A polarity switch shifts phase 180 degrees at all frequencies.
A bass reflex shifts phase by ~180 degrees at Fb.
Sounds like you hit the correct combination of polarity and delay with the electrical filters and the "built in" acoustic filters used.
You were using over 26ms delay on the top cabinet in post # 115, what is the path length of your tapped horn, and it's exit location distance from the MEH mouth?
It's a lot less than 26ms as the tapped horns are also set with a delay.
They are 2.4m long and the mouths of MEH are well over 1m in front of the TH exits. Plus the TH drivers are set inside by another 40 or do cm.
11.5ms or thereabouts.
I set the HF with quite a long delay as reference, and needed lots of leeway when doing top down phase alignment of my old system.
Tapped horns done last.
At those wavelengths a little shift needs lots of delay samples.
My DSP can do up to 4095 delay samples.
Watched this video and read the associated chat on the thread on this place.
A little anecdote on sound perception:-
When I play the traditional steeper crossover setup to my wife, and then the flatter phase coherent setup back to back, she immediately said the trad setup sounds like a flatter wall.
All the music is there, but it's 2d.
When describing the phase coherent setup, she rotated her hands over and over nearer then farther away from the speakers, and explained there was a depth to them, that was previously lacking.
She doesn't spend hours listening and reading up like I do😂, so it's an obvious and tangible change that she picked up on.
A little anecdote on sound perception:-
When I play the traditional steeper crossover setup to my wife, and then the flatter phase coherent setup back to back, she immediately said the trad setup sounds like a flatter wall.
All the music is there, but it's 2d.
When describing the phase coherent setup, she rotated her hands over and over nearer then farther away from the speakers, and explained there was a depth to them, that was previously lacking.
She doesn't spend hours listening and reading up like I do😂, so it's an obvious and tangible change that she picked up on.
You want this graph with REW to be a straight vertical line within 1ms to get the timing in control. You might otherwise only be phase aligned and not time aligned...
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/attachments/02_6-jpg.1290519/
//
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/attachments/02_6-jpg.1290519/
//
3 things to report.
I upped the SPL a little on the LF.
Gave me a more balanced and impressive sound.
Mid bass attack from these speakers really is good.
Removed a bit of the HF absorbent room treatment from behind me and high up on the ceiling.
This was a left over from the 5 way round horn system.. the SH50s don't seem to need it. Directivity.
Also wondered if the little 5w EL84 SET amp (whilst great and sweet sounding on compression drivers), was really up to the task of powering the heavier dual 5" Celestion MF drivers?
The damping factor of the SET amp is very low.
I did a quick amp inventory check - hmm only have a Behringer INuke and a Topping TP-60 to immediately try🙂
I have the Topping on then now.
Certainly isn't worse, they keep up with the LF well. Tonally okay too.
I know it's not a great amp from measurement/reviews. Got it cheap though.
Any recommendations for a good reasonably priced amp to do 325Hz to 954Hz only? 😃
I upped the SPL a little on the LF.
Gave me a more balanced and impressive sound.
Mid bass attack from these speakers really is good.
Removed a bit of the HF absorbent room treatment from behind me and high up on the ceiling.
This was a left over from the 5 way round horn system.. the SH50s don't seem to need it. Directivity.
Also wondered if the little 5w EL84 SET amp (whilst great and sweet sounding on compression drivers), was really up to the task of powering the heavier dual 5" Celestion MF drivers?
The damping factor of the SET amp is very low.
I did a quick amp inventory check - hmm only have a Behringer INuke and a Topping TP-60 to immediately try🙂
I have the Topping on then now.
Certainly isn't worse, they keep up with the LF well. Tonally okay too.
I know it's not a great amp from measurement/reviews. Got it cheap though.
Any recommendations for a good reasonably priced amp to do 325Hz to 954Hz only? 😃
Hi Speedysteve7
Could you please point to the associated thread?
Thanks in advance
Steffen
Could you please point to the associated thread?
Thanks in advance
Steffen
Ah yes, here it is..
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...tiway-loudspeaker-defects.392356/post-7177769
I've been reading lots of threads regarding folks experiences of the sound these horns make, indoors verses outdoors, room treatments, positioning etc etc. Also comparing the SH-50 and the SM-60(F).
My takeaways
-Some didn't like the BMS 4550 sound.
- the odd report of slightly muddy waters in the upper bass (less so when used outside).
- The SM60F sound was not necessarily an improvement over the SH50 (horses for courses?). Some reports that the coaxial sound was a bit ragged.
These are interesting comments and the ensuing discussions very helpful in my deciding what to do next - if anything😃
So, where am I now?
I've addressed the BMS4550 sound - replaced it with a compression driver I really like the sound of.
Personally I've not found the upper bass an issue at all - with EQ to stop the LF playing over the MF..
Without any EQ its pretty good still, but there is some colouration / that muddiness that was reported.
Now I've got the setup just where I like it, the sound is very, very good indeed.
There is still the question of what amp to use on the MF cones.
Presently I've not the slightest inclination of going back to the Le Cléac'h HF, Tractrix MF and Exponential LF'ish setup.
The tests of left channel old system vs right channel SH50 and the hybrid with Le Cléac'h HF with SH50 MF and LF verses the full SH50 both (with the same Comp Driver) gave me all the info about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the setups.
Perhaps it has also taken some time to make new neural pathways, for me to fully appreciate the Synergy sound?
A/B comparisons are all well and good, but we live with a system and its 'house sound' across many tracks and genres, over days, weeks, months, good recordings, bad recordings, new material, others music tastes etc.
The DIY SH50, admittedly somewhat tweaked, is certainly fulfilling my expectations and requirements.
Time to see if anyone local enough to me wants to collect some loooong, large exponential round midbass horns? 😂
Local tip, like @mark100, or bonfire (think of the environment!).
The Tractrix and JBL2484s would be more marketable I think.
I'm using a pair of Amp camp amps for mids and tweets on mine at the moment. Plenty loud enough for my 20 x 10 room but would not do party levels. I've used various PA amps from 30 wpc up to 150 wpc. I'll be looking for something around 30 wpc of high quality eventually. The main thing is to make sure the amps are silent. Background noise is easily noticable. I'm using a 150 wpc pro amp on my midbass horns at the moment.
I use 4x mids per speaker, so they are almost as sensitive as the compression driver.
Doubt that helps much, but it is an answer
Rob.
I use 4x mids per speaker, so they are almost as sensitive as the compression driver.
Doubt that helps much, but it is an answer
Rob.
That's @SpeakerBob
It seems to be an area that is under represented by manufacturers.
They all try to do 20-20KHz and claim to do it well😀
We want the sweetest sound for our narrow bands and specific loads🐔😬
My 2 5" are a fair bit below the JBL2482 comp driver on T200..
But the amp isn't working hard.
Perhaps I'm over thinking things..
Need to borrow different amps to try.
I will dust off the Behringer iNuke just to hear it🙂
It seems to be an area that is under represented by manufacturers.
They all try to do 20-20KHz and claim to do it well😀
We want the sweetest sound for our narrow bands and specific loads🐔😬
My 2 5" are a fair bit below the JBL2482 comp driver on T200..
But the amp isn't working hard.
Perhaps I'm over thinking things..
Need to borrow different amps to try.
I will dust off the Behringer iNuke just to hear it🙂
I don't know for a hifi room setting....where I take it that means a very quite amp (fan-wise etc).
I se proaudio amps for all but the CD's (and sometimes for them too), and have reduced/abated fan noise, but it's still there.
My mids are four 16 ohm 4ndf34's in parallel for 4 ohm nominal. Which combined have a 800W program power rating.
Amp used is one channel of a QSC CXD4.5-Q. (and with both RMS and peak voltage limiting)
Thanks Mark.
Is a really difficult to know / hard to get advice on area!
I tried the Behringer iNuke, I had slowed the fan to a whisper when I used it for a while on the tapped horns.
Certainly didn't sound better than the TP-60.. not saying much I guess.
Problem is I don't possess a regular quality full frequency Hifi amp anymore to try.
It's flee power el84 SET amp, TP60 or Behringer..
Ah, I could try the Crown XLS Drive Core on them.. Behringer on the SH50 LF temporarily.
The Crown is a nicer sounding amp over the Behringer any day.
Is a really difficult to know / hard to get advice on area!
I tried the Behringer iNuke, I had slowed the fan to a whisper when I used it for a while on the tapped horns.
Certainly didn't sound better than the TP-60.. not saying much I guess.
Problem is I don't possess a regular quality full frequency Hifi amp anymore to try.
It's flee power el84 SET amp, TP60 or Behringer..
Ah, I could try the Crown XLS Drive Core on them.. Behringer on the SH50 LF temporarily.
The Crown is a nicer sounding amp over the Behringer any day.
Yeah. Amps.......tough to make really good/valid comparisons I think.
I tend to just make sure the amps voltage headroom gets the drivers up to their max excursion, and that there's sufficient power in play to do that whatever bandwidth they cover..
For the coax CD's I'm using some old Rotel 50wpc RB-850 stereo amps. One amp per CD (I'm back to a LCR setup)
They sound very nice and can get as loud in home as can stand.
Happened to have three of them from an old multi-channel HT setup made years back.
I don't have to use limiters with these amps..
Outdoors though, where I usually only take out one speaker stack, I'll drive the CD with a proamp like above ....and with limiters in place of course.
Funny though, I defintely feel safer running my coax CDs with a massive 1250w per section .....given the rms, peak, and instantaneous limiters i trust,
than I do the little Rotels with 50w per section. I do NOT like or trust single ended home audio amps. Sorry ...rant over...Lol
I played my system for a musical friend today.
He's into the heavier side of things, think artists Tool and the like.
He was quite happy that I opened with ACDC Tunderstruck✊
Then played some Tool tracks for him.
Usually ordinary 'hifi' falls a bit short of shock and awe🙂
He was amazed at the Sound PRESSURE level effortlessly achieved by the SH50s.
I explained the background of them, and how pared down mine are compared to full driver compliment😱
Then onto John Butler Trio and Nils Lofgren for some lively acoustic guitar.
Could not get over the level of detail and speed.
Noted the soundstage too.
He's using headphones and ear buds mostly.
Played a couple of room shakers too, just to really shock and awe.
These typically have 25 to 30Hz bass, no problem rattling your fillings with fidelity.
Workout for the tapped horns
Skipped the 18Hz church organ - wrong target audience 🙂
I'm still impressed by these things.
Gonna be interesting times ahead demoing..
He's into the heavier side of things, think artists Tool and the like.
He was quite happy that I opened with ACDC Tunderstruck✊
Then played some Tool tracks for him.
Usually ordinary 'hifi' falls a bit short of shock and awe🙂
He was amazed at the Sound PRESSURE level effortlessly achieved by the SH50s.
I explained the background of them, and how pared down mine are compared to full driver compliment😱
Then onto John Butler Trio and Nils Lofgren for some lively acoustic guitar.
Could not get over the level of detail and speed.
Noted the soundstage too.
He's using headphones and ear buds mostly.
Played a couple of room shakers too, just to really shock and awe.
These typically have 25 to 30Hz bass, no problem rattling your fillings with fidelity.
Workout for the tapped horns
Skipped the 18Hz church organ - wrong target audience 🙂
I'm still impressed by these things.
Gonna be interesting times ahead demoing..
Still finding the sound of these amazing🎶
Playing with the toe in. Pretty much as Tom Danley described. Angled sides parallel with the side walls.
Then sitting distance wise, where I find the sound stage most desirable.
Also testing farther and nearer the front wall.
Thoughts have turned to grilled.
Could go funky bright colours.
Bronze or bunished copper?
Daughters suggested black! They really like black😀
I know I had some cloth next over from a previous job.
Ah, turned out to be a black quite open mesh weave. I like it.
Believe it or not it's a square piece too, nice sized for the job. But only one piece..
Time to make a frame that slides on and holds and then try black first..
Playing with the toe in. Pretty much as Tom Danley described. Angled sides parallel with the side walls.
Then sitting distance wise, where I find the sound stage most desirable.
Also testing farther and nearer the front wall.
Thoughts have turned to grilled.
Could go funky bright colours.
Bronze or bunished copper?
Daughters suggested black! They really like black😀
I know I had some cloth next over from a previous job.
Ah, turned out to be a black quite open mesh weave. I like it.
Believe it or not it's a square piece too, nice sized for the job. But only one piece..
Time to make a frame that slides on and holds and then try black first..
Last edited:
More reading and learning.
Apparently a few Home Theatre setups used SH50s.
Bill Gates and George Lucas are ones of note.
This was a few years ago so who knows now?
Our daughters have been wanting a Home Cinema room.
The 5 way round horn system never had the room coverage for it.
Not so the Synergy horns.
That got me thinking of turning my room into a dual purpose hifi / home cinema room.
How to allow 2 channel hifi in 4/5way with existing amps, and then do 5.1 with the SH50s as L and R and Tapped horn subs as Sub?
Can probably do without a centre, the cinema guys reported some SH50 setup like that.
I thought about a all new DSP 5/6/7.2 pre amp that can feed my various power amps and configure to each - does such exist.
On another thread on here, miniDSP flex 8 Home Theatre was mentioned.
Thinking about this long term, that might be just the thing..
As long as it could have multiple setups with different PEQs / X/Os for hifi and then other setup for 6.2, that can be configured to the different inputs, it could work.
They must have thought of all this?
More reading up required.
Room plan idea. 6 seater.
Eventuell centre and rears, not shown.
The white things are the tapped 😈
A low wide hifi equipment table also required.
Another reclining sofa and 2 reclining chairs should arrive next week.
Ditto a 65" QLED screen.
I'm even planning a raised platform for the rear seats for better sound and vision.
I cleared all the unnecessary crap out of the room and put the 2 seater sofa we have and two other chairs in.
Then listened to the system on soundtracks to see.
Plenty of crash and boom from the tapped horns🙂
One consideration is that for hifi, I like the SH50s quite forward.
For Home Theatre they need to be farther back. Test sitting in various positions confirmed this.
Today I made a track that 2 patio door runner wheels can glide in.
This allows me to lift the SH50 slightly off the support foot and elegantly slide them between the 2 positions.
Much more to do for this project!
Apparently a few Home Theatre setups used SH50s.
Bill Gates and George Lucas are ones of note.
This was a few years ago so who knows now?
Our daughters have been wanting a Home Cinema room.
The 5 way round horn system never had the room coverage for it.
Not so the Synergy horns.
That got me thinking of turning my room into a dual purpose hifi / home cinema room.
How to allow 2 channel hifi in 4/5way with existing amps, and then do 5.1 with the SH50s as L and R and Tapped horn subs as Sub?
Can probably do without a centre, the cinema guys reported some SH50 setup like that.
I thought about a all new DSP 5/6/7.2 pre amp that can feed my various power amps and configure to each - does such exist.
On another thread on here, miniDSP flex 8 Home Theatre was mentioned.
Thinking about this long term, that might be just the thing..
As long as it could have multiple setups with different PEQs / X/Os for hifi and then other setup for 6.2, that can be configured to the different inputs, it could work.
They must have thought of all this?
More reading up required.
Room plan idea. 6 seater.
Eventuell centre and rears, not shown.
The white things are the tapped 😈
A low wide hifi equipment table also required.
Another reclining sofa and 2 reclining chairs should arrive next week.
Ditto a 65" QLED screen.
I'm even planning a raised platform for the rear seats for better sound and vision.
I cleared all the unnecessary crap out of the room and put the 2 seater sofa we have and two other chairs in.
Then listened to the system on soundtracks to see.
Plenty of crash and boom from the tapped horns🙂
One consideration is that for hifi, I like the SH50s quite forward.
For Home Theatre they need to be farther back. Test sitting in various positions confirmed this.
Today I made a track that 2 patio door runner wheels can glide in.
This allows me to lift the SH50 slightly off the support foot and elegantly slide them between the 2 positions.
Much more to do for this project!
Steve,
Congrats for this project. A lot of learning (that I'm following with much interest) and you are surely having fun.
I wanted to ask you about the midbass, as your prior setup had a sizable midbass horn and the SH50-likes are much, much shorter (and smaller mouth?). You said you were happy with midbass. Could you please elaborate about what you are hearing in the SH50 vs round midbass horn? I have considered several times building a midbass horn (for about 60/70 to 250Hz) and length/size was an issue in my living room. The SH50 wouldn't be a problem but kind of goes against the basic primciples of length and mouth size that I learnt while exploring that idea.
BTW, in what passband are you running your midbasses?
Thank you!
Congrats for this project. A lot of learning (that I'm following with much interest) and you are surely having fun.
I wanted to ask you about the midbass, as your prior setup had a sizable midbass horn and the SH50-likes are much, much shorter (and smaller mouth?). You said you were happy with midbass. Could you please elaborate about what you are hearing in the SH50 vs round midbass horn? I have considered several times building a midbass horn (for about 60/70 to 250Hz) and length/size was an issue in my living room. The SH50 wouldn't be a problem but kind of goes against the basic primciples of length and mouth size that I learnt while exploring that idea.
BTW, in what passband are you running your midbasses?
Thank you!
Thanks for the interest.
I'll try to help.
1st some background.
My previous straight front loaded horns were;
15" Kappa15A drivers. 1m long 12 sided conicals. These gave pretty good bass from around 95Hz to 350Hz no problem.
Then I made a shorter more compact round exponential. First I tried the Kappa 15A, then JBL 2225s, then JBL 2220s.
Both 15".
This worked'ish and was more compact at around 75cm horn length. Same around 22cm deep driver chamber.
On reflection these were more like a big waveguide. There was compression, but the horn was too short to load properly.
Then came the longer 1.2m Exponential with a Kappa 12A drivers.
This worked better than the shorter 15" driver version. More punch and musicality higher up.
Then came the SH50s.
Same Kappa 12A driver, so direct comparison with the longer exponential horn possible.
My understanding of the SH50 etc, is that it works a little bit as a horn and mostly as a bass reflex.
The taps do the horn, the enclosure and ports for the reflex thing.
I followed Danley's sizing. It works.
I've measured almost down to 50Hz and as high as you like 🙂 well, I kill the higher frequencies off starting around 325Hz, where the MF drivers take over.
The LF will certainly play higher, but I've not tested the sound quality doing that.
I only use 1 X 12" driver at the moment. Quite adequate in my 7m X 3.5m room.
Another driver would add ~6dB in SPL. Thanks to previous contributor for looking into and calculating that.
I don't have any hi pass crossover as such. The bottom end rolls of quite nicely. I might use a PEQ -ve cut to assist it, can't remember.
The low pass is achieved again by PEQ -ve cuts. I start at 330Hz -5db or so and then pile them on to kill off at 400Hz, 500Hz 600Hz, etc etc right the way up.
I even have to have few very high up. 7500 or so. Big -ve cuts get rid of them, both measurement and audible wise.
This aims for the flatter coherent phase thing of X/O free driver integration. And it achieves it pretty well.
I'm lucky that my DSP (Najda) has 15 PEQ filters per channel. I use 11.
It also allows broader effect of them. Something I use once out of desired audible range.
The MF rolls in quite nicely (horn and acoustic - air under the driver / tap ratio).
Damn clever Mr Danley👍
What I've found is the resulting bass works well in normal to smaller sized rooms, better than straight Front Loaded horns I had before.
I read and found that sitting more than 14ft away from the FL horns gave more kick and punch.
I could just about achieve that - felt too fast away from the rest of the action..
Being mostly reflex the SH50s don't have this requirement.
I can listen to them at 1m and bass is all there. Actually all the music is🙂 try that 4 or 5 way horns work large differences between the driver centres - neat trick but I don't sit that close of course 😂
The result is a full and nicely balanced bass.
Outdoors or for large rooms you'd want that 2nd 12" driver..
The straight FL horns didn't really increase in punch with volume too much.
The SH50 just carry on. Distortion free, kicking more and more.
I've got a whole mid bass testing playlist specially🙂
Things like ACDC Thunderstruck or The Toad, Cream reunion at Albert Hall, Ginger Baker drum solo are just great..
You really feel it more than the rather polite FL horns.
I'm listening to Toad right now.
Belting out, quite loud enough for me, the driver is not moving much at all.
My chipboard damped with bitumen sound mat are pulsing, but not resonating. Perhaps that adds to the effect?
It's a good effect though.
What would 2 X 12" be like🤯
I cross the tapped horns a little higher than the 50Hz. Sounds more impressive that way.
I am a bass head. Played bass in band way back😄
The SH50s are really compact. Much real estate reclaimed!
Any other questions, just ask.
Forgot to say 60Hz FL horns would be huge.
I made a 1.7m tall upright pair of horns last summer.
They made 60Hz a few dB down on the main output peak.
That could not kick like the SH50s!
Depends what you want I guess.
Last edited:
Thank you for the elaborated answer!
Yeah, I have open baffles right now (plus 4 sealed subs below 80Hz) and while I can hear midbass thru the 18" drivers with high definition, I can't say I "feel it". I'm yearning that. Granted, my 18" aren't meant for OB use so maybe that's the issue. Anyway, I have long been considering horns but the midbass horn size was putting me off. The SH50-like might be the way. I run 4-ways and the midbass amps are 400W Hypex UcD400 so the efficiency gained through proper horn loading (length, mouth size) doesn't seem a big deal. I guess the right midbass drivers for this application would be the ones that behave best in midbass horns, like B&C 12PE32?
I also use SET for the tweeters (mine are 2W 45-type), so CDs are a good path. And KT88 tubes in class A/B for mids.
BTW, I use Acourate software to implement FIR filters for crossover, room correction, etc. It's great but has a learning curve. I load the filters into Roon/HQPlayer and works great. Saw you were exploring multichannel cards. I use Lynx Hilo, that can be configured to 6-channels. Moreover, I take the optical SPDIF out into a MiniDSP 4x10HD to drive the 4 subs so I'm running 8-channels through the Hilo. There are other 8-channel cards like Prism Titan, Merging Hapi, etc.
I mentioned about the card with the intent to give back something!
Thank you!
Yeah, I have open baffles right now (plus 4 sealed subs below 80Hz) and while I can hear midbass thru the 18" drivers with high definition, I can't say I "feel it". I'm yearning that. Granted, my 18" aren't meant for OB use so maybe that's the issue. Anyway, I have long been considering horns but the midbass horn size was putting me off. The SH50-like might be the way. I run 4-ways and the midbass amps are 400W Hypex UcD400 so the efficiency gained through proper horn loading (length, mouth size) doesn't seem a big deal. I guess the right midbass drivers for this application would be the ones that behave best in midbass horns, like B&C 12PE32?
I also use SET for the tweeters (mine are 2W 45-type), so CDs are a good path. And KT88 tubes in class A/B for mids.
BTW, I use Acourate software to implement FIR filters for crossover, room correction, etc. It's great but has a learning curve. I load the filters into Roon/HQPlayer and works great. Saw you were exploring multichannel cards. I use Lynx Hilo, that can be configured to 6-channels. Moreover, I take the optical SPDIF out into a MiniDSP 4x10HD to drive the 4 subs so I'm running 8-channels through the Hilo. There are other 8-channel cards like Prism Titan, Merging Hapi, etc.
I mentioned about the card with the intent to give back something!
Thank you!