mounting a cone-speaker backward in a frontloaded horn

[lieven]

Is there anyone who tried this and measured the results? I came on this maybe silly proposal by searching the behavior of different kind of phase-plugs for cone speakers in frontloaded horns. In my view, the speaker cone has a more favorable shape on the back (more convex) as it has on the front (concave) towards the horn. The magnet structure, can more or less play the role of the phase plug, perhaps by altering its shape a bit (adding an olive kind of structure on it). Its a sturdy construction you get for free when you buy a speaker, why not make use of it? Even the energy of the central vent in certain types may be used to alter/change beaming? I'm talking here about 6 to 15 inch cone type speakers used as a kind of ring-radiator like they do in high-freq tweeters. Anyone in Paris or in Australia?

[speakerfritz]

In DIY audio, if you try enough variations, anything will eventually work.

So if I were to put this concept into motion, a quick and easy way would be to find a horn, whose throat is larger than the dia of the driver, like the DIY mid horn of the patrician VI.

But, there would be a heck of a lot of distortion as a result of not havin a rubber throat.

For cone based drivers used in horn senerios, they are ually mounted to a board, with have a slot. A 15" driver could have a 3X12 or 6X9 slot. This slot reduces distorion while at the same time acting as a low pass filter basically squashing frequencies above the range the horn is intended to reproduce.

[LineArray]

Hello Lieven,

as i understand your post, you would like to improve
the front radiadion and get a better polar dispersion by
turning the driver "inside out".

I sometimes did so ... with some BR boxes.

Most Drivers will show a drop in frequency response
on the rear (basket) side - relative to the front side-
which often starts at 1-2Khz.

That drop is often rather irregular and comes with
some peaks and dips also depending on the basket
shape ...

Problem with upper midrange and highs is, that those
frequencies with most drivers are preferably radiated
from the center of the cone, as the cone does not
move pistonic at higher frequencies.

That region is hidden by spider/magnet/basket,
so you might be disapointed from upper midrange and
highs, with most drivers if you turn them "inside out".

Nevertheless i understand the "shape" issue you mention.
In the "more pistonic" (lower frequency) range of the
driver i can see no problem in turning the driver inside
out.

With a given horn design the volume enclosed directly
behind the driver (e.g. pressure chamber) might change.

So maybe throat has to be a somewhat redesigned for
some horns.


Kind Regards