MaxxHorn Immersion Horn Loudspeaker

[Jaime]

What is your opinión about the MaxxHorn Immersion Horn Loudspeaker?
http://www.maxxhorn.com/products/immersion/immersion-loudspeaker.html

Best regards Jaime

 

[Colin]

I'll bite. Looks interesting but from the picture and description, I think it's more a quarter wave pipe than a horn (whatever the designer says).

 

[Scottmoose]

Agreed. Cutting through the advertising waffle, it's an end-loaded QWR like a BIB with tractrix, rather than linear expansion. Possibly 1/2 wave tuned, but I wouldn't bet on it. Not a bad idea to be honest, but hardly something to cause dancing in the streets either. You could DIY it easily enough: just draw out a 1/8 space tractrix horn for whatever co-ax driver takes your fancy, and mount it at roughly 0.2 - 0.4 line length depending on 1/2 wave or 1/4 wave tuning.

Alternatively, just build a BIB with the same driver. Linear expansion isn't necessarily a bad thing, and tractrix isn't automatically the greatest either if it comes to that -it has it's own issues, good though it is in many ways. What concerns me a bit is the 'hybrid tractrix' moniker. Either it is, or it isn't. I just hope they haven't done a tractrix horn, then chopped the end off. Might do passibly for exponential et al, but the tractrix flare is calculated from the mouth, not the throat / end, and trying that sort of thing will monumentally screw it up.

 

[Colin]

I also loved the bit about designing it using a complex computer program. I wonder if the program had anything to do with MJK's work.

The commercial UK designs from Impulse in the 80s/90s did something similar. Looking at the published bross section, it looked like a QWT with the top third altered to take it a little way from linear expansion. Described as a horn, the reviews said sounded best away from corners, which is usually a giveaway.

Right, I'm off. I've got this brilliant idea for an axle-mounted disk, designed with the aid of computer programs, which will revolutionise transport. I just need to come up with a good marketing name for it ...

 

[Scottmoose]

Now whatever do you mean Colin?

Yup, you're right about the Impulse speakers (effective though they were).

Wouldn't surprise me at all if MathCad was lurking in the background. Although the sheets don't yet support the tractrix flare, there's plenty of spreadsheets / java apps. around that'll give you the correct length / cross sections, which you can then plug into one of the sections sheets. The only other alternatives I can think of would be AJHorn, or LspCAD, unless someone's been swiping Ron Clarke's software from off his HDD. Surely to God they wouldn't have the brass face to use the freeware Hornresp for such an expensive speaker (using ~$300 of drivers if memory serves). Would they?

 

[synergy]

Alternatively, just build a BIB with the same driver. Linear expansion isn't necessarily a bad thing, and tractrix isn't automatically the greatest either if it comes to that -it has it's own issues, good though it is in many ways. What concerns me a bit is the 'hybrid tractrix' moniker. Either it is, or it isn't. I just hope they haven't done a tractrix horn, then chopped the end off. Might do passibly for exponential et al, but the tractrix flare is calculated from the mouth, not the throat / end, and trying that sort of thing will monumentally screw it up.

i thought it had long been decided that Tractrix was fantastic for mid range duties but for bass work an exponential-hyperbolic with a salmon factor of 0.6 was the best?

 

[planet10]

In the end this is just a CQWP (Complex Quarter Wave Pipe) ... they are to be lauded for exploring parts of quarter wave space that have been left untouched... but the hype (and the price) leaves one a bit staggered. This is very likely the result of sitting and playing with the sections worksheet. By changing the curve you could achieve many different flares... the metronome would fall into the same sort of class -- its design is more elegant -- and as we have found -- benefits from mass-loading. This design may well too.

The 1st thing i thot of when i saw this was the diagram Scott recently posted where he is trying to turn a BIB into a true conical flare (actually just now thinking about the picture of conehead on the Metronome page -- he is trying to fold a metronome that is open at the bottom and goes to a point at the top... a quadratic BIB)

BTW in the early 80s i made up some foreshortened tractrix bass horns for 2x15" each box (think XXL super acousta -- meant to be used 2 (effective mouth size 4' x 6' + floor loading) or 4 up) that, at the time, i thot quite good. One of these days i'll have to re-examine that.

dave

 

[Scottmoose]

Probably be worth looking at again at some point. Tractrix does have some advantages worth exploring. My friend Steve Shiels has his EX4s in a 3.6m tractrix BLH at the moment, and very impressive they are too, especially corner loaded. It's the ludicrous price and the waffle that bug me about the Maxxhorns -the idea's sound enough, and the finish is good.

 

[Colin]

I think the cost is probably a reflection of the admission price to the high end audio club. Speakers under ten grand don't qualify.

 

[Scottmoose]

Ah well. Let the lunatic bridgade spend that for a speaker using a couple of drivers you can buy for ~$300 if that's what makes them happy.

 

[Jaime]

I believe the loudspeakers cost are not an indicative about the quality of an acoustical box.

The AER MD2B is $ 1.500 and the excellent Fostex FE206ES-R is only $ 202.
But the ORIS fans think the AER is a good option and isn’t expensive.
They don’t use FE206ES-R in his ORIS.
This is absurd?

Best regards
Jaime

http://www.aer-loudspeakers.com/eng/md2-e.htm
http://www.madisound.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?cart_id=9428070.4555&pid=2074

 

[Scottmoose]

No, you're quite right. I was just registering my despair at the prices the high-end brigade get away with charging, considering the actual value of the components. Still, it's only worth what people are willing to pay.