Today i brought these big toys home.
I started the project to built the AudioVoice Eikon 4way hornspeakers in february. it was not a easy task. Many hours of work was necessary to build them, specially the midbass horns. I named them Eikon, what means " image ". That is the goal : to recreate and reproduce the most accurate image possible of the original event and recording.The next few days, when everything will be connected, and playing, i will know up to what point the effort was worth it.
some more pictures at my forum
Angelo
I started the project to built the AudioVoice Eikon 4way hornspeakers in february. it was not a easy task. Many hours of work was necessary to build them, specially the midbass horns. I named them Eikon, what means " image ". That is the goal : to recreate and reproduce the most accurate image possible of the original event and recording.The next few days, when everything will be connected, and playing, i will know up to what point the effort was worth it.
some more pictures at my forum
Angelo
Wow, that's crazy! How do you begin to plan something like that? What sort of math is involved? Are those exponential horns?
For the basshorn, i have choosen a expansion between expo, and tractrix.
the midbass horn has tractrix flare, however the curve at the mouth does not terminate with 180 degree, ( like regular tractrix horns ), but goes beyond, to give a shape similar to LeCleac'h horn profile.
The midrange horn has LeCleac'h profile, 60cm external diameter, the size is similar to Azura 340 horn.
the tweeter uses a proprietary wave guide.
the math, there is a lot of info at my forum, at horn basics section.
Angelo
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http://www.audiovoice-acoustics.com/forum/
Those look amazing! Looks like the efficiency will be very high, you have plans to use low power valve amps with this? The drivers look to have high power ratings too though, with some big solid state amps this could blow you out of a room 
. Sure it'll sound great and it certainly looks impressive.
. Sure it'll sound great and it certainly looks impressive.
hello
i drive the basshorns and subwoofer active.
For the satellite, i use a Viva Solista SET amp with 22W per channel.
i will use :
suwoofer : Aura 1808 in a vented cab > 50hz
bass : JBL 2206H 50hz -150hz
midbass : Fane Studio 8M 150hz - 700hz
midrange : Vitavox S2 700hz - 10khz
tweeter : Coral H104 < 10khz
sub and bass is crossed 24db, the rest first order, 6db.
i drive the basshorns and subwoofer active.
For the satellite, i use a Viva Solista SET amp with 22W per channel.
i will use :
suwoofer : Aura 1808 in a vented cab > 50hz
bass : JBL 2206H 50hz -150hz
midbass : Fane Studio 8M 150hz - 700hz
midrange : Vitavox S2 700hz - 10khz
tweeter : Coral H104 < 10khz
sub and bass is crossed 24db, the rest first order, 6db.
Gorgeous speakers
Interesting is, how you decided to choose a design, which is in contrast to a bunch of paradigms, which are preached here often, like constant directivity, small driver spacing and higher order crossovers. Thats probably the cause of the critics voices as well. Well, i really would like to know how it sounds.
Have fun!
Interesting is, how you decided to choose a design, which is in contrast to a bunch of paradigms, which are preached here often, like constant directivity, small driver spacing and higher order crossovers. Thats probably the cause of the critics voices as well. Well, i really would like to know how it sounds.
Have fun!
David Gatti said:I hope they sound good cause they have to be the ugliest speakers I've ever seen!
That's not very constructive. What is beauty in a piece of hardware? The form of modern day loudspeakers is mostly derived from function. Of course things have been added and stylized - look at the car audio scene. Or rather don't look at it, lest your rods and cones be forever scarred by glowing neon tubes and chrome cones with a raised flame pattern.Anyway, all I'm saying is maybe they look strange because they aren't what you've come to think of speakers to be, but they certainly are impressive, and I wouldn't say they are ugly at all.
This will never work properly with 6db/oct crossovers. Forget about passive too, a DSP (or an active filter with several dozen op-amps) is required.
Consider that horns are already 4th order bandpass devices. They have inherent 12dB/oct lowpass and 12dB/oct higpass responses, and the LP characteristic usually has very high Q resulting in a large peak in gruup delay near the lower cutoff point. This peak has to be compensated with parametric EQ, otherwise it won't sum in any way with the neighbour horn. There are usually more peaks and dips in group delay that need compensation for proper summing.
The minimum practical acoustical crossover target for horns is something like Linkwitz-Riley 24dB/oct. I use to overlap a textbook LR24 crossover to the natural 12dB/oct responses, equalized and phase shifted to get a consistent LR36. This seems to produce good results without too much work.
This is unless you have designed the horns with matched inherent LP and HP cutoff characteristics, which seems almost impossible.
Consider that horns are already 4th order bandpass devices. They have inherent 12dB/oct lowpass and 12dB/oct higpass responses, and the LP characteristic usually has very high Q resulting in a large peak in gruup delay near the lower cutoff point. This peak has to be compensated with parametric EQ, otherwise it won't sum in any way with the neighbour horn. There are usually more peaks and dips in group delay that need compensation for proper summing.
The minimum practical acoustical crossover target for horns is something like Linkwitz-Riley 24dB/oct. I use to overlap a textbook LR24 crossover to the natural 12dB/oct responses, equalized and phase shifted to get a consistent LR36. This seems to produce good results without too much work.
This is unless you have designed the horns with matched inherent LP and HP cutoff characteristics, which seems almost impossible.
hi all
yesterday i connected everything.
i am high-passing the tweeter with 1,3mF ,
the S2 ( i am using new diaphragms with plastic suspension ) high-pass with 5,9mF , and the Fane Studio 8M low-pass with a 1,3mH coil, at around 700hz. I do not high-pass it.
I enjoyed the first listening session a lot. Big sound. The room is rather small for this kind of speakers. i will play with damping the room, to see how it will be, if improovement will be possible. I think i hit the nail with positioning the satellites and the basshorn. I will not change anything. It is perfect the way it is . The bass sounds articulate, clean and tight, and integration with the midbass horn is flawless. I have never heard a better, more accurate mid-bass reproduction so far. Absolutely natural, effortless, distortionfree, it creates a sound stage, which is phenomenal. It's a level far above any other hornsystem i had before. The dynamics and speed are breathtaking. The S2's with LeCleac'h horn sound crisp, neutral , no horn honk at all, and it combines flawlessly with the Coral tweeters. These speakers recreate the recorded event i an way, that it seems the musicians are right in front of you. Not too big, not too small. I played some Chesky CD's, Sheffield lab instrumental recordings, and B & C Audiophile Test CD Vol.1 & 2. The next couple of days, listening will continue, and i will start to try some tweaks. Certainly there is still a lot of room for fine tuning, but that will take time. I guess i found my Audio Nirvana, no further search needed. I will have a lot of fun ahead......
James :
might you want to share what drivers you use, what kind of material of the horns, crossover points etc....
MaVo
there are many ways to obtain good results . After i made the BL horn with 8" coax Radian driver, i know how good this solution is, actually, for its size, sound is amazing.
Eva
i don't agree with you. I think the shorter the signal path, the better it is. If you go for electronic crossover, you add a lot of parts in the signal path, and you loose resolution and transparency.
Angelo
Angelo,
I'm impressed that you have only connected everything yesterday and you consider today your first 'listening session'! I've had mine more or less completed for months now and have only just started to understand how to start to use them. Each component has such a character that every small change in crossover seems to take a few weeks to comprehend. I'm starting to get a handle on it all now though..
At the moment I'm using a Lowther A55 in the 115hz midbass horn. crossed at 250hz 6db hp and at 1000hz to the 250hz lecleach mid horn with a JBL 2485 with Radian alu diaphragms. this crosses 6db to a Raal double 140 at 7500hz
all have drivers dedicated SET amps, dacs and attenuators
a few pics of the 115hz construction here..
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/jbjbjbjbjb/115hzHorns
by the way - isn't there a huge great Macondo-sized elephant in the room here?!
I'm impressed that you have only connected everything yesterday and you consider today your first 'listening session'! I've had mine more or less completed for months now and have only just started to understand how to start to use them. Each component has such a character that every small change in crossover seems to take a few weeks to comprehend. I'm starting to get a handle on it all now though..
At the moment I'm using a Lowther A55 in the 115hz midbass horn. crossed at 250hz 6db hp and at 1000hz to the 250hz lecleach mid horn with a JBL 2485 with Radian alu diaphragms. this crosses 6db to a Raal double 140 at 7500hz
all have drivers dedicated SET amps, dacs and attenuators
a few pics of the 115hz construction here..
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/jbjbjbjbjb/115hzHorns
by the way - isn't there a huge great Macondo-sized elephant in the room here?!
If you think that way, you will never experience the real performance that these horns and drivers can produce.
The acoustical output from the various horns is not in phase by default, it requires some signal conditioning to match phase and group delay in the crossover regions.
If you build a car without engine to make it lighter, you get a car that does not run.
If you make a horn system without a proper crossover to make signal path shorter, you get a system that does not sum.
The whole signal path argument is a big nonsense, it has to be as long as required.
Meanwhile, enjoy (or suffer) the lobing, the cancellations, the poor imaging and a performance highly dependent on room-acoustics and listening position.
I know because I have been experimenting with all-horn systems like yours (but much uglier) for the last 7 years. I started with simple passive filters too...
BTW: It's amazing how irrelevant the room (or the lack of it) becomes when you get horn crossover right. Even the listening position becomes quite irrelevant, you get "uniform" sound.
The acoustical output from the various horns is not in phase by default, it requires some signal conditioning to match phase and group delay in the crossover regions.
If you build a car without engine to make it lighter, you get a car that does not run.
If you make a horn system without a proper crossover to make signal path shorter, you get a system that does not sum.
The whole signal path argument is a big nonsense, it has to be as long as required.
Meanwhile, enjoy (or suffer) the lobing, the cancellations, the poor imaging and a performance highly dependent on room-acoustics and listening position.
I know because I have been experimenting with all-horn systems like yours (but much uglier) for the last 7 years. I started with simple passive filters too...
BTW: It's amazing how irrelevant the room (or the lack of it) becomes when you get horn crossover right. Even the listening position becomes quite irrelevant, you get "uniform" sound.
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