was to split it up Cessaro/Macondo style with midbass/lower mid (cone) horn, followed by midrange, upper midrange and treble all compression driver. Everything DSP; crossovers and room correction, I am a convert and there is no going back for me
For the midbass I'm looking for great realistic tone for acoustic music, vast majority of my listening is classical and jazz, but I listen to nearly everything. I'm also intrigued by GPA/Altec 414 with QTS 0.22, but have not found much user experience of them in front loaded horns.
I found the TAD 4001 sounds best in a good radial horn compared to the current fad of spherical round horns - the driver is an upgrade to the JBL 375 with an extra phase slit and the Be diaphragm but when used with the TAD type radials it works best- when used in the spherical horns they have two real problems. one, they are too hot on the top end and "in your face" and two the spherical horns and the extra top octave energy creates beaming monsters. My advice is to try them in radial horns like the Community Light & Sound BRH90 (big radial horn) with no additional tweeter crossing around 500-600 cycles - if that isn't perfect add the TAD super tweeters or something really fast and smooth around 7K- That leaves you with a midbass horn that will "keep up" with the TAD- a 12" or 15" horn loaded will be OK but much better would be good 8" (less mass, faster, pure like the TAD) like the B&C or Fane. It will be more coherent and "whole" - world class IMHO - truly a pleasure music machine - the midbass horn need not be some huge spherical horn turned on a lathe - look at the horns John Inlow is building - maybe the 135 hz horn scaled bigger to get you below 100 cycles.
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SebastienL, it will be perhaps be better for you to have a separate thread, hopefully you will receive more specific comments that way. I will sure be following! Nevertheless, IMO the GPA driver discussion is very pertinent in this thread!
Pooh,
sounds like a very nice system and I can only say I wish I had the space for that kind of experimenting! One thing I always dream about is integrating the LF or even a MB horn like yours to the construction of the room. If I ever get to build myself a new house I will certainly think about it.
I asked about your room size because I have been asking myself if they also sound so good in smaller spaces (say something like 30 m2). You have a very respectable distance to the speakers too.
I remember you were very happy with the tannoy, what happened there?
Pooh,
sounds like a very nice system and I can only say I wish I had the space for that kind of experimenting! One thing I always dream about is integrating the LF or even a MB horn like yours to the construction of the room. If I ever get to build myself a new house I will certainly think about it.
I asked about your room size because I have been asking myself if they also sound so good in smaller spaces (say something like 30 m2). You have a very respectable distance to the speakers too.
I remember you were very happy with the tannoy, what happened there?
Thanks for starting the threads! They're fun to read and quite interesting. I'm looking into a compact bass horn for the 515-Alnico, similar to the horn section of an A5/A7 or 816A (with a small rear chamber, not reflex), and covering the modest range of 200~800 Hz. 15" direct-radiator(s) in the cabinet below that.
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I think I took them as far as i could. They are really pretty nice and in a smaller room where you would listen more in nearfield they could be great. I got used to them, then decided to set up a channel of front horns to compare and finally got back what I was missing. I think once a horny always a horny.
Too bad you are far away I have a pair of front horns I'd give you - forget about shipping they weigh around 400 lb a piece with out the drivers. These actually have internal cabinets for twin down firing 15's. 50- 150 Hz with the twin 15's (biamped) and 150 horn loaded up to ? (easily to 700 with the 515)
I'm in NE Ohio if anybody wants to pick them up come and get them. I'm out of room here.
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Good evening Lynn,
I'm wondering if the Onken WB300 horn enclosure could be of inspiration to you. It's like a small VOTT. Just needing to see how close you want to stay from Altec's enclosure dimension.
Sébastien
I'm wondering if the Onken WB300 horn enclosure could be of inspiration to you. It's like a small VOTT. Just needing to see how close you want to stay from Altec's enclosure dimension.
Sébastien
Thanks for pointing me to John's 135 hz horn, I'd only seen his midbass horns using much larger JBL drivers. What I'm worried about running 80 hz and up to the point where I'd cross with my CD is beaming with the midbass horn. Yet I'm not sure how well the distributed subwoofer system would work say up to 100 hz where we are more easily able to localize bass. And of course wanting all the goodness that comes from horn bass as low as I can realistically go.
I think you's be far ahead building a front horn for a smaller driver like the B&C 8Pe21 - it will sound better 200-800 by a high margin. Sure it will be deeper but only by a few inches - it can still be aligned with the midhorn. Just design it where it is short (maybe 18") so you have plenty of space for sual 15's below.
Altec plans - 1970'S ENCLOSURE PLANS
Altec plans - 1970'S ENCLOSURE PLANS
You can always use stereo subs ( i think 100 Hz is too high for mono bass!) located near the mid bass driver. Mine are around 1.5 foot behind the midbass coil and they blend seamlessly with a 4th order lowpass. You need a deep room though to make it work, or id the room is wide (better!) you can probably get away with placing the subs next to the midbass horns. Most of the time smaller horns (100hz) flare have a better chance of sounding better in the upper range.
Thanks to both of you; I'll take a serious look into these approaches. The Azurahorn AH425 is the result of a three-way collaboration across the USA, Norway, and Australia, and the spirit of collaboration is important for the rest of the project, too.
The space constraint (for me) is "no larger than an A7, preferably smaller" and the electronic constraint (for me) is "all analog, no DSP, no multi-amping except for subwoofers". These are hard constraints. There's only so much room, and a pair of direct-heated triode amps are my first choice for amplification. This is the year when I finally get a phonograph running (along with a Technics RS1520 tape deck), and analog sources seem kind of pointless if everything is going through an ADC/DAC as part of the speaker EQ and time alignment.
On a broader topic, I've been wondering why a bass horn, or even a not-so-great A7-style horn, sounds so different than an array of direct-radiator drivers. On paper, both are similar articles; lower distortion and greater headroom are the expected tradeoff for larger size, cost, and complexity. If anything, the horn should be worse, thanks to mouth reflections and somewhat uneven diaphragm loading vs frequency.
But in practice, they sound different. A lot different. The horn shares traits with electrostats; quick and snappy, although with more weight and a sense of in-the-room physical presence. Direct-radiator arrays usually just sound big, and can be noticeably more blurry than single drivers (particularly if the rear volume is shared between drivers). They should sound like horns, but don't.
Just spitballing here, but I wonder if the difference is the cabinet. There's a lot of stored energy in the cabinetry for a bass array, while a bass horn typically only has a very small rear enclosure. The ear is extremely sensitive to the characteristic sound of vibrating woods and metals, and relatively small amounts of cabinet coloration are noticeable when the cabinet is removed from the picture. The brute-force solution to cabinet coloration is an open baffle, but that throws away efficiency and power-handling, and demands long excursions from the driver ... pretty much the opposite of what a horn does.
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Using a single amp except another to drive subs? So you will horn load the upper bass and drive a pair of 15's for bass and the upper range horn with one amplifier?
I think you'll have to attenuate the upper bass horn for that to work. A horn loaded 515 will be around 106 db sensitive. What lower bass drivers will be that sensitive with your amp? I'm not sure attenuating the upper bass horn is a good idea but I never tried it so don't know.
Horns couple with the air in front of them much better than direct radiators. Lower excursion higher conversion to sound. Done right it should trounce an electrostatic panel.
I think you'll have to attenuate the upper bass horn for that to work. A horn loaded 515 will be around 106 db sensitive. What lower bass drivers will be that sensitive with your amp? I'm not sure attenuating the upper bass horn is a good idea but I never tried it so don't know.
Horns couple with the air in front of them much better than direct radiators. Lower excursion higher conversion to sound. Done right it should trounce an electrostatic panel.