Horn loaded cone MR range target

[mashaffer]

Looking for your thoughts on the most desirable frequency range for horn loaded mid-range. Given that a horn is hard pressed to cover more than a decade there will have to be some compromise since one can't cover the entire vocal range of fundamentals (65-1.1k or so) and the first few harmonics too.

We probably don't need to worry about the bottom octave of the bass range and start with the bottom of the tenor range (about 130Hz or so) and anything above the 4th harmonic of the soprano (around 4kHz).

So assuming that we can make the bass/midbass horn make it up to our chosen crossover the question is to what degree should we balance the low end fundamentals with the upper harmonics? My hunch is that we really want to keep the soprano and high brass harmonics on the same driver as their fundamentals and so I am inclined to think that we want to go up to 4kHz or even a bit more if we can and hand off the fundamentals below 500Hz to the bass horn rather than to bring the mid-range in closer to 200Hz and hand off all but the 2nd harmonics to the tweeter by crossing at 2kHz.

So the long and short of it is which decade would you shoot for and why?

[whgeiger]

... is the acoustic politics of MF horn design:

Your challenge will be to extend system response beyond this core range. The main problem with going lower is increasing horn size and driver [Vd] requirements.
For the upper region an annular phase plug will be required to kill front cavity resonances, and reduce front cavity volume.
Besides negotiating the beef vs. gossamer trade you are also facing a bandwidth vs. efficiency trade as well.

Regards,

WHG

[Pano]

Not easy to do, for sure. That why I stick with a horn crossing at about 600-700Hz (acoustic). Right there in the middle of it all, yes, but that's what works.
I have heard field-coil cone drivers in a big horn that sounded wonderful. Not sure of the band they covered, tho. It was a big horn.