Silly Horns

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Omholt, the speakers you heard were pretty representative for good fullrange speakers. Unless the people who demonstrated them really messed up the amp match... It's a taste thing. And it's just as good to know you don't like them. I was under the impression this choice was made purely theoretical.
 
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Originally Posted by weltersys

Given the budgets, almost anything is possible, but given the level of engineering talent I'd say that the Aerospace industry would be using shaker tables to test airborne electronics, they are an order of magnitude more efficient, (vibration is what damages equipment, noise induced vibration is wasting most of the mechanical energy in heat) very important when amplifier power was far more costly than today, and far more easily manipulated than tons of drivers.

Art

Art there is enough difference between vibration excitation and noise excitation that I know for a fact that NASA used sound to test modules for rocket launces. I don't know about airplanes.

The sound levels at launch are so great that they dampen it out with a water spray. When you see a shuttle launch, all that "smoke" is actually steam from the water injection. The water vapor absorbs a lot of the sound, but it is still quite intense.
 
It's a taste thing. And it's just as good to know you don't like them.

I have come to the conclusion that there are no "good" speakers, just "bad" ones. Unless a speaker actually sounds bad, they are all the same sound quality and it just becomes a matter of "taste". At least that is the impression that I get when I read many of the posts.
 
Waterproof hornspeakers . From Southern Thunder Sound, 1979.
 

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Omholt, the speakers you heard were pretty representative for good fullrange speakers. Unless the people who demonstrated them really messed up the amp match... It's a taste thing. And it's just as good to know you don't like them. I was under the impression this choice was made purely theoretical.
Theory and sound quality goes hand in hand in my opinion. No distinction. The only fullrange speaker I think works pretty good is the electrostatic. Awesome in some areas, weak in others. Theory correlates what I hear there too. I guess I'm not an audiophile.
 
Given the budgets, almost anything is possible, but given the level of engineering talent I'd say that the Aerospace industry would be using shaker tables to test airborne electronics, they are an order of magnitude more efficient, (vibration is what damages equipment, noise induced vibration is wasting most of the mechanical energy in heat) very important when amplifier power was far more costly than today, and far more easily manipulated than tons of drivers.

NASA bought several 12Pi hornsubs last summer to use for vibration testing. I wondered the same thing, seemed more efficient to use a purely mechanical device for that purpose. But for whatever reason, they chose to use our basshorns instead.
 
Theory and sound quality goes hand in hand in my opinion. No distinction. The only fullrange speaker I think works pretty good is the electrostatic. Awesome in some areas, weak in others. Theory correlates what I hear there too. I guess I'm not an audiophile.

Omholt, the Voxativ designs I have seen measurements and simulations for, were not very good at all. As we all know, good sound starts with a more or less linear frequency response and Voxativ and companies that work with Voxativ seem to fail even at that requirement. The driver unit itself may be good, I don't like the applications I've seen.

Bernd Timmermans, editor of the Hobby Hifi magazine said it correctly. There are fullrange drivers that are no worse at treble than a very good tweeter, no worse at bass than a bass-mid woofer, and have superior midrange. I you design well, at the very least the fullrange design will not sound worse than a multiway.
 
...People have been trying novel ways to fit large horns into a small space for years. It simply doesn't work for conventional front loaded horns. The best modern day LF horn arrangement is the tapped horn. It is bandwidth is limited to about 2.5 octaves, but it does play low. While the Jubilee is an improvement over the Klipschorn, its low frequency performance is still poor. The perceivable difference in LF performance between the Klipschorn and Jubilee is barely audible. The Jubilee’s best improvement was in the high frequencies. However, it still suffers from the same frequency ripples of the Klipschorn due to the horizontal separation of the two horn mouths. Single exit horns are superior in this respect.

I believe that there are a couple of inaccuracies here:

1) The Jubilee KPT-KHJ-LF bass bin performance that you see in your supplied graphic is anechoic response. Most people that own Jubilees use the room's corners to complete the LF horn's performance. For instance in my room, the light green trace shown here is the Jubilee bass bin performance when positioned in front of two TH subs in the front corners of the room. The red trace is the raw TH sub response in the room's corners, and the dark green trace is the EQed composite response at my listening position (no smoothing).
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2) The LF performance of the Jubilee bass bin over the Khorn bass bin is more than "barely audible", IMHO, since I own both types of loudspeakers and hear the differences clearly.

If you are only referring to the FR plot, note that the Jubilee bass bin was designed to have the same LF cutoff as the Klipschorn bass bin, so in that respect I would guess you could say that the difference is "barely audible". However, in all other respects, I can't agree with your assessment.

3) The "frequency ripples" that you likely refer to on the LF bin are actually caused more by the undersized mouths of the LF horn(s). By placing these units in the corners of the room--as they were designed to be placed--the LF FR response smooths out a bit. The two horn mouths begin to interact at frequencies above ~600 Hz. My LF bins are crossed over at 425 Hz on the upper end.

However, a single mouth bass bin would be preferable if you are trying to extend the FR higher than 600 Hz. I wouldn't try to do that since the K-402 MF/HF horns and TAD 4002 drivers easily handle that portion of the band (horn-loaded, 110 dB@1m). This is a two-way fully horn loaded loudspeaker--or three way if you count the TH subs just behind them crossed at 40 Hz as part of the design (as I do).

4) This setup certainly doesn't sound "silly". If you're ever in the area, drop in for a listen.

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Chris
 
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Ok, first up some units of unknown origin (in other words I have forgotten where I got the pics):

I remember someone said these remind him of the movie 'The Day of the Triffids':

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And two more unidentified:

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Yes, the subs for this monster consists of three Electro-Voice Patrician 30W 30" woofers PER SIDE, six in total: :eek:

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Next up an offering from BD-Design:

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The Pass Kleinhorn:

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Slightly less imposing, the Zen Acousta:

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And lastly my friend Chris Templer's Double Autographs:

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Enjoy,
Deon
 
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