Beyond the Ariel

[GregOH1]

The Horn
I took to heart all suggestion related to fit and finish. My neighbor is retired and is a first class wood man. He and I spent 3 hours today on the horns making sure the horn profile and finish is near perfect. The 745 drivers have arrived and Radian puts a nice approx 4" rubbery type gasket on the face. The barrel is dead flat and 6in. Diameter and we should have no problem with alignment. The 4 bolts will be tapped into the barrel with access to the nuts from an enlarged hole in the barrel side . Details of Mounting in a photo format soon. Making the 15 lb beast adjustable for time alignment is still in the ahh maybe tripod effect or brass ring on a sliding dovetail on the back brace. Happy to hear your measurements on the 745.

[Lynn Olson]

Originally posted by GregOH1

Happy to hear your measurements on the 745.

They're not mine, I just looked very carefully at the Radian measurements on their website. They take a bit of interpreting because they are 1/3 octave smoothed and printed in a vertically compressed format, with 10 dB/div. To read them, you need to actually count out the peak/dips in dB's and see where they are.

The 850PB, for example, drops a substantial 10 dB in the 10~20 kHz region, while the deviation for the 745PB is half that. The 2" drivers also have more ripples in the 2~5 Khz region than the 1.4" drivers, despite the fact that the 1.4" drivers appear to be mounted on a horn with a 1.4" -> 2" adapter. Maybe the adapter is actually improving the unmentioned test horn!

Can't quite figure out the differences between the two lower models of Radian 1.4" drivers, though. Same diaphragm mass, same number of flux-lines in the gap, yet fairly different FR curves. The voice-coil mass and winding might be different, though, as it is with the two 1" Neodymium BMS drivers.

Let us know how you like the 18Sound and Radian drivers - we're all curious how it comes out.

[BudP]

GregOH1,

Have a look at Romy's solution to a horn mounting tower here.

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/...px?PostID=3339

Bud

[ScottG]

This is interesting on the "sound easy" front..

http://www.musicanddesign.com/Cepstral.html

Might be a little tricky to avoid removing diffraction effects while still removing the room..

..still, I might just loosen the "purse strings" for version 14 when available.

edit: BIG thanks to Zaph for this heads up (via his blog).

[Russell Dawkins]

Originally posted by ScottG

I could be wrong.. but the drivers look like the 285 2000 and 400 2000 from Supravox:

Hmm, on second thought - that upper driver looks quite a bit smaller, perhaps its the 165 GMF? [/B]

I'd guess the 215-2000!

[ScottG]

Originally posted by Russell Dawkins


I'd guess the 215-2000!

Could be!

[JoshK]

Originally posted by BudP
GregOH1,

Have a look at Romy's solution to a horn mounting tower here.

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/...px?PostID=3339

Bud

Talk about massive reflection off the midbass horn from the one above and behind it. One step forwards, two steps back.

[JoshK]

Originally posted by Lynn Olson

The whole point of subjective fine-tuning isn't to make the speaker sound great on Patricia Barber or Jazz at the Pawnshop (although that's what many audiophile mfg's do), but to get the speaker subjectively flat.

I hear you loud and clear. PB & JATPS would be about the absolute last recordings I would use to test any system. That is what I call short fat bald middle-aged audiophile's little girl with a guitar music (sorry if I hit any nerves).

I like highly dynamic music, busy music, complex if you will...from Dream Theater/Tool to Tchaikovsky/Stravinsky. Jazz is lower than Rap on my preference scale. Anyway...not that Jazz sucks, I can appreciate it somewhat but I have a strong belief that audiophiles tend to like music that makes their system sound good rather than make their system sound good for the music they like. That is my audiophile pet peeve.

It is much easier to make your system/room sound good with small scale music as the acoustical space is closer to an audiophile's typical room. Not many of us have rooms the size of orchestral halls.

[jeff mai]

You want smooth - here it is:

http://www.azurahorn.com/Yamaha_on_204.pdf

After acquiring a pair of the same Yamaha drivers, I emailed Martin at Azurahorn and he sent me the above measurements. I believe they are un-smoothed 1/24 octave measurements. After seeing this I couldn't resist buying the horns.

I've taken my own measurements and they correspond quite well, although the combo has less LF response and more HF response in the far field than Martin's measurements show, which are taken at the mouth. I use a Hiraga style notch filter to flatten things out to around 10kHz.

JM Le Cleac'h is on to something good with this horn profile. And I highly recommend trialling his 3rd order, phase corrected crossover methodology. The improvement in image focus and detail over the standard 4th order L-R arrangement I was using is impressive.

Now if I could figure out a way to get the top octave without messing up the rest...

[Sheldon]

Originally posted by JoshK


PB & JATPS would be about the absolute last recordings I would use to test any system. That is what I call short fat bald middle-aged audiophile's little girl with a guitar music (sorry if I hit any nerves).

No offense taken, cause to each their own. But, Patricia Barber - "a little girl with guitar music"?

Sheldon