Smallish rear back horn design?

[suposs]

Hi all.

I'm new to this forum, and new to speakers building as well, so please bear with me

I've been wanting to get into speaker building for quite a while, and when I recently heard a pair of fullrange back loaded horns at a friends, I decided that this is the way to go.

My problem is that I am somewhat limited with regard to space, so the speakers will have to be at most 34cm x 28cm x 75cm (WxDxH) (that would be 13"2/5 x 11" x 29"1/2 for the metrically challenged ).

All the designs I've seen online are much bigger than this, suggesting to me that it may simply be impossible to achieve reasonable results with BLHs this small.

So my question is: Is it possible to build BLHs this small, or should I just give up and go for a more conventional speaker type? And if it is possible, are there any designs out there, or will I have to make my own?

As for drivers, I may be able to get my hands on a pair of Coral Flat 6'es, which I believe are pretty decent.

[jemraid]

Hello Suposs,

There's a Coral thread here;
Coral Flat 6 question.

Interesting page here;
http://www.frugal-horn.com/FH-history.html

Enough to get you started :-)

Jem

[suposs]

I have looked quite a bit at the Frugal Horn site before posting, which was exactly what led me to believe that smallish horns are impossible, as none of their designs (well, almost none), fit my size requirements.

Any links to introductory rear loaded horn theory will also be greatly appreciated.

Best regards
Suposs

[Andrewbee]

D-10 (Buckie)

[brsanko]

It is definitely possible to build a small cabinet for horns you just sacrifice low frequency extention. You may not realize it from the gargantuan beasts people are showing on the forums but it is quite possible to make a small tapped horn subwoofer to give you that lower bass you lose with the smaller main speaker. If you maximize the spl from the horn and add a front horn to bring the higher frequencies up to match you can make a nice reasonable sized speaker with unbelievable dynamics, which is what horns are all about. I could definitely design something to fit within your criteria if I had the specs of the drivers. I don't know what drivers are available in your country but the 6.5" Tangband subwoofer makes an excellent tapped horn in a very reasonable sized cabinet. Of course the bigger you go the deeper it goes but a 30hz horn could be well under 2 cubic feet (56 liters).

[suposs]

Sounds very interesting, I'll definitely have to read up on tapped horns. Looks like it is a pretty new (or at least unexplored) technology.

The main problem with the D-10 (Buckie), linked to above, and a lot of the other compact horn designs, is that they are all quite narrow and deep, whereas I need the opposite. I definitely understand why you would want to make them that way, but it just won't fit my requirements. I guess I'll have to read up on som theory, and start sketching, to see what's possible to fit into my needs.

[hm]

Hello,
you can get smaller, but different design, 35 Hz

"so the speakers will have to be at most 34cm x 28cm x 75cm (WxDxH)"
your size 71 L, my size ~60 L

[brsanko]

The tapped horn is just for subwoofers but I could design a nice small compound horn to go with it for a nice complete package within your specs.

[atilsley]

Suposs

If you could squeeze another 10cm into your width, you could try something like the Lowther Acousta...?

http://www.lowtherloudspeakers.com/d...acousta116.pdf

If the width was a problem, you could mod the cabinet slightly. A Fostex 206E would work nicely in this cab if you needed to keep costs down.

Andrew.

[HareBrained]

How about something like the Cornu Spiral Horn?

In the wide/shallow vane, the Mileva ML-Voight pipe (bottom of P10 page) would be a good starting point. You could use a different driver that would result in something smaller.