Full Range 5 way Horn Project

[AllenB]

2:1 Compression ratio in a LeCleach 160 Hz horn works well for me.

Where do you place it and how do you cross it?

 

[AllenB]

Have a look at this onehttp://wizardaudio.hu/hasznos/hangfal tervek/bass/hibrid/MTB 246.jpg

Might be good. The acoustic crossover is handy.

 

[3GGG]

Where do you place it and how do you cross it?

Crossed at 135 Hz with 24db active x over. Fane 8m driver with a small <1lt rear chamber firing into a 100mm throat.

 

[kodomo]

Ok, I can cross at 160hz to MTB 246 bass bins. They extend to f3: 42hz with 2 cabs. This is great extension for music.

If I build two of these with 2x18" RCF drivers they were intended for, and buy 2 hypex ds4.0's, it will cost me the price of a single Funktion 1 - F218. I can also make the same finishing for the side panels of my horns and these.

I have heard Funktion 1 at various places and they were sounding great at bass department. However over PA forums like speakerplans, people suggest that these sound cleaner and extend more into the lower bass. If this is all true, and it looks like that, I will build two of these.

This is how they would look with the rest of the system

 

[3GGG]

Ok, I can cross at 160hz to MTB 246 bass bins. They extend to f3: 42hz with 2 cabs. This is great extension for music.

If I build two of these with 2x18" RCF drivers they were intended for, and buy 2 hypex ds4.0's, it will cost me the price of a single Funktion 1 - F218. I can also make the same finishing for the side panels of my horns and these.

I have heard Funktion 1 at various places and they were sounding great at bass department. However over PA forums like speakerplans, people suggest that these sound cleaner and extend more into the lower bass. If this is all true, and it looks like that, I will build two of these.

This is how they would look with the rest of the system

Crossing at 160 will work very well, mine measure flat to 110 HZ despite the 160 Hz horn.

 

[angeloitacare]

Ok, I can cross at 160hz to MTB 246 bass bins. They extend to f3: 42hz with 2 cabs. This is great extension for music.

If I build two of these with 2x18" RCF drivers they were intended for, and buy 2 hypex ds4.0's, it will cost me the price of a single Funktion 1 - F218. I can also make the same finishing for the side panels of my horns and these.

I have heard Funktion 1 at various places and they were sounding great at bass department. However over PA forums like speakerplans, people suggest that these sound cleaner and extend more into the lower bass. If this is all true, and it looks like that, I will build two of these.

This is how they would look with the rest of the system

the bassbin looks great. You might consider a sub bass line array from the floor to the ceiling. Upon my experience, that will energize the whole room evenly with bass, not only from the bottom to half of the room. Its commonly asserted that bass is not directional, but there is a hudge difference doing this. I had first only the bass horn, and added two Altec 416's above. The improvement was considerable. Much better.

 

[kodomo]

I thought the bass bins were ok too, but on the subwoofer forum they people have pointed out the problematic centre port and the two vents. I don't want ports, vents that are audible. People were agreeing the PPSL is better than this solution.

I am talking to Funktion 1 in the meantime. I will also be building a PPSL and hearing it for myself. I can't feel satisfied with any of the solutions below 160hz as much as I am satisfied with the rest of the bandwidth (>160) yet.

 

[angeloitacare]

I thought the bass bins were ok too, but on the subwoofer forum they people have pointed out the problematic centre port and the two vents. I don't want ports, vents that are audible. People were agreeing the PPSL is better than this solution.

I am talking to Funktion 1 in the meantime. I will also be building a PPSL and hearing it for myself. I can't feel satisfied with any of the solutions below 160hz as much as I am satisfied with the rest of the bandwidth (>160) yet.

I dont think bass horn loading makes much sense for domestic use. If i'd had to start from scratch, i would make bass line arrays in closed boxes, or ported.
Never heard the slot loading solution, but that looks awesome.

 

[kodomo]

A good update! I paid Autotech last Friday, if nothing goes wrong, in 6 weeks I will be having all six of my horns 🙂

I bought two of Scanspeak 30w/4558T00 woofers to try. If I like their sound, I will find 8 more!

I decided to halt anything related to crossovers until I measure each driver and horn separately and then try my results with minidsp. After that the passive crossover will be designed.

 

[kodomo]

This is the room I will try to integrate them in

 

[kodomo]

I got all of the horns now! I also got the compression drivers. I am waiting for the rest of the scanspeaks and also made a small change with the supravox 285-2000's. There is a German company called Hornfabrik and they have a special edition for the supravox 285-2000, which is without the phase plug. I do not need my driver to go up to 7k or 8k. I will use it between 160 to 600hz. Hornfabrik uses these drivers for 100 to 500hz so they had them modified. It suits better for my purposes so I am buying a modified pair from them 🙂 Here are some shots of the horns that has arrived. Their finishing and material, damping is as good as I wanted. The whole transaction was also very professional and everything was on time. I would like to thank Autotech of Poland and Greg from G-point audio for this.

I am very very busy nowadays but I will find time and build the stands while taking measurements of each of them. Then I will use my minidsp to find the right slopes and crossover points to translate to the passive crossover that will be built.

 

[kodomo]

new bass units

After poor service of Turkish ScanSpeak dealer I changed the bass units from 4x2 12" scanspeak units to 2x2 18" Tad units. I am going to use TAD TL-1801's in bass reflex boxes from about 34hz up to 160hz or maybe 200hz. It matches the efficiency much better too. Here is the latest bass units with the horns, but I am also changing the frame of the main unit to a visually lighter frame.

 

[Gluca]

Hey komodo! Nice looking project!

I am currently 'fine tuning' my system and working on the xover

TAD TL1603 in sealed box (I do strongly prefer SB over bass reflex)
Big 100Hz tractrix horn with TAD TM 1201
300Hz Iwata/JMLC with TAD TD 4001
small JMLC 2kHz horn with TAD TD 2001

I do not feel the need for a super tweeter after many hours of listening to Fostex T900A and TD2001, actually I prefer TD2001 to fostex's ... measures do not differ that much, it's a matter of taste and sonic signature.

The system is biamped with active 24db/oct xover at 120Hz. I am using 6db/oct on horns: low pass on the big tractrix and high pass on TD4001 (no low pass here, it's free to reach its top end but horn is dying before) and high pass on TD2001. TD4001 and TD2001 are attenuated by 4dB. This morning I decided I can drive the big tractrix directly without the 120Hz xover after measurements and listening test.

Picture of the system (the TD2001/Fostex are not installed here, still deciding on the final shape for the bracing). I also attach the measurement I took a while ago (there was no tweeter) and the measurement of the big tractrix (at 1mt) I took this morning with and without 120Hz active high pass ... no difference as you see

Hope this helps.

 

[kodomo]

@Gluca: Do you have measurements just for your bass bins?

I liked sealed arrangements for flatter response and smoother rolloff. I also hear port noises in some speakers... However the TAD drivers are built for bass reflex cabinets and if designed properly hopefully there won't be port noises. I am not aiming too low. I am aiming for 38hz and if needed I can always use my tapped horn.

By the way this is my current horn systems response, I hope to achieve a much better response than this although it is not bad at all. This response is from a tapped horn built by me covering 20 to 80, klipschorn bassbin with cw1526 from its bottom limit to 380hz, 190hz tractrix made by me with bms4592ndmid from 380z to 6.5khz, fostex t500amk2 tweeters from 6,kHz up to 45khz. The measurement is in room at listening position by amok mic with rev with 1/12 smoothing.

 

[Gluca]

Sure, i was using TL1603 in a proper 170L bass reflex but i am liking sealed sub better. I'll consider in future a differnt woofer

 

[marco_gea]

I am currently 'fine tuning' my system and working on the xover

TAD TL1603 in sealed box (I do strongly prefer SB over bass reflex)
Big 100Hz tractrix horn with TAD TM 1201
300Hz Iwata/JMLC with TAD TD 4001
small JMLC 2kHz horn with TAD TD 2001

Hi Gianluca,

congratulations, you've got a super set of drivers there.

I do not feel the need for a super tweeter after many hours of listening to Fostex T900A and TD2001, actually I prefer TD2001 to fostex's ... measures do not differ that much, it's a matter of taste and sonic signature.

Indeed it is.

The system is biamped with active 24db/oct xover at 120Hz. I am using 6db/oct on horns:

Now this is a bad idea IMHO.

First, if you actually measure the frequency response of the individual horns, with and without the crossover, you'll quickly realise that the actual acoustic slopes are nothing like the electrical 6 dB/oct. And so the alleged benefits of the 1st order crossover are nothing more than wishful thinking...

Secondly, such shallow high-pass slopes allow through too much out-of-band energy, and for a multitude of reasons the sound of horns at and below cut-off is definitely not the best...

What I would suggest instead is measuring the unfiltered responses, and then working out a second order crossover that results in the adjacent ways to be in phase for at least one octave either side of the crossover frequency.

low pass on the big tractrix and high pass on TD4001 (no low pass here, it's free to reach its top end but horn is dying before) and high pass on TD2001.

Again, not a good idea. You're basically allowing the comparatively harsh and uncontrolled output of the big 2" driver to sum to the better-behaved output of the smaller 1" driver for at least two octaves. Why?

Anyhow, these are just my humble suggestions.
Then, as always, whatever floats your boat! ;-)

Cheers,
Marco

 

[Gluca]

@Gluca: Do you have measurements just for your bass bins?

Yes, the attached first graph is bass bin and mid-bass horns with no xover (green and blue curves), room resonances did not allow me to take a better sweep but theoretically the bass bin should be good down to 55Hz or so.

Marco, thanks for the comments. I did actually share your worries and let me specify that I am crossing horns at 2x the cutoff (and much more for the smaller TD2001) and clearly the resulting slope due to horns/driver + electric xover is 12dB/oct: see attached measurement with xovers.

Many reported the TD4001 to be somehow harsh probably due to high freq breakup modes of the diaphgram (and you can see them in my poor measurements too) while I am liking it more (way much more) than old altecs and the classical JBL pro line which I owned in the past.

I am using a 1uF for the TD2001 so it kicks in at 10kHz or so when the big 300Hz horn and TD4001 starts loosing energy

Anyway, this is just the starting point ... I may be switching to 18dB/oct electrical cover in future. So far I am happy and I do understand most of the commercial and custom horn systems are running minimal 6dB/oct xovers.

attached:
low and midlow NO xover
low and midlw with xover (24db/oct @ 120Hz and 6db/oct @ 600Hz
midlow and mid with xover (6db/oct @ 600Hz)

 

[marco_gea]

Marco, thanks for the comments. I did actually share your worries and let me specify that I am crossing horns at 2x the cutoff (and much more for the smaller TD2001) and clearly the resulting slope due to horns/driver + electric xover is 12dB/oct: see attached measurement with xovers.

Well, to me this is clearly NOT a 12dB/oct slope on the high-pass, since at Fx/2 the TD4001's output is down by more than 40dB with respect to its level at Fx - see annotated attachment.
That's to be expected, since the natural roll-off of most horn-loaded compression drivers below the horn's cut-off (Fc) is between -24 and -36 dB/oct.

But I'm glad to see that you didn't expect the 6dB/oct electrical filter to result in a first order acoustical crossover 🙂

Many reported the TD4001 to be somehow harsh probably due to high freq breakup modes of the diaphgram (and you can see them in my poor measurements too) while I am liking it more (way much more) than old altecs and the classical JBL pro line which I owned in the past.

I'm not at all surprised. The TD4001 is a far more advanced driver than those old drivers - and I know it sounds excellent even when used by itself for all the mid-high range.

I am using a 1uF for the TD2001 so it kicks in at 10kHz or so when the big 300Hz horn and TD4001 starts loosing energy

OK, that makes sense. So you're basically just using the TD2001 as a supertweeter for the very top octave. Nothing wrong with that.

So far I am happy and I do understand most of the commercial and custom horn systems are running minimal 6dB/oct xovers.

Not sure about "most", but some certainly are. This still doesn't mean that it's the best way to filter a compression driver + horn, though...

Cheers,
Marco

 

[angeloitacare]

300Hz Iwata/JMLC with TAD TD 4001

hi Gluca

you will experience a major improvement of you system if you

1) add one or two woofers and stack them in a line array configuration
2) switch from TAD 4001 / 2001 to Beyma TPL-150 ( unless you like the harshness of the TAD compression drivers ) Every time i heard them, after 15 minutes listening, they made my ears bleed.

 

[dave123]

hi Gluca

you will experience a major improvement of you system if you

1) add one or two woofers and stack them in a line array configuration
2) switch from TAD 4001 / 2001 to Beyma TPL-150 ( unless you like the harshness of the TAD compression drivers ) Every time i heard them, after 15 minutes listening, they made my ears bleed.

what about TPL-200H? it doesn't seem to be as flat as TPl-150H