Well, definitely. There are no real high-tech devices in most loudspeakers, yet the basic technologies used are pretty good for what they do.
Linear motors are positionally accurate, so probably the best (open loop) technology for driving the diaphragm or cone. Horns are impedance matching and directional control devices, so good for an interface between the diaphragm and air. Resistors, coils and capacitors, well, those are almost axiomatic. Some capacitor technologies are more linear than others, but most of the differences are in the dielectric. Good poly caps and air-core coils are generally as good as it gets, although I've seen a lot that favor oil-filled caps, and as long as they don't mind the size and potential for leaking, I wouldn't dissuade anyone from going that route for home hifi.
But yeah, I tend to be more in favor of implementing the best technologies available in audio rather than to try and promote a "novel invention." That didn't stop me from making a few new things though, like an injection mold for my H290C waveguide/horns, patented cooling plugs/plates for my hornsubs, etc. So I guess there have been a few cases where I didn't see what I wanted available on the market, so I designed and produced my own.
As for the horns, though, I'm just saying I do see merit in using the OS/EC flare profile - the hyperbola created from a line drawn tangent to an elliptic cylinder or oblate spheroid. I think it provides a nice, smooth transition from compression driver exit to the "main body" of the horn. It gives nearly constant directivity and lowest high-order modes of all flare shapes.
What I don't agree with is the policy of using that flare profile without regard to any other attribute. I've seen some pretty bad horns with that basic flare shape. It's usually because the coverage angle and/or aspect ratio was too small or too large, sometimes exacerbated by using a secondary flare to radius the mouth. It's not that any of those things is bad, in and of itself, sometimes quite the opposite - they're good. But what seems to have been lost on some designers is the fact that not all horns provide good response. Size and shape matters, and not just for directivity, but also for sound quality and smoothness of response.
There are several patents on this concept from decades ago. It does not prove to be very practical, even though in theory it should work. You could, for example, make a waveguide from a block of foam. That way the HOMs would enter the foam and get absorbed while the direct wave would just move down the axis normal to the foam and not get absorbed (maybe a little).
Trouble is that now this block of foam has to be many times larger than the waveguide which is cut into it - so say about 1 m^3. That is hard to "package" and would cost more than $500 to buy the block of material even before the costs of cutting the waveguide. Ouch! A bit hard for me to see being commercially viable.
I guess once one starts to get wise to "the speaker game" one is faced with a moral dilemma. Bite your tounge or spoil someone's game. Don't know how some of you guys do it, but I really appreciate those who have set me straight with nothing but freinds to lose for your trouble. Much gratitude. If you guys always bit your tounge the would be nowhere to walk.
I'll take some solitary opinions of many of the guys who hang here over some collective opinions.
That's true of everyone around here.
Ps. its "self proclaimed"
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Noted and interesting: In my room, with both the Sentry III (a 3way CD horn speaker) and the dsp- ed SP-1 (two way CD all horn speaker) you can be virtually on top of them with *zero* loss of driver integration and ideal imaging. I find this very interesting as it may lay a myth aside. The common feature is a similar large HF horn. One hears a lot about driver disintegration and large rooms being required for large horn speakers. I have a feeling this may not always be the case (other than fitting them in (-: ...)
Hi Markus - holiday here and not on line as much.
The wave would be guided by the change in acoustic impedance at the boundary. This would not be simple, but it can be analyzed. Its simply a different boundary impedance at the walls - simple to say, very difficult to analyze. So while there would be some form of "guide" it would act very different than a rigid wall. And no I don't have a good feeling for how it would work.
A wave that propagates along a boundary tends to see the boundary impedance as much higher than it actually is. But there is still a small "leakage" into the surface and this will warp the wave front. Its difficult to guess at how much effect this would have.
But the idea of changing the walls surface texture will not result in much effect at all unless the texture is very thick.
FWIW, as a little project to play with I recently bought a pair of cool-looking vintage B&O mini-speakers with good-condition cabinets but rotten woofers that I'm going to update and use to work on passive crossover design.
That's relevant here because the tweeter is a 1" soft dome from Seas with a conical "waveguide" made entirely out of what feels like a sponge.
Apologies for my wretched photography skills that all of the processing an iPhone 5S can muster barely improve, but here are some pics:
Guide over tweeter in cabinet:
Guide out of cabinet, front:
![photo%25202.JPG]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-npqd8A87Y5I/UpoycdgrrBI/AAAAAAAABBg/kQ4DnifUams/s640/photo%25202.JPG])
Guide rear:
Interestingly, most of the pics I see online of the Beovox C75 show a tweeter with a phase plug like structure in front of it, and a plastic waveguide surrounded by the sponge.
I ordered Omnimic yesterday because it can do the one important thing FuzzMeasure can't - render polar maps. When Omnimic comes in I'll take some polars of the tweeter in sponge-guide to see what the sponge-guide does, assuming Omnimic works OK over Parallels. Measurements without sponge-guide strikes me as less than useful, because then the tweeter is recessed into a rectangular hole.
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Dear Pete,
I am afraid that you don't quite "grok" the idea.
The other thing is, please take ur speakers outside and have a listen.
Without your walls, I expect you will find that the character of your speakers has suddenly and mysteriously changed radically, and the sound somehow has become much smaller than inside.
Once you have a room with reflections, reflections that are not delayed past a certain point in time (as previously mentioned by someone else) , you have to deal with the realities that this creates.
No amount of EQ or supplemental speakers can make the room seem larger - unless it is virtually an anechoic room, and then perhaps you can simulate the larger space to some extent.
Much of what is being talked about in terms of speakers, speaker designs and room acoustics is actually aimed at controlling reflections or the amplitude of reflections WRT frequency as much as any other factor.
These are merely my non-expert and un-proclaimed reductions ad absurdum.
Dear Bear, for all I know you may be right. Here however is my version of an anechoic chamber hanging of th deck 12 feet in the air, could not have got them to be right otherwise. Benefit of db ex wife and the swamp/no neighbors. Hung the 801s, measured etc. The DSP EQ is quite radical even accounting for mass rolloff and horn. Surprised it does not sound like Poo.
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Yupp, that probably sums it up. Just get the right drivers, and this starts or rather has already started with a personal survey of all the current test reports for CSD, pulse and step test, and no negatives from the PA world and HiFi community.
In my listening space, all SPL needs are met or exceeded. Linearity of frequency response is met, and for all the contentions about non linear distortion, system has much lower distortion than considered audible, over entire range of frequency and amplitude. No horns, no compression drivers, no ported boxes.
Sure, I could lay out for quality compression driver, and use it way below target application, use DSP to smooth it out on whatever waveguide/horn, and still have system with primary limitations being woofer surface area and radiation pattern of waveguide/horn used with compression driver.
Sure, I could lay out for quality compression driver, and use it way below target application, use DSP to smooth it out on whatever waveguide/horn, and still have system with primary limitations being woofer surface area and radiation pattern of waveguide/horn used with compression driver.
It is certainly easier to achieve a system that will deliver all the parameters you require. I have avoided horns for decades because of the limitations rather than expectations. Like with PC now being a mature device the old Commodore 64 computer was a very immature technology.I sat on the fence. Now that horns are getting some sort of acclaim with widescale adoption of shallow wave guides, there are those you thought there is something in this horn/wave guide) thing whether for HiFi, studio monitors, etc
The shallow wave guides ar easier but the horn is quite a gamble where you have to accept that it may look great on paper etd and be very effectively used in their designed PA setting that there is not the subtlety that small scale i.e Audiophile or elite studio monitors can yield.
The PA market may have woken up to this to the point that designing to meet audiophile needs is now perhaps profitable enough to produce superior drivers and matched horns, to enable audiophiles to construct with them and not get their fingers burned.
I have to trust my own judgment what design I go for next. still not there yet but close to a decision. I am certain as far as I can be, that Lynn is on the right track on the other thread Ariel replacement, and he is closer to it than perhaps anybody else, so he can make probably the best judgments. It takes time but we have to be patient, if we are reconsidering the horn option for a new speaker system.
@ Barleywater
I now think I find (compression driver / horn based speakers) superior all around for monitoring duty with better integration of drivers as well as the more obvious dynamic range enhancement.
I was turned off by one of the JBL rigs of the 90's that probably did not like my small room. I think I made a generalization mistake. I should have tried the comparable EV stuff of that time as well.
I now think I find (compression driver / horn based speakers) superior all around for monitoring duty with better integration of drivers as well as the more obvious dynamic range enhancement.
I was turned off by one of the JBL rigs of the 90's that probably did not like my small room. I think I made a generalization mistake. I should have tried the comparable EV stuff of that time as well.
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