I've seen a bunch of measured dub type music that hits 27 hz (and sometimes but rarely even lower). If you only need to get to 34 hz that opens up the options, there's a bunch of horns that can do 35 (IIRC).
What exactly do you want to know? If a horn of any type meets your frequency response and max spl goals it doesn't matter much what type of horn it is. You can look further into the other specs like group delay and phase but I seriously doubt your audience is going to care what type of horn they are listening to.
Tapped horns are no more complex than any other horn, in fact they are simply a clever variant of back loaded horn (which is a variant of ported box). The mouth is smaller than front loaded horns because a large mouth gives more efficiency higher up in frequency, which tapped horns trade for small size.
Seriously though, if you want to study the physics behind tapped, front and rear loaded horns, sit down and have a good read but it's going to take a couple of years to really understand what's going on. A good simulator like Hornresp can speed up the learning curve exponentially. Or you can just pick an existing design that meets your frequency response and max spl goals and not worry about the details.
The Othorn tapped horn is probably fine in a stack of 4 (I'll sim a stack of them for you if you chose it) and will easily meet your stated goals but if you stack 8 of them the lower frequencies are going to start to get overwhelming and the higher frequencies won't be able to keep up. That's when you want to start looking for front loaded horns that were designed to be used in large stacks. THIS is why I relentlessly tried to make you state your goals up front. THIS is why you can't just pick a random design and keep adding more and more cabs until it sounds the way you want. Eq can help a bad situation but it's better to start with a good system design (as opposed to a good single cab design) in the first place.
And I'm still a bit worried about your power situation. Do you have 17000 watts of amp power and a way to power those amps out in the field? If not you might want to think about using more cabs, larger cabs (probably front loaded horns) to gain efficiency instead of relying on amp power to achieve your spl goals. This is why it's important to state your goals and limitations from the start. Otherwise all we can do is guess and you might end up extremely disappointed.
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This will be fine if it's void free, although it's extremely expensive because it's got a decorative veneer on it, which you are probably just going to paint over anyway. I don't know what baltic birch costs there but that would have been my first choice and it's probably cheaper than this stuff.
If this stuff is not void free you could have just used this and saved a bunch of money.
Oriented Strand Board Exterior (L)1220 x (W)607 x (T)15mm, 5022652560409
Or any other voidless sheet material. (Personally I would never use mdf though.)
Other than void free, the most important thing is that the sheet goods match the material thickness in the plans that you build. Otherwise you are going to have to make adjustments to the plans and that won't be any kind of fun.
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Voids are holes.Thanks for the helpful informationwhat exactly do you mean by void?
Check the edges of the plywood, if you see gaps (voids, holes) the plywood is not good for building speaker cabinets- the voids inevitably end up where a mounting screw should go.
I can see that you are still not the least bit interested in defining your goals and limitations beyond the most basic level - 140 db/1m in an open field and you may or may not own dsp, amps, and may or may not have anywhere to plug your electronics in for power, and these theoretical plugs may or may not be able to handle anywhere near the power you will need.
I'm not sure why you don't want to discuss these things but from what I've seen so far you clearly need as much help as you can possibly get.
You seem to be broadening this beyond what the topic is about. I have plenty of power and im using Digital amps, see this as more of a 'im bored and want to try horns out for once' type of project.
You seem to be going into WAY too much detail, though i appreciate this of course.
Sarcasm and 'kind words' will not help me out at all ....... i didn't come onto this forum to get spoken down to and patronised...
You chose a 52 hz horn for dubstep, that's the basis of my comment that you need as much help as you can get.
WRT the power comments, it might not be completely obvious that it's not easy to get 17000 watts out in a field, you can't get that much from a single household plug, and generators can destroy amps because that's not really what they are made for. Extension cords would have to be thicker than garden hoses (probably 1/0 awg or better) to go the distance from the available plugs that I'm picturing in your open field scenario without burning half your power in wire resistance.
Also I've been trying to point out that stacking horns (or any alignment) changes their basic response, the more you stack the more it changes.
As far as I'm concerned I'm going into the absolute minimum amount of detail to get a working system that meets your basic stated goals.
Since there's no other way I can think of to make you understand that a large system needs to be designed as a system, I wish you good luck and good bye.
WRT the power comments, it might not be completely obvious that it's not easy to get 17000 watts out in a field, you can't get that much from a single household plug, and generators can destroy amps because that's not really what they are made for. Extension cords would have to be thicker than garden hoses (probably 1/0 awg or better) to go the distance from the available plugs that I'm picturing in your open field scenario without burning half your power in wire resistance.
Also I've been trying to point out that stacking horns (or any alignment) changes their basic response, the more you stack the more it changes.
As far as I'm concerned I'm going into the absolute minimum amount of detail to get a working system that meets your basic stated goals.
Since there's no other way I can think of to make you understand that a large system needs to be designed as a system, I wish you good luck and good bye.
The UK power is 250 volts, he could get by with 100 feet of 6 AWG with 5% voltage drop if hooked up to the mains
."Digital" amps, never heard of that brand before
.140 dB 30 Hz open field system (110dB at 100 feet), and what it takes to power it. Note the #6 240V feed (which would need to upgrade if you were a long way from the pole)
You're right - it would be an ongoing project. This was started in 2001 and finished in 09. I ended up building something a bit more sane to actually do 1-night DJ gigs with (subs the same form factor as the T36, but with real response to 40). But that is fixing to be 'upgraded' with four of Xoc1's TH18 to get better power handling. Already have the TBW100's. If they end up putting out more at high power than the labs do, there may be more of them on the horizon.
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The UK power is 250 volts, he could get by with 100 feet of 6 AWG with 5% voltage drop if hooked up to the mains
"Digital" amps, never heard of that brand before
I live in farm country (actually I live on a farm) and it's pretty unusual to have a plug within 100 feet of an open field. There are two open fields around our house, one is about 300 or 400 feet from the plug to the nearest point, the other is probably 800 feet or more away.
The point here is that attempting distances of a couple hundred feet or more with regular extension cords and this much power is a recipe for starting a fire or just generally breaking something.
The difference here is you started with a sub design that was meant to be stacked. When the OP says "ongoing project" he's talking about adding more and more cabs until it's as loud as he wants it to be. The problem being that the response and dispersion change as cabs are added, this should be addressed from the beginning (as you did), not as an afterthought.
For example, if you take a tapped horn that was designed to have flat response with a single cab and use it in a stack of 8 the response is going to be terrible. Much better to use a design that was meant to be stacked in the first place.
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Just in case this isn't painfully clear, this is a potential safety issue, there's a real risk of starting a fire. If a fire starts it will probably be at the point of most resistance - probably at the plug inside the house. And this is assuming that the house wiring (from the panel to the plug) is capable of handling this much power, otherwise the fire might start inside the walls of the house (but this will probably trip a breaker first if it's wired properly).
I'm putting 1/0 awg wire in my car and that's just a 10 foot length and my amp is only rated for 1250 watts peak (not rms). This is a bit of overkill but that's how I like to roll (when I can afford it).
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The lower the voltage the heavier the cable required.
I remember how shocked the Brits we used to tour with when they saw the size cable need for 120 volt use compared to single ended 240-250 VAC
.As far as fire concerns, there is no more fire hazard plugging in a sound system than using electric heaters.
A 17,000 watt sound system only draws on average about 1700 watts + whatever amplifier inefficiency.
With EDM, maybe double that.
At any rate, no need to worry about the OP's power needs while he's "just bored and wants to try horns out for once".
I was trying to be dramatic, don't rain on my parade with facts, dude. (I know there's a 20:1 difference in voltage in these 2 situations and the cable requirements are quite a bit different.)
You must have some pretty dynamic music in your collection. On the other hand, I have some music that consists of basically steady bass tones with near zero percent dynamics and no pauses - I'm guessing it's probably pretty close to pure sine waves if I scoped it. This isn't stuff I normally listen to but it's what I test systems with. It's brutally tough on the amps and the speakers and... well everything. Most of my regular collection is not quite this demanding but has steady and consistent bass with few pauses, not like rock music where you get a very small amount of very quick and dynamic kick drum hits and bass guitar notes.
I have a feeling the OP's music is just as demanding and compressed (if not more) than the stuff I regularly listen to.
Anyway, a heater takes about 1500 watts continuous and isn't usually plugged in using an 800 foot extension cord bought at the dollar store. A 17000 watt system playing demanding material will use a few times more power than a heater on average, especially if the speakers are pushed into thermal compression, as systems like this usually are when run by dj's that know a lot about music but not much about the audio system specifications.
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I am not going into the detailed stuff which I am going to just assume you have a handle on.
As far as your stated goals 4 Othorns will easily do it. A single has measured short term output capabilities of 128dB at 25Hz and >134dB at 31.5Hz at 1m outdoors. 4 with appropriate power will meet your 140dB spec from 25Hz on up. That would be 120dB at 10m and 100dB at 100m. The drivers and cabs aren't cheap and that requires a lot of power but that is the price you pay to get that sort of LF output from a system that only occupies 72 cubic feet of volume. The Othorn does not require anymore power than other cabs of comparable size unless you are trying to extract every last bit out of them. It is just about as sensitive as a cab of this size is going to get with a LF corner that low. In fact if underpowered it will get just as loud or louder than a comparable size cab with a similar corner and will be operating with little compression, low distortion and a very high margin of safety. This is why I always go overkill on everything...Not so I can drive the system within an inch of its life but so I can operate a couple clicks down from that point and maintain good sound.
Anyway if you want something much more sensitive/cheaper/more capable or all of the above you will need to multiply the total cabinet volume and/or total number of cabs a few times. It depends on what your needs are. Some guys need as much bang for the buck as possible, others need as much output as possible from a somewhat compact package and weight. A lot of people are somewhere in the middle.
Also 4 Othorns clustered do not result in a rising response into the deep bass.
Also 4 Othorns clustered do not result in a rising response into the deep bass.
That's why I said 4 would probably be ok but I wouldn't stack 8. To be more clear:
Here's a pic (first graph) of a single cab (the lower line) and a stack of 8 (the upper line) using your Hornresp inputs from here. The Othorn tapped horn
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
It's pretty clear that things start to deviate from the nice flat response as more cabs are added. Since the Othorn doesn't measure exactly as simulated though, this might not be a bad thing.
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Just for the sake of comparison this is a purely hypothetical front loaded horn (1 cab vs stack of 8). Some things were just meant to be stacked. Some not so much.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
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