Has someone here REALLY been able to get rid of horn coloration ?

[angeloitacare]

I am asking this,
because i am in the move to get rid of my Vitavox S2/Coral H104 horn combo, and replacing them with Beyma TPL-150. I bought the Beymas a month ago, and playing around with them since then.

Beyma Tpl-150 - Page 3 - Audio Voice Acoustics

In the beginning, the first impressions, i was rather unimpressed, because the Beymas sound rather unspectacular. But after some more different kind of music was played, i came to the conclusion, that there is a remarkable advantage of the Beymas. Before i take this step, and sell the horns, i am considering if the coloration in the mid range i hear, compared to the Beyma's, are because my setup is not optimal configured, or because its a inherent characteristic of horns, where there is no remedy. Until i made direct comparisons, i actually believed my horn setup were sounding quit natural, without coloration.Until i made A/B comparisons. I believed LeCleac'h horns were sounding natural/neutral. The revelation was actually quit a surprise to me, but confirmed, what Peter ( PK ) observerd and commented here and elsewere ( He gave me the motivation to try the Beyma's ). True, the horns do sound more dynamic, but naturalness and neutrality is one of the most important things i look for, far more important than dynamics. Many horn installations, which do go 4 ways, use above 1khz small horns, not rarely with 20cm diameter (see goto ) . So my doubt is : Could it be, that colorations are result of a too big horn employd ? At the moment, i use the mid channel above 1,8khz, first order. ( external diameter of the LeCleac'h horn is 60cm , Fc of this horn is ~ 500hz ) If i employ a smaller horn, could it be that i get rid completely of colorations, getting naturalness/neutrality, and horn dynamics at the same time ? If so, it might be worth to make such a small horn, and give try. Maibe someone here has some experience to share.

Angelo

[whgeiger]

Originally Posted by angeloitacare

So my doubt is : Could it be, that colorations are result of a too big horn employd ? At the moment, i use the mid channel above 1,8khz, first order. ( external diameter of the LeCleac'h horn is 60cm , Fc of this horn is ~ 500hz ) If i employ a smaller horn, could it be that i get rid completely of colorations, getting naturalness/neutrality, and horn dynamics at the same time ? If so, it might be worth to make such a small horn, and give try. Maibe someone here has some experience to share.

Angelo

Please describe the c/o slopes and frequencies you are using.

Regards,

WHG

[angeloitacare]

Originally Posted by whgeiger

Please describe the c/o slopes and frequencies you are using.

Regards,

WHG

lower midrange: 150hz - 1,2khz ; 1st. order
midrange: 1,8khz 1st.order / - no lowpass

Coral H104 > 10khz 2nd.order

probably this week i will make measurements.

[keyser]

My experience with horns and compression drivers is limited (see sig.), but I think coloration is not necessarily an inherent horn quality. When I first listened to my system, after some time I did feel the horn had a sound of its own. But when I took the time to perfect the frequency response with DSP, that sound of which I thought it was horn-coloration disappeared.

Most people don't use DSP on their horns and their speakers inevitably have some resonances. How far have you gone in perfecting the response?

BTW, I wonder what speaker dave has to say about this subject (hi Dave, are you reading along?) .

[Loren42]

Originally Posted by angeloitacare

In the beginning, the first impressions, i was rather unimpressed, because the Beymas sound rather unspectacular. But after some more different kind of music was played, i came to the conclusion, that there is a remarkable advantage of the Beymas.

Interesting. When I first hooked up my Beymas I had the same impression. They did not seem to be what I expected and sounded a little dull and underwhelming.

After playing a little while they really seemed to open up and now sound amazing. The dispersion is also great. I don't know if they need to break in or what.

[bear]

Angelo, I can't tell what your speakers are from the link... or the amplification... but in general I prefer a system (horn or otherwise) where the widest possible range centered in the "voice" frequencies is covered by one driver. That refers to what is also known as the "telephone" frequencies of <300--> >3,000Hz. I feel that breaking up this range is never entirely successful.

Also, somewhat to my surprise (now some years ago) I found that "horn sound" (assuming a decent horn to begin with) seems to be dependent upon the compression driver, not so much the specific horn! Having said that bit of heresy, there are precious few compression drivers that are 'happy' on a given horn. Otoh, some horns do work better with a wider range of compression drivers. Regardless of the $$cost of the driver, the determining factor imo is the compression driver... how one determines which drivers are desirable is another discussion.

Another issue is the signal chain and amplification.
Compression drivers on horns tend to be lower in distortion at average room listening levels than most direct radiator systems, and by some margin. So, GIGO is what you get.

In other words, just because it is a horn system it might sound like dog poop anyhow, just more dynamic doggie poop?

As far as using DSP to correct - while I am open to the concept in principle, at the present state of the art I am skeptical that the DSP box doesn't add artifacts that are more objectionable than not having it. Best is to not need EQ, especially electronic EQ. I guess this depends where your personal sonic thresholds are and your auditory preferences.

Having said all this, I am operating under the delusion (likely via self hypnosis?) that my horn system is essentially uncolored... what leads me to believe that I am not incorrect is that one can hear "into" the soundfield and discern almost instantly the "nature" of almost any component placed into the system, and/or any recording played - and importantly, people who are not terribly familiar with the system can do this quickly as well. (the reason I mention the last is that our brains learn to "decode" our own systems so that various deficits are overcome, new listeners however do not have that ability...)

So, yes, horns can disappear... as in "...I like the music, what are those BIG THINGS doing down that end of the room anyhow?..."

_-_-bear

[angeloitacare]

Angelo, I can't tell what your speakers are from the link... or the amplification

Sorry for not telling of what speakers and amplification i am talking about - since i presented my system here at DIYAudio , i thought, most would know it already :

AV Eikon : finished - Audio Voice Acoustics

The Beymas do sound more natural. more relaxed, and are easyer to listen to. I can listen for hours, and don't get tired. With the S2/LeCleac'h horns, it sounds like voices are squeezed out of the horn, crumpled (the right word in english ? in german verdrueckt ) and with coloration ( thats mostly observed with voices ) . However , dinamics make jazz, instrumental , orchestra etc. sound more real, more lifelike, its easyer to get the " wow " effect. So both solutions do have their advantage/disadvantages.

this is the response i have with S2/H104:



highpass was however at 1khz S2 first order, and 700hz Radian 950pb in the lower midrange horn.

now i made some changes, using Fane Studio 8m in the lower midrange horn, crossed at 1,2khz, and S2 at 1,8khz, also first order.

coloration remains the same.

later today my acoustic engeneer maibe will visit me, and we will make new measurements.

[thoriated]

I've moved away from horn-type systems in the bass, largely because of the potential for horn coloration from the enclosure due to lack of cabinet material rigidity. Also, I feel that high conversion efficiency direct radiators (above 97db/w/m) potentially used in multiples to augment system efficiency can offer much of the dynamic performance that horns are noted for.

For MF/HF, I use either concrete or heavily damped aluminum for the horn flares to keep their coloration as low as possible. Earl Geddes has documented reflection modes inside the horn flares which apparently always exist to a certain extent but my impression is that they can be reduced to the point where they are not a primary source of coloration.

[Jmmlc]

Originally Posted by angeloitacare

I am asking this,
because i am in the move to get rid of my Vitavox S2/

Hello Angelo,

The Vitavox S2 is an old driver and it doesn't fit so well with modern horns having very low horn coloration and diffraction (Tractrix, Kugelwellen, Le Cleach...).

As an illustration, please give a look to the measurements I have done on 16 horns during ETF'2010.

http://forums.melaudia.net/attachment.php?aid=1760

It happened that 2 drivers were measured on the very same tractrix horn (Stereolab 600)

N°13 : with the Vitavox S2
N°14 : with the Yamaha 6681

Please notice the flatness of the frequency response obtained with the Yamaha driver while we observe a huge bump between 800 and 3000Hz with the Vitavox S2.

Notice on the group delay curve the anomaly between 800Hz and 3000Hz with the Vitavox S2 (probably linked to the anomaly seen on the wavelets graph around 0.7ms )

Such feature is basically due to the design of the S2.

Good horns need the best drivers.

Best regards from Paris, France

Jean-Michel Le Cléac'h

[meister_gue]

Beyma's TPL 150 H should give you back a bit of the dynamics you lost, but without any coloration.

I used this version of the driver in several projects, and it is a really great driver!