words best don't exists in a subjective honny , so let just says what are the best Compressions drivers not THE ONE
available today.. and what are the goods horns to go with .. big thread enough 🤔
for me best horn experience ever is a full Oken Horn systeme with Onken 5000 tweeter , Onken 455 mids , and ONKEN 255 low mids , with 200WOOD Hor and 500wood horn. but out of reach with their rarety and prices ..
goto cant compete , long tratrix horns are not my taste .. modern Compresssion drivers are made for the pro world so they are not built for low level home hifi performance in mind..
available today.. and what are the goods horns to go with .. big thread enough 🤔
for me best horn experience ever is a full Oken Horn systeme with Onken 5000 tweeter , Onken 455 mids , and ONKEN 255 low mids , with 200WOOD Hor and 500wood horn. but out of reach with their rarety and prices ..
goto cant compete , long tratrix horns are not my taste .. modern Compresssion drivers are made for the pro world so they are not built for low level home hifi performance in mind..
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This is very difficult to do online. It can be nearly impossible to judge the critical listening abilities from only the written word. There have been a number of listening tests here on the forum where members have been unable to tell a difference, or have been found cheating to get the results. It's a known problem with the Internet and human nature. IME I only trust the hearing abilities of people that I have actually met and worked with, or people who's work I know from direct exposure. One can sometimes infer skills thru online posts, but it's still "caveat lector."
Indeed. However it has been discussed many times on DiyAudio that if someone can reliably hear a difference in controlled tests, that is not subjective. We can objectively prove or disprove what someone can hear.
Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt. 😀
Could you explain this more thoroughly? (Sorry, but it looks just like audiophile BS to me.)
Chris
Hypex FA’s with NCore amplifiers are not the best D-Class amps but quite good for the price. Can’t compare Hypex NCore sound to other amplifier and this system is not the easiest to evaluate and compare amplifiers because of plate amps with dsp and crossovers.
I have been using 112dB 1W/1m sensitive BMS 4538 compression drivers (BMS 15C262 coax) in my test setup with Hypex Fusion FA123 in tweeter channel (NC100HF) and haven’t noticed any hiss or noise problem. Haven’t already placed my ear next to dust cap of 15C262 but from 30-50cm they are dead silent to me.
One of the reasons for that test setup was to verify is there any hiss and conclusion was that I don’t need L-pad or capacitor to lower sensitivity of that compression driver with that amplifier.
This is intresting point and could lead different experiences, conclusions and aspects.
This wasn't the issue I heard when using the FA122s (mentioned in a couple of linked forum posts, above). There was something quite serious occurring, but signal/noise wasn't an area of concern. (I would hazard a guess it was modulation distortion at millivolt output levels.)
I have to say that the experience impressed me so much that I no longer trust other gear with that name on it. Anyone with "full range" 2 inch compression drivers (I was using TAD TD-4002s) on good full-range horns (I was using K-402s) could easily hear the problem(s), IMO. It means, to me at least, that the company isn't testing their gear with the most demanding gear: compression drivers on full range horns. They would have picked up the problem if they had.
Chris
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It puzzles me for sure, and I don’t understand the how and why. But the topic is worthy of a thread of its own. I will try to start one tomorrow. As far as I can tell, it’s physics, not BS.
Yuicihi Arai 290 :
- Horn Type : Hyperbolic (T=0.7) Constant Directivity (CD) horn
- Coverage : H 95°, V 40°
- Cut-off frequency (Fc) : 290Hz
- Frequency range : 540/600Hz to 20KHz
- Does not say so on the site but the drawings shows the 10 deg exit angle.
- It was made to fit the TAD 4001, JBL 2450 etc. According to the parameters below.
- At the time these were produced the software availability was obviously limited.
Throat angle [deg]
Equiv. Fc (Exp) [Hz]
Equiv. Fc (Hypex T=0.7) [Hz]
Equiv. Fc (Hypex T=0.6) [Hz]
JBL 2450
49.2
10
217
290
320
TAD TD-4001,
49.2
10
217
290
320
Thanks. That's exactly what I thought.
"Gee, I wonder why all horns and compression drivers don't use the same 'exit angle'?" I personally wouldn't call a horn with identical exit/entrance angles "made for" a particular compression driver design (or even allude to the notion, but that's just me).
It's interesting to note that the horn throat profile advocated by one particular forum participant as "the only correct profile" was apparently tested anechoically and found to have significant problems with its resulting polar coverage--which, I think is at a much higher importance in terms of how that horn sounds than the supposed "goodness" of having identical exit/entrance angles--with selected compression driver.
Moral to story: be careful of who you believe when it comes to almost religious statements of what to design horns to (i.e., their basic design requirements). Make sure the entire set of requirements pass the sniff test.
Chris
"Gee, I wonder why all horns and compression drivers don't use the same 'exit angle'?" I personally wouldn't call a horn with identical exit/entrance angles "made for" a particular compression driver design (or even allude to the notion, but that's just me).
It's interesting to note that the horn throat profile advocated by one particular forum participant as "the only correct profile" was apparently tested anechoically and found to have significant problems with its resulting polar coverage--which, I think is at a much higher importance in terms of how that horn sounds than the supposed "goodness" of having identical exit/entrance angles--with selected compression driver.
Moral to story: be careful of who you believe when it comes to almost religious statements of what to design horns to (i.e., their basic design requirements). Make sure the entire set of requirements pass the sniff test.
Chris
Yes, that might be just you. 😉 At least in terms of the Yuichi and the TAD. The horn was built and tweaked with that driver in mind, and thus works very well with it. The JBL which has a similar geometry also works well. It's not an either/or question. If a horn was properly designed to work well with a particular driver, then it will work well with the driver it was designed for. But other drivers of a similar geometry will also likely work well. Drivers of a very different geometry probably won't, and this can easily be seen in measurements and is audible. You claim "goodness" (your term) when in fact it's mostly FR and probably some polar response.
Where is this described? Where are the vertical and horizontal polar plots?
Pano, you're the one making these claims--the onus is on you.
Attachments
See above.
Give me a chance, I'm working on a thread about the subject. Will post later today.
May I ask what exctly you don't like about the Yuichi horn? I assume you have listened to them?
And what do you mean by "full-range 2" or 1.4/1.5" compression drivers"?
I guess I am old, I would not consider a horn developed at the end of the 1980s as a "nostalgia'" horn. I choose it because it is technically interesting and fit within the size and technical constraints I have to live with. The problems with using drivers with exit angles different from what the horn was designed with do not require polars, a simple on axis measurement shows the problem clearly.
Below are three different drivers on the same Yuichi A-290 horn, No EQ, No cross-overs direct driven by amplifier with 1.8 ohm source impedance. These drivers are all 16 ohms. Measurement microphone is a UMIK-2, Source is Topping DX-7S DAC, balanced output. Measurements are in room.
The Radian has an approximately 21° exit angle, the TAD, and JBL approximately 10°. The distance from phase plug to driver mouth is approximately the same in TAD and JBL driver, the Radian is at least an 2.5 -3cm shorter. (Sorry I have to dig for that information and no more time)
I am no expert, so Pano, Docali and a number of other people with considerably more expertise than me have advised me. The discussion of my experience with the Yuichi is covered by at least several threads here on diyA.
I have seen captures with other drivers that exhibit the problem shown below to varying degrees with both the A-290 and TH-4001 horns. If you are curious you can dig further on the forum.
I have done hundreds of measurements over the 11 months I have owned these horns. The TD-4001 performs and sounds the best overall, with the JBL a moderately distant second, and the Radian clearly is not an appropriate match. The Radians were bought new less than 2 years ago and have not been abused - good driver on 2380A horn, but not the A-290. I have comprehensive DSP and was not able to entirely correct the Radian's behavior - measured relatively flat but sounded odd.
Coverage with the Yuichi in a properly treated room is surprisingly uniform, performance is good throughout the at distances greater than 2 meters from the speaker system.
Below are three different drivers on the same Yuichi A-290 horn, No EQ, No cross-overs direct driven by amplifier with 1.8 ohm source impedance. These drivers are all 16 ohms. Measurement microphone is a UMIK-2, Source is Topping DX-7S DAC, balanced output. Measurements are in room.
The Radian has an approximately 21° exit angle, the TAD, and JBL approximately 10°. The distance from phase plug to driver mouth is approximately the same in TAD and JBL driver, the Radian is at least an 2.5 -3cm shorter. (Sorry I have to dig for that information and no more time)
I am no expert, so Pano, Docali and a number of other people with considerably more expertise than me have advised me. The discussion of my experience with the Yuichi is covered by at least several threads here on diyA.
I have seen captures with other drivers that exhibit the problem shown below to varying degrees with both the A-290 and TH-4001 horns. If you are curious you can dig further on the forum.
I have done hundreds of measurements over the 11 months I have owned these horns. The TD-4001 performs and sounds the best overall, with the JBL a moderately distant second, and the Radian clearly is not an appropriate match. The Radians were bought new less than 2 years ago and have not been abused - good driver on 2380A horn, but not the A-290. I have comprehensive DSP and was not able to entirely correct the Radian's behavior - measured relatively flat but sounded odd.
Coverage with the Yuichi in a properly treated room is surprisingly uniform, performance is good throughout the at distances greater than 2 meters from the speaker system.
Vertical polars are going to be an issue above some frequency with the curved top/bottom horn walls, i.e., it's going to sound like a "horn" (as the frequency increases, the polar energy doesn't go around the curvature and stay attached). The internal vanes will also introduce complex lobing at high frequencies off-axis. It's a sectoral horn--and it has the same issues as any sectoral horn in that regard. As long as you're directly on-axis, things are okay (until you get to a high enough frequency where the internal vanes obscure the throat entry of the compression driver from the listener, i.e.,
Off-axis, things aren't so good above a certain frequency (which you will see in a polar coverage plot--both vertically and horizontally. Also, the limited vertical dimension of the mouth starts to lose vertical pattern control at ~1600 Hz (something that I know a lot about with K-400/500/600 series horns, which start to lose their polar directivity at ~2 kHz), disproportionately putting extra acoustic energy on your ceiling and floor below that frequency, and requiring extra room acoustic treatments to handle that issue.
The basic sectoral type of horn was big in the 1950s-early 1960s (i.e., collapsing polar midrange horns). It's not my cup of tea in a horn. There are much better design choices to be made nowadays.
I have heard Smith horns (with the internal vanes) and sectoral horns (without the internal vanes). For casual listening, they sound nice. For critical listening--not so much. The internal vanes start becoming a liability just where you don't want them to start having problems: high frequency coverage horizontally and vertically.
I'm referring to 1.4/1.5/2 inch exit compression drivers that cross over at 400-600 Hz and extend their pass band to 15-20 kHz. In other words...I'm not talking about "midrange drivers". That subject brings in its own set of problems (polar lobing due to separate midrange/tweeter driver/horn centerlines being more than 1/4 wavelength apart in the vertical plane).
Chris
I have English language articles written by Yuichi that I will post later. I have been fascinated with this horn for a decade or so, and am quite happy that I finally satisfied my curiosity.
And to your point the Yuichi actually has quite good off-axis response. I don't have very good measurements showing this, but once I finish with my measurement hardware upgrades I will try to do this. HF energy is very evenly dispersed throughout the listening area. I have room measurements that show this pretty clearly I can post later.
Thanks for taking the time to write this detailed reply Chris.
But isn't this a biradial horn though? A sectoral horn has straight sides?
I will be pleasantly surprised if that is true, and anxiously await the polar sonograms showing this (both vertically and horizontally).
By the way, I've found that AMT-1s, stacked in a two-high configuration with the top AMT leaning back about 20-30 degrees works extremely well, and has clean output from ~700 Hz all the way up to 20 kHz (550 Hz if using side-wall wings of 12" length to extend the horn walls of the basic AMT-1). Of course, the vertical coverage angle is a bit ragged above a certain frequency due to the two sources splayed in the vertical plane, but overall this works nicely as surround HF horns/drivers bi-amped/time aligned/EQed flat on top of Belle bass bins using a miniDSP 2x4 HD in a basic 5.1 loudspeaker array, and with good sensitivity (about 96-98 dB/1m). It sounds quite smooth and even throughout its pass band with the one noted disruption in vertical polars--and is actually a big improvement in the subjective sound quality over stock tri-amped Belles (IMO). The price for each two-high stack is definitely right: ~$350 USD complete.
Chris
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