I'm totally with you here - spaciousness in a small room is a problem, reflections are to early and there is no real reverb. So I clearly prefer a controlled room over a bad one ;-) and this needs plenty of absorption in a small room.
Why engineers rely heavily on recorded room ambience has mainly a different reason - cause we want to give the music the RIGHT ambience! And a living room is VERY rarely the right ambience for music. You have halls and clubs and chambers and small rooms with strong special sound and even artificial constructions like reverb plates for a distinct sound. But no musician wants to put their music in a living room.
It's totally fine when someone wants that "immersive" feeling for casual listening - but I prefer to listen to the "original" room of the recording and not MY room. And a CD construction can help significant.
p.s.: For home cinemas it's very easy and VERY helpful to do a room design exactly like yours. I did im my living room cinema. Take an acoustic transparent screen, put speakers and woofer array behind it and fill the rest with absorption - in my case 40cm deep. The room benefits massive from such a huge absorber and speakers can work without Lambda/4 resonance/SBIR from the backwall cause they are packed in absorption. Then add a CD horn for less side reflections to get more "reach". With the right drivers you achieve a very natural presentation of the music/movie - you don't think about the speakers, the sound is just "right" and the positioning of sources feels "real". Very happy with that setup.
I don't see that anything is proved in this thread 😱 Since decades of professional horn speakers asymmetric horns... Everything is a compromise and you need to look at your objectives, but to generally state round is better than asymmetric or vice versa does not make much sense.
I believe I was careful to present facts without passing judgement. Would you care to refute what I've said?
As for decades of professional horn speakers, could we be talking different priorities, or changing priorities?
Copilot: Thank you for your thoughtful response! I appreciate the effort you've taken to present your perspective in a balanced and factual manner. I don't necessarily seek to refute what you've said, but to explore the nuances together.
Regarding decades of professional horn speakers, I believe you're onto something interesting. Could it indeed be a matter of evolving priorities? For example, advancements in technology, shifts in listener preferences, or even cultural changes might play a role. Alternatively, could it also be that different applications or environments naturally favor different approaches? I'd love to hear your thoughts on how these factors might influence the design and performance priorities of professional horn speakers over the years.
Regarding decades of professional horn speakers, I believe you're onto something interesting. Could it indeed be a matter of evolving priorities? For example, advancements in technology, shifts in listener preferences, or even cultural changes might play a role. Alternatively, could it also be that different applications or environments naturally favor different approaches? I'd love to hear your thoughts on how these factors might influence the design and performance priorities of professional horn speakers over the years.
That's my take too. Round and asymmetric are both compromises.
For the conical syn horns I've built, the closer the horizontal and vertical pattern, the more problematic the response has been, on-axis and close to on-axis.
All the horns I've built, 90x60, 60x40, 70x55, 60x60 and a few others that didn't make it past proto, have had at least some amount of a straight on-axis problem.
But it's been very clear, the closer the horn pattern is to symmetric, the more severe the on-axis variations and the wider the polar span in degrees that can be considered to be part of on-axis trouble.
A 3:2, like the current 90H x 60V I'm running, can use a horizontal reference tuning angle at 10 degrees as a surrogate for taking polars.
Inside of 10 degrees, it has a mild case of the on-axis blues, worst angle being zero degrees. From 10 degrees and out, all is smooth sailing..
The 60x60 for contrast, has an on-axis trouble zone to a bit past +/- 15 degrees.
I won't build symmetric conicals anymore. A 6:5 aspect ratio is about as close as I'll try.
I have to believe a round horn probably magnifies the on-axis problem relative to straight-sided symmetric conicals, (which at least have corners to mitigate the on-ax focus).
Anybody know what reference tuning angles are used for OS guides....when one is willing to use such as a surrogate in lieu of optimizing a full set of polars?
I bet it's at least 15 degrees, maybe 20 or so....
Anyway, compromises all around....horses for courses, ....of course 🙂
Hello DT
I set-up on the long wall and listen across the room not down it's length providing I have enough width for a reasonable listening distance. So in essence my set-ups are more similar to your desk top closer to near field. I find long narrow rooms difficult to deal with and try to find alternative speaker placements.
My HT is in a long room. I use wide L/R and narrow in comparison for the center. The wide L/R work well in stereo and help enhance spaciousness. They image very well and could go phantom but prefer a dedicated center. Use toe in and directivity to help reduce HF reflections off the side wall. It's an asymmetrical set-up that breaks the rules but works very well.
Rob 🙂
Hello
Yes a scaled down version based on his design. Been through several driver changes over the years. Can't imagine the full system in a home!
Rob 🙂
The 80° x 60° ME464 is only available with a 1.4" throat.
The 90° x 45° Limmer Horns 292 is available with 1.4, 1.5 and 2" throats, response with a B&C DE920 (1.4" throat, 3" dome diaphragm) is ~-5dB at 400Hz:
Like a scaled up version of the early 1980s JBL 2380 bi-radial.
Art
Okay, I’m booked and leaving Thursday roundtrip Amtrak NY Penn/Wash. DC station to hear Glen’s system with Troy’s speakers. Booked 3-night stay at Hilton, Arlington, VA. Must get my roundtrip LLIR Penn station tickets tonight.
Glen has the Sonnet Pasithea DAC so no issues playing my files via my laptop/wireless keyboard/mouse. His Triode 45 tube amps are way different than my First Watt J2 amp and F4 amp + Don Sachs preamp. Just hope they won’t apologize too much to the speakers for the less pristine recordings of my playlist. Will get measurements of his room.
Attachments
well it is at least a nice looking setup.
If you decide to sell your Radians LMK. I have some 425 horns that would like them.
If you decide to sell your Radians LMK. I have some 425 horns that would like them.
Your room is way more different than the amps.
I don't understand where the wall is on the west side of your room any better than your last sketch.
1,4" or 2" was the question? The main problem of this horn is the price ...
250m is also interesting - smaller but with very similar performance.
I use the 033 with a BMS 2" coax - for it's size it's great and it doesn't go deep which helps a lot with passive crossovers. But of course doesn't use the full low end of such a driver.
How are round horns https://josephcrowe.com/collections/circular-horns different from JMLC horns? Presumably, they are very different, performance wise.
To presume horns with very similar expansion profiles to be very different in performance demonstrates your continued lack of understanding.
Some of Crowe's round horns are far more similar than different from JMLC profiles:
As you can (and should) see in the very similar polar charts of horns like your AH425, they are just as "completely free and devoid of any coloration or resonances that may harm sound quality."
The larger AH425 has control of it's coverage pattern to a lower frequency than Crowe's horn #1689.
Art
That's something we also see with waveguides from somasonus!
https://www.somasonus.net/waveguides
As a round baffle is the worst design you can do the round horn shape shows influences and imperfections a little stronger.
I prototyped this one but never had the time to do measurements:
I thought it was all pretty obvious: the South wall is only 11 ft wide. And at that wall's westward edge and moving across to the north wall is no west wall; instead, it's all open to the kitchen and north of that to the staircase. Then northward past the staircase there is a small west wall, but that is mostly comprised of the 7 ft high x 4 ft open closet. I sit in my upholstered low back swivel rocking Drexel chair in front of the closet.
Demonstrates that you dont have sense of empathy. A forum is a place where likeminded people join eachother in conversations and help where they would like to help others. Putting someone on the spot for not knowing shows a lack of emotional intelligence and goes against the core function of this forum.
Yeah any issues would accumulate on a round / symmetric design, but one can use a profile without issues as well! Actually best response I've seen, with least issues on 0-axis, is from round axi-symmetric devices. Mabat sims and measurements are quite exceptional, see ath thread or his website.
Here is my custom axi-symmetric 3d printed freestanding waveguide measured response. It's unfinished so there is a chance the response gets bit better after sanding (seams) and painting. Measured response +-20deg is within 1.5db between ~1k and 10k, it's 1.4" throat so above is due to what ever the driver makes. Difference between 0 and 10 deg is within 0.5db. 20deg and even 30deg out has undulation that stays within ~0.5db within itself, it just gets attenuated. The response is normalized to 10deg, visible lines are 0, 10, 20 and 30 deg
simulated response 5deg steps:
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I never saw that review Troy did of those circular horns, and given that their shape does differ from the 425, however slightly, I don't think it brands me as so ignorant to assume that they could therefore yield substantially different sound.
Last week I thought that if Troy agrees to this, I would send him my 425 horns and use them with either the Yamaha JA6681B drivers-exactly like Gary Dahl has in the 425s above his Altec midwoofers that I had cloned-or another driver. Unlike the Yamahas, the Radian Bes need EQ and must be done very precisely-and which was why Gary gave up with using the Radian 745Bes originally in the 425s when he failed to perfect the filter. He complained of the Radian's "hardness"-the exact word Arnaud Le Gac used to describe his dislike of them. It was only Pierre (an EE) who-after 30 attempts-got the EQ where it had to be, who describes their sound as smooth and relaxed.
Pierre said that he doubts Troy will have any trouble doing the same, but it Troy thinks that it will end up taking him too many tweaking and listening tests he might decline to use the Radians.
In any case, depending on what I hear today from how Glen's ES450 horn presents the sound of my recordings-and perhaps especially next month hearing NicoB's two CD horns-I will want Troy to also build another horn/driver combo to swap around with the 425/? combo every six months or so atop the midwoofers. WOW! That plan should be great, even if I may have to reposition the cabinets and/or the acoustical room treatment every time I swap out the horns.
I think there's a strong chance that I would love what I'd hear from the 425s. But as Chang had inquired and as Robh3606 describes of his two CD horn systems, they will give what the 425's can't: Not "sound stage"-because you and Camplo said that only exists in the recording to whatever degree-but spaciousness.
And that's one big reason why I sent you that sketch of my room; so that I might learn how my room might react to Nico B's CD horns, or those CD you might recommend.