Wooden mid horns

[Brett]

Originally Posted by SY

Never heard Drew Daniels's monster JBL system. Maybe that's the Holy Grail...

Not with 2382's or 2405's in it.

[jpbturbo]

Wooden mid horns can be quite rewarding to make yourself.

I went from a small metal exponential midhorn with a compression driver to wooden tractrix midhorn with a cone driver and the improvement in clarity and loss of tunnel sound was amazing.

[tinitus]

[Defo]

Originally Posted by tinitus

Nice plans!

[tinitus]

Its not difficult, and no special tools required
You only need good working space, and its a hell of dusty mess

oh, btw
If you are interested, and know how to handle glassfiber laminate, I have "plans" fore doing an easy mold fore elliptical horn, with complex rounded mouth shapes
Afterwards, if you like, It will also be fairly easy to do a 2-part professional mold
But I hate polyesther

[MJL21193]

Originally Posted by Defo

Nice plans!

I thought they were cuts off a cheese wheel...

[tinitus]

Mentioning cheese, you just made me remember

You can make this cheese cutting bow like thing
A big one ofcourse
If you put a battery on the string it will get hot
Then you can cut solid polystyrene blocks pretty accurately by following two carefully alligned shape pattern plates
The hard ones fore flooring will be tough enough without any further treatment
Its easy to glue solidly together with polyurethane glue
If you want it to be tougher, paint it, and it will take epoxy laminating
Or maybe ask for poly blocks in surfboards shops
But if reinforcing, I would do that part before assembling
If you want it to be heavier and more durable, put it in a plywood/MDF box
If you are good, you can make some real good looking horns quite easy, and cheap

[LineSource]

Originally Posted by SY

That's true (i.e., I could be a victim of self-deception). Though hearing differences in speakers is not exactly an extraordinary claim.

Never heard Drew Daniels's monster JBL system. Maybe that's the Holy Grail...

I have read that "Back in the day" Drew Daniels most popular JBL speaker used two 15" ported woofers, a 10" midrange (JBL 2125 or 2123 ? ) and a compression driver horn tweeter.

I've moved away from small diameter midrange speakers to 8" - 10" almost full range drivers for a wider BW midrange, and I like the dynamics and coherence from crossovers around 80Hz and 1,500Hz. RAAL type ribbons have been the only 96+ db/watt tweeter alternative that my ears like.

Maybe speaker technology has advanced to where a dynamic midange driver can now integrate into a horn sytem.

[Wayne Parham]

Originally Posted by Defo

Where can you get wooden horns like the ones below, or at least elliptical ones (not necessary wooden either) for compression drivers? 400hz or below cf. Only ones ive seen are Fostex H400 and the Pi speakers ones, but at ridiculous prices... Around 600 usd a pair is more realistic to me.

In reference to Pi Speakers, I think you must be talking about our wood tweeter horn, which is rather expensive at $700. Our midhorn is only a hundred bucks, not too expensive. It's pretty easy to make. The tweeter horn is more difficult because it is curved, really a work of art. All the cost is in machine time, with some assembly and finishing time afterwards too. My goal when I started making them was $400, but when we had done a few, we realized it cost nearly twice that to make them.

Here's a photo of one of our wood tweeters on top of one of our wood midranges. You can see what I mean:



Round horns are easy to make. They don't cost much at all because you can turn them on a lathe. But I've never been a fan of round horns. Elliptical and rectangular horns are more difficult, because they have to be cut on a multi-axis CNC machine. Best to go with a 5 axis machine, but you can do them on 3 axis machines with the right mounting procedures, but it takes several steps with repositioning between each one. It's trickier that way, and requires you to figure out a way to mount the part so that it remains indexed between flip operations. We do it with mounts that stay on the part until it is finished, when they are cut off like risers in a casting. Either way - 3 axis or 5 axis - you have to make hundreds of cutting passes and it takes a lot of machine time. Unless you own the machine, it costs $$$.

[kenpeter]

Originally Posted by Wayne Parham

Our midhorn is only a hundred bucks, not too expensive. It's pretty easy to make.

I found your $700 tweeter horn no problem (Parts & Options).
But no midhorn kit at that price. Where should I be looking?