Horn loaded dome midrange

[Defo]

Do anyone have experience with horn loading dome midranges? In this case Dayton RS52AN in a Le Cleach horn pictured below.

[jzagaja]

Avantgarde Duo to my knowledge has big midrange dome.

[Defo]

Originally Posted by jzagaja

Avantgarde Duo to my knowledge has big midrange dome.

Seems like a cone driver

[Defo]

Found this driver. Very good efficiency and even better if it could work in a horn with good results.

The reason im considering a dome midrange for my mid horn is because all 2" compression drivers are either titanium or alu diapraghm which sound harsh to my ears.

[picowallspeaker]

Put a little cotton into your ears

[augerpro]

I'm experimenting with that exact driver right now in a waveguide. I started a thread here: TangBand 75-1558SE on a Waveguide with Measurements - Techtalk at Parts-Express.com

Haven't finished experimenting. I found one alignment that had potential and a bunch that sucked. I was pretty surprised at the variable results for such seemingly small changes.

[augerpro]

Just realized you are talking about mating it too a real (big) horn. My thread may not help much with that. Domes don't match a standard horn unless it was designed for it in the first place.

[Defo]

Originally Posted by augerpro

Just realized you are talking about mating it too a real (big) horn. My thread may not help much with that. Domes don't match a standard horn unless it was designed for it in the first place.

The pictured horn is a 1" throat, so with a 3" dome it will be much shorter, still skeptical though since after shortening it there is no way back...


Found this written by Bruce Edgar, interessting reading:

"Horn loading of domes is a reocurring subject on AA. I've experimented with them off and on for the last 20 years. Here are a number of conclusions from that research.

The frequency range is highly dependent on the driver. Even though these domes are designed as tweeters, they are meant to be mass loaded drivers. The diapragm/voice coil mass will limit the top end. In my first experiments, described in the Speaker Builder article "The Edgar Midrange Horn", the dome's response (90dB sens.) shifted from being a tweeter response (2-20 kHZ) to a typical midrange response(500 Hz-5 kHz at 100 dB sens.). This phenomenon demonstrates Small's Law about the efficiency-bandwidth product being a constant. When you horn load a driver, the bandwidwidth goes down and the efficiency goes up.

The top end response of the dome/horn can be extended if there is some suspension control of the diaphragm. Suspension control will force the driver diaphragm breakup modes to remain in circular modes over an extended range which will excite a horn. For example the T-35 diaphragm is a phenolic dome with a voice coil cemented to it. The suspension is very rigid. The mass rolloff frequency is around 3 kHz, yet the horn response is above 10kHz. The top end response is all breakup modes. This trick is used in many cheap horn tweeters to extend the top end.

Unfortunately, you can't identify which drivers have the suspension stiffness from any of the published data. It can only be found from testing. I used to have a closet full of oddball tweeters that I experimented with over the years, trying to find the ideal candidate. The best one, already mentioned in a post below, was the Dynaudio D-54 dome. Unfortunately, it is not available any more. But it was the best sounding dome driver on a horn that I ever found.

The downside of dome/horn combos is that the domes were very suseptible to burnout after a period of use. Dome tweeters are designed for operation above 2 kHz and not down to 500 Hz. I was using domes in my early Slimline midranges, but I had to switch over to cone mids for better reliability. Again, the best cone horn drivers for horns had some degree of suspension control. But all the cone drivers would usually crap out at 3 kHz. The old JBL LE-5 alnico driver with a concave dustcover was the only driver that could go up to 5 kHz reliably. In the present Slimline, I use the JBL 104H which only goes up to 3 kHz.

As for advice about the present selection of dome/cone drivers, I have none because I haven't tried any lately, except for one driver- the Fostex FE 126. I tried it out on my rectangular 300 Hz tractrix horn and was disappointed that it only went up to 2.5 kHz. I doubt if any of the conical horns suggested will improve the top end response from what my experiments have suggested. But again keep on doing experiments, you never know what serendipidous combination of horn and driver will work.

Bruce "

[picowallspeaker]

If you have some paper cones available around , ie membranes , they should work for your purpose.
Sorry I didn't look at your first picture , which is too narrow in the throat ,and too long , for a dome .

[tinitus]

Maybe this is a fine horn driver
FaitalPRO - Neodymium Professional Drivers