Three way horn system

[pelanj]

Hello all. After some time of lurking, this is my first post. Recently I have heard my friends horn system. As mid-bass he uses w-bin folded horns with one 12" Isophon driver, roughly 100x100x80 cm in size, then something like "smith" radial horn with a Coral 1" driver and Coral tweeters at the top, all with active crossovers. Except for PA, my first experience with horns.

What I noticed, the bass guitar, snare, kick, voices - all almost like alive during a rehearsal (I am musician too). I could even feel the bass, although it could not be very low. The music was playing loud, but it did not feel lound until i tried to speak. Awesome. I have a few questions.

What would be the bass-mid crossover frequency for such a system?
I hope I could use compression drivers and horns from around 1kHz, but I am afraid bass horns just won't fit into my room. What bass system would you recommend? I do not need very low frequencies, I would like to have this tight sounding bass. As far as drivers concerns, I am more or less limited to Monacor, Eminence, B&C, Selenium, Beyma or RCF.

[Brett]

Such a system designed from scratch would involve a lot of development time. My horns took some years of designing and measuring to get close to what I wanted. For instance I would not use a Smith horn. To me they sound awful.

[Eva]

It's really worth the effort.

Look for plans of midrange and folded bass horns, there are quite a few published on the web. Crossover points may be placed around 1500Hz and 250hz (depending on horn and driver choice).

The hardest part is the crossover, it requires both delay correction and phase-shift/grounp-delay compensation for proper summing. Sound may become quite unpleasant if the crossover is not right, this is a common problem among horn systems and horns/drivers are erroneously blamed for that. You won't be able to get it right with anything less powerful than a DCX2496 (or enough discrete analog filters to make you crazy).

[CLS]

3way Horn

This is a short thread that I posted some time ago with an almost identical topic.

Enjoy

[pelanj]

Thanks for the reaction.
I think it would be not that difficult for me. I have a friend, who can measure loudspeakers and design crossovers (he makes his living from that). Unfortunately, I cannot use bass(or mid-bass) horns, so I only have to get a big enough horn from 1 kHz up. I am not sure if it was Smith horn, but it was some kind of radial horn with fins inside. I liked both the way they look and sound. I already have a pair of coaxial speakers with compression drivers in a MLTL - but I moved to another place and these are just too big, heavy and ugly.

More or less, I am searching for that dry high efficient bass kick down to say 50-60 Hz but without horns. Corner loaded horns are not an option for me, as one of the corners is too close to an opening to the other room.

At one time, I was thnkink about the rear loaded horns - could they do the kick provided they are designed properly (not too short, not too small with too low cutoff). Or I have a sort of clone of EVM12L by BC - maybe that one could do it in a relatively small front loaded horn with a sub below - but that is another box to have and I am a little space limited.

[Eva]

The kind of bass and midbass that you experienced has a lot to do with directivity at low frequencies and also with high hefficiency. You will never feel that with direct radiators, at least not indoors, except with massive dipoles.

When direct radiators are used indoors, reflected sound always ruins transients and dynamics.

[pelanj]

For the crossover and compensation, I will be most probably using PureData software on a Linux machine with a 6 output pro sound card.

I am afraid I am forced to some kind of compromise. I somehow like compression driver sound and I would not like to loose the "kick". That leads to either a 100 Hz midbass horn with some kind of sub or I could try equalized dipoles. As I say, I prefer quality to low extension.
I was aready considering masking the bass horns as a TV table, then maybe they coul be large enough. How about the conical Pi horns? Ever tried one? Should be easy to build.


CLS: Your speakers are really nice, but they would not fit into my living room Only one box of the two larger horns would be allowed with the HF unit. Then I guess I am in trouble

[MaVo]

You could design the basshorns to be used up to around 150hz which would make the midbass horns smaller.

This is said to have lots of slam: http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/tappe...MODEL=TH%20115

If you are thinking of the PI, consider using the original design, the Lab Sub, instead of the copycat. Then again, with tapped horns (like in the link above) you could have a similar performance in a smaller package.

[RJ]

Here's a site that'll clone that Danley Bass Bin;
http://www.billfitzmaurice.com/T39.html

[aubergine]

Sorry RJ,

The Danley bin is a tapped horn, with the driver in the mouth, when I tell people to imagine one I describe a rear loaded horn (scoop) with the front baffle bent and lowered so it is in the mouth, and the driver inverted.

BFM's designs are no good for home use IMO, and they aren't exactly the stuff for big pro use anyway, they have a market though.