How close can one sit to multiway horns?

[bvan]

Or should I ask How close can one sit to multiway horns and have them gel in a fairly coherent way? I'm trying to figure out what I can fit in my room. Actually having built them, but not yet been able to fire them up, I'm wondering where I can fit.

Lower mid horn is 950mm wide and covering 250hz-1k. Mid horn is 450m diameter and playing 1k-8k, tweeter above. They are all on the same vertical axis squashed as close together as possible which leaves about 700mm between the axis of the bigger two horns. Is there any rule of thumb about driver spacing and listening distance?

Is 3m across the width of the room too close -do I need to be considering firing down the length of the 12m room instead....? (give up a nice view and a fair bit of bass this way)

Thanks for the help

B.

[Robh3606]

I don't know if there is any rule of thumb on this. The directivity will effect how they combine but they can be tilted if need be to aim them at a fixed point in space to help them gel. It also depends on what you mean by gel. If you sit in one position you can aim them. If you move around you may need to be a bit further back. Why don't you just fire them up and see.

I don't have any horns that go below 750hz but I do have a couple of larger systems. I find as long as you are on the tweeters listening axis you can get quite close to them before they fall apart.

Rob

[Pano]

3 meters is pretty darn close.
I've sat that close in demos and in my own listening room and have to say it's "OK", but not great. Getting some distance, even a meter or 2 more, really helps.
.

[bentoronto]

Are there horn issues that are different than other drivers?

There're distance issues and there are angle issues. There're image issues and bounce issues.

There aren't vertical issues (aside from basic directivity) because you ear doesn't care a whole lot about vertical arrangement of speakers.

There are noise-floor and distortion-floor issues (esp. from efficient horns) when you get too close.

I'm a big believer in a good mixed sub-bass tucked away in ANY corner of the room. Not much sense of direction or distance to worry about.

I rather like "analytic" sound - sitting close to my very large, analytic, low-efficiency ESLs, not far apart, in a fairly dead room. Works good for me since Toole taught me that ping-pong stereo is not an important goal but full orchestral sound (like old DGG orchestral recordings) is.

[bvan]

Thanks guys.

Yeah might have to just fire them up and see. Thing is I've got to call in help to move the subs so wanted to start with the most likely configuration in the hope that I wont have to move them again.

Horn issues that are different from other drivers? Maybe just in the sense that probably only horns speakers have 700mm or more between drivers. It's only a vague memory but I remember once discovering that getting too close to such speakers you eventually get to a point where all of a sudden you can hear the mid and tweeter as two disparate sound sources....so I'm wondering where this point might be and if there's any way to guess it ahead ft time.

I'm not sure angling them is going to make a difference in this sense. Time/phase and level issues will be taken care of in the digital domain. Though I guess one downside to sitting close that no positioning or computer can fix is that small movement in the listening seat will translate to bigger relative phase and timing shifts between drivers.

cheers
B

[Robh3606]

so I'm wondering where this point might be and if there's any way to guess it ahead ft time.

What type of horns?? Are they CD, Exponential, Tractrix, what are the designed coverage angles?? Are the 40x40 60X60 90X50 100X40?? If you know what they are get a sheet of paper and scale it out worst case. Normally the upper frequencies are where you are going to have an issue.

sitting close that no positioning or computer can fix is that small movement in the listening seat will translate to bigger relative phase and timing shifts between drivers.

That you are going to be able to hear??

Rob

[Pano]

Yes, you'll hear it. But it may not be until you move back a few meters that you realize how much better it is. Life is like that.