The dirty little secret of horns.

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peteleoni

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Joined 2011
I just realized that audio engineers get mistaken for audiophiles. Nope we are the ones molesting the signal in horrific ways that no amount of money thrown into diamond tweeters can ever compensate for, them we get to read the reviews and laugh our butts off.

Or better still writing gear reviews and making up words to see if the editors read them, that is fun. I think stratifated is a perfectly cromulent word, so did the editors M**.
On that note I do with to comment that my Peavey 22a drivers have a nectarine round naughtiness with just a few notes of a breathy nipplyness. The Nautilous D series in comparison has a bit of a ruptured Trojanic quality that while not overtly objectionable tends to damp the harmonic climaxxness to some degree. Obviously in some rooms and driven with exactly the right SET tube amp sporting a matched pair of Lithuanianian 6L6 tubes, this will not be an issue.
 
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peteleoni

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lilun said:
you don't know what you are talking about sorry. look at the waveform of a 'hip hop' recording and you will see a rectangle. No dynamic range whatsoever.
No serious ME uses old matrix 801 as their main. its just an old speaker superseded now. you can pick them up cheap on ebay. Thats the only good thing about them
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Damn I'll have to start mixing and mastering hip hop! and get serious maybe I'll even quit McDonald's. (-:
Ps.... It is exactly that, we have those squared off peaks
for a reason. People are listening to this at frightening levels, we need speakers capable of being played at those levels. The old 85 DB trick does not work for hip hop. Average lisyening levels are much louder than previously encountered. Fletcher Munson etc rears its head. My clients do nor know this, what they do know is my mixes and masters translate well in their cars , in the clubs and on headphones. This is the prime listening environment for hip hop. Our monitors need to be capable of extremes. One day may be a jazz trio, next day Lil' Boosie. I don't wish a room full of hemholtz resonators all fighting back other if you don't mind.
 
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peteleoni

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Agree Earl its just my opinion, but hell it might be worth.a little more than say 25 random people given that I actually have to go to Krogers this way. I'm going now to get some 30 ppi foam and try your trick at the throat of this horn lots of near parallel there.
gedlee said:
Pete

I can buy a lot of what you are saying, but not all of it. First, more than just one person would have to agree to what you are saying and since you are the one doing the experiment, your opinion has to be discounted if not all together ignored.

It is surely possible to EQ any speaker to match any other speakers frequency response with DSP. That part is fine. But unless the two speakers have very similar polar responses, then the power response will not be the same after the EQ. For what you say to be true, the power response differences would have to be completely irrelevant and no study has found that to be true. Yes, we all agree that getting the direct field correct is the first and most important, but it is not everything.

What your test shows is that you either have a fairly dead room or two speakers with comparable polar responses. Or maybe the comparison is not quite as equivalent as you are making it out to be. At any rate what you are saying does not seem to me to be completely accurate.
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peteleoni

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Oh you can bet I will like it if it flattens the fr and requires less EQ. I expect it to eat up a few db of headroom. In return for that loss, assuming of course that this is a valid approach after this is compensated for I expect to *measure* a significant flattening of the curve. Now what I would guess is that quarter wave standers would develop in the area of "parallelness" that this horn has in abundance. What I an curious about is whether the foam does anything else but damp those. I know for a fact that a felt lining in this area can have a great impact, but it obviously does not work the same way right? Which brings up the Q, What is the difference between HOMs and high frequency quarter wave standing waves that would be sure to development in this pinched throat. Or are they in plain English simply different terminology for the same thing?

gedlee said:
Just don't like it too much! ;)
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marco_gea

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Joined 2005
gedlee

gedlee

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Joined 2004
gedlee.com
peteleoni said:
Oh you can bet I will like it if it flattens the fr and requires less EQ. I expect it to eat up a few db of headroom. In return for that loss, assuming of course that this is a valid approach after this is compensated for I expect to *measure* a significant flattening of the curve. Now what I would guess is that quarter wave standers would develop in the area of "parallelness" that this horn has in abundance. What I an curious about is whether the foam does anything else but damp those. I know for a fact that a felt lining in this area can have a great impact, but it obviously does not work the same way right? Which brings up the Q, What is the difference between HOMs and high frequency quarter wave standing waves that would be sure to development in this pinched throat. Or are they in plain English simply different terminology for the same thing?
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The effect of the foam on the frequency response is actually rather small.

I am not sure what horn you are talking about so I can't "picture" the standing waves. HOMs are not "standing" waves because they propagate down the device and get radiated into the listening space. They bounce off the walls, yes, but they do that as they are moving down the device. They travel a longer path and hence arrive at the listener delayed in time. The longer path means more of a damping effect by the foam.

The loss is pretty flat starting at almost nothing at 1 kHz and resulting in a 2-3 dB loss at 10 kHz. This, of course, needs to be corrected in the EQ.
 
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peteleoni

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Well I'll be darned they went to aluminum! Maybe they care more about sound than marketing again, and you must admit the enclosure probably doesn't resonate but I would bet you could pull that off with a continual diminishing baffle and without that snail.
marco_gea said:
Nautilus, not Nautilous...



No diamond units in the real Nautilus: Nautilus | the perfect speaker - Bowers & Wilkins | B&W Speakers

I think you must be mistakenly thinking of these: 800 Series Diamond - Explore Bowers & Wilkins | B&W Speakers

Marco
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peteleoni

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I can't seem to upload my photo of these, but here is the horn I'm referring to Doc Earl, note the horizontal constipated butt cheeks, which I am guessing helps the low end. A coulple of EV refugees did these for Hartley in the 70s, barely IMO, getting around DB Keele/EVs patent, but they PO'd him. Nor a good idea to mess with HP, but I'm guessing you know this story. Anyway I think these sound a bit better than the SM120 they are closest to imo.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/hh92/Irishtom29/hi fi/peavey1.jpg
 

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Eldam

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Joined 2012
Boticelli used to say in springtime: "to take off the sea-shell, it cost you a hand for the diamond"

The problem, even without the sea-shell... you only and always see the diamond ! By the way great design but maybe not today the best industrial speaker ?! well the tweeter was aluminium and maybe sound better than the commercial diamond serie ?!

Some golden ears say that the Matrix diamond serie have the tweeters forward...you must hear what you buy ?!

Ho yes the Napoleaon cable have a frozen treatment maid in Stalingrad !
 
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