That is for sure Art, pretty obvious I know, but man it does some great things in regards to making an acoustic guitar rock.
JJ - it is only 2" for the most part, but remember the two large holes under the soundboard hole are 5" deep, a great help, and you can sure hear the difference.
JJ - anything that touches the chamber divider will feedback like a bitch, I have tried! The drivers are directly under this of course, and have no problem with showing their dominance!
I've lifted plenty of horn loaded monitors around with my arms while the stage rocked..
That second source at the horn exit will be ~5 milliseconds behind the input source, one full wavelength (360 degrees) of phase lag around 226 Hz, 3600 degrees of phase lag at 2260 Hz.
The three sources will be in and out of phase depending on frequency and listening position.
You can measure phase fairly easily, but understanding its role in sound reproduction is more difficult 😉
No, the sound is picked up from the strings (and/or soundboard), then amplified, creating a second sound source through each horn and the secondary vibrations they amplify.
That second source at the horn exit will be ~5 milliseconds behind the input source, one full wavelength (360 degrees) of phase lag around 226 Hz, 3600 degrees of phase lag at 2260 Hz.
The three sources will be in and out of phase depending on frequency and listening position.
https://www.roomeqwizard.com/help/help_en-GB/html/graph_splphase.html
You can measure phase fairly easily, but understanding its role in sound reproduction is more difficult 😉
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Interesting JJ, sounds like an addition to your pickup design maybe? Or a suggestion to Lloyd that might work in your favor? Acoustic guitars have loads of room inside them!
Yeah, that is pretty much why I don't understand exactly what is happening with the sound, but I like it! Imagine if phase cancellation made it sound like ****, similar to when people cut a hole in their soundboard and drop a driver in, and they say hey Art, why does this suck? 🤣
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I know that is true for me, that is when I rely on my ears, I have good ones (I think).
Willy Nelson never asked my opinion of his guitar that his fingernails cut a hole in the soundboard:
Being diplomatic, if he had asked, I may have told him it's pickup output sounded rather "interesting", and worked in the context of his band.
Years ago, I used to have reliably good hearing...
Guitar sound is subjective, and if you like what you hear, it is good.
Art
Art - I love Willie, and always thought Trigger was a pretty good marketing tool, but I agree, man that guitar just does not sound good. Not only is he out of tune on this link, but the guitar just does not cut it. Ears, and yes it is all subjective, to a point.
Now when I say ears, I don't mean passing a hearing test, because mine are going down as I get older, I mean musical ears, pitch, or perfect pitch, if you are able (if there is such a thing), tone, appreciate for instruments that do not walk on each other, balanced sound.
I think a good test is if you still really love music that you loved 50 years ago (and still listen to it), that is something. Many people can't say that, at least honestly!
I guess my "contention" would be that as the strings move relative to the pickup to make a signal, so can the pickup move relative to the strings and also make a signal. Granted, it's pretty stiff up by the neck, but I'll bet there's some movement of the top there. Remove that movement and replace it with a different movement (divider board), or ideally no movement (hand held) and it just might sound different overall.
I certainly wouldn't judge Willie's guitar sound from an Iphone recording.
You can hold a spoon still and stir your coffee by moving the cup..
It's a lot easier to make strings wiggle than wiggle magnetic pickups to make a signal.
The most modern thing I've ever considered trying to play was "Pumped Up Kicks". It's easy. But not "me"; I'd only do it for the novelty, see if I can get a reaction out of the younger players who occasionally show up. Instead, I'm lately trying to get through stuff like "Fly Me To The Moon" and "Georgia". Cant yet get the ending on the first, the chorus on the second.
[Chorus]
Em G
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
D A
You'd better run, better run, outrun my gun
Em G
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
D A
You'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet
But still no place to hold the pickup winding and magnets; i.e. no "divider board". From what I've read, backs of an acoustic guitar move and radiate sound. I dont think your divider board and routed horn structure radiate anything, 'cept from the two mouths.
This Willie recording with Trigger is much better, he actually makes that crazy guitar sound pretty good, of course much of that is Willie!
JJ - I can't agree with that at all, you are very far off on this one. How can a divider board (chamber divider) not radiate any sound with all that horn power underneath, not a chance. I can hear it. In fact I do a tap test on the soundboard as usual, pretty damn good of course. I also do a tap test on the 1/2" thick Baltic Birch chamber divider. I thought it might be dead due to its heft, but not at all, it rings far better than I expected.
In fact, how does a Klipsch corner horn make the huge walls vibrate. I know it is not apples to apples of course, but the Klipsch horns have great power and the walls are large. My horns have far much less power, but the chamber divider is far smaller. In fact I bet a 12" driver compared to a wall is probably not much of a different ratio than a 3" driver and my chamber divider. A wall is secured with fasteners just like my chamber divider. Per picture below I bet driver to wall and driver to chamber divider total areas are both somewhere in the 50:1 area.
I can also hear the soundboard itself, with or without horns. When you add the drivers and the guitar explodes, the difference is stunning! This is NOT a guitar that puts everything out the mouths, not by a long shot. I know, I have ear evidence!
JJ is correct, backs of any acoustic instrument move and radiate sound.
Serious players of acoustic classical guitars try to minimize body contact which will dampen it's output.
Violins have chin and nest rests that allow the player to hold the instrument without damping it's front or back.
You can't isolate the ring tone from the horn divider from the rest of the guitar by ear without individually damping each portion of it.
Most of your guitar's high frequency output is from the strings, soundboard and it's resonant chamber.
Most of it's speaker's output is emitted from the horn mouths, by a long shot compared to any leakage through the 1/2" divider which is braced and damped by all the horn channels.
Any vibration of the Klipsch horn or room walls would be considered wasted acoustic power.
It is impossible to avoid some sympathetic vibration without incorporating methods like constrained layer damping.
A well braced horn designed for sound reproduction won't ring for long. If you rap on a bass horn panel and it goes "doooong", it needs more bracing.
If you rap on a high frequency horn and it goes "diiiiing", it needs damping.
Well, it was "just a thought".
I've never seen how you actually assemble the FHAG. I know the top is held fast to the outside upper edge of routed section via the "fugly" screws / washers as fastening. A couple inches below, sits the divider. I would assume you empty a bottle of tite-bond all around the edges of that board, to get adhesion to the inner sides of the routed portion. And a glue stripe all along all the mating edges of all the horn channel walls, all around the three (4? - one near the tail) central chambers, a big blob on the "core" lookin' structure with the 5 "arms".
After thoroughly drying, one would think you could fire a shotgun through the speaker's rear cavity section into the divider and it would blow a hole through it - but not separate it from the routed wood portion of the assembly.
Maybe it's assembled differently than I imagine. I've assumed the divider is mechanically one with the routed out section, after gluing up. Trying to imagine how it could move at all in vibration, with all that "bracing" provided by all those orthogonal channel and chamber walls.
I've never seen how you actually assemble the FHAG. I know the top is held fast to the outside upper edge of routed section via the "fugly" screws / washers as fastening. A couple inches below, sits the divider. I would assume you empty a bottle of tite-bond all around the edges of that board, to get adhesion to the inner sides of the routed portion. And a glue stripe all along all the mating edges of all the horn channel walls, all around the three (4? - one near the tail) central chambers, a big blob on the "core" lookin' structure with the 5 "arms".
After thoroughly drying, one would think you could fire a shotgun through the speaker's rear cavity section into the divider and it would blow a hole through it - but not separate it from the routed wood portion of the assembly.
Maybe it's assembled differently than I imagine. I've assumed the divider is mechanically one with the routed out section, after gluing up. Trying to imagine how it could move at all in vibration, with all that "bracing" provided by all those orthogonal channel and chamber walls.