Digital "horn honk" correction?

[ErnieM]

http://www.mackie.com/products/hdser..._EXPLAINED.pdf
Mackie - HD1531

EAW has had this technology for a few years. There are probably others using similar methods. It's now trickling into lower price brackets. Around $1,000.

I wonder how long it will take for a Behringer dsp unit with these capabilities to hit the market. I don't know how effective it is, haven't heard them yet.

[Patrick Bateman]

Originally Posted by ErnieM

http://www.mackie.com/products/hdser..._EXPLAINED.pdf
Mackie - HD1531

EAW has had this technology for a few years. There are probably others using similar methods. It's now trickling into lower price brackets. Around $1,000.

I wonder how long it will take for a Behringer dsp unit with these capabilities to hit the market. I don't know how effective it is, haven't heard them yet.

It wouldn't be possible I'm afraid.

Higher order modes depend on a lot of variables:

• What is driving the horn or waveguide (ie, the compression driver.)
• The shape of the waveguide or the horn
• The termination to the baffle
• To some extent, the top and side walls of the enclosure will affect HOMs. (Much less than the throat.) This is because the sound radiated by the diaphragms "sees" the enclosure as it exits the mouth. You can model this in hornresp, it's a lot easier to understand once you see the animations.
• HOMs are probably level dependent too, since frequency response isn't linear. (low power compression will improve this.)

To make a long story short, technologies like this look promising, but a "one-size-fits-all" approach is not practical.

They acknowledge this in the paper: "These revolutionary patented acoustic correction algorithms, cannot be applied “as is” to just any loudspeaker, let alone be something that even the most astute of users can set up themselves. The anomalies and resonance problems it cures are very specific to each loudspeaker design. Thus, the internal physical details must be known, the anomalies must be carefully analyzed and appropriate processing must be custom designed by EAW Engineers along with the rest of the loudspeaker system."

In the meantime I guess we'll have to stick to fixing these things physicall instead of electronically.

[Pano]

I, too, doubt it works as well as they claim, but if it is tailored to the exact horn and driver it might be pretty good.

I'll have to find a pair and have a listen.

[ErnieM]

Ah well, I'm pretty happy with what I have now. I'll have to give these a good try. Guitar Center has a 30 day money back guarantee. Might have to put that to good use.

[norman bates]

the digital eq only works at a set volume, louder or quieter then all bets are off. My buddy's buddy did this years back with his computer.

just get a better horn such as the mcm 6" round, an ev hr90 or hr9040, the peay conical (but that needs a 1.6" throat), or even the 18sound xt1464 horn.

norman

[badman]

Seems to me that this would require reflections to be largely predictable, which I don't think they are. Think about the multidirectional scattering of diffraction from hard edges. Each of those reflections behaves differently, and each has a different amount of energy. To expand, it would seem there's infinitely many reflections and amplitudes.

Managing this can only be done in the acoustic domain. It's too dynamic an effect to correct for with DSP, though one could predict and damp the largest, most predictable reflections, perhaps. Also, as with any feedback mechanism, any stored energy will cause a lot of issues. How do you manage these reflections, an out-of-phase signal timed to match? Good luck avoiding making additional problems there!