Test CD+horn outside before installing in cabinet?

Hello, before cutting the hole for the horn in the baffle on the speaker, can I just install the cone driver in there, and try the cone and compression driver + horn combination with the latter outside of the cabinet and get a somewhat truthful representation of what the combo would sound like inside the cabinet? That way I could change my mind before cutting the hole for the horn. The ported cabinet is already designed with a specific driver in mind but the HF driver is not 100% decided. 10" woofer and 1" CD. Thanks.
 
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A cabinet has quite big impact on the sound so, no, not really. The distance between 2 drivers has quite an impact and depend also on x-over. Be prepared for quite a difference.

Perhaps if you stand the box up-side down and just put the horn on top and stuff things around the horn to mimic its nearest surfaces like if it was mounted in the baffle - that could perhaps be a more valid test... so same distance c-c cone->horn and same amount of hard surface around the horn.

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A cabinet has quite big impact on the sound so, no, not really. The distance between 2 drivers has quite an impact and depend also on x-over. Be prepared for quite a difference.

Perhaps if you stand the box up-side down and just put the horn on top and stuff things around the horn to mimic its nearest surfaces like if it was mounted in the baffle - that could perhaps be a more valid test... so same distance c-c cone->horn and same amount of hard surface around the horn.

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Good idea! Thanks for the example picture. I will try that method and see if I can mimic the distance as good as possible. This is the cd+horn i was thinking of trying,

https://www.hifikit.se/erbjudanden/element/dh-1.html

If the sensitivity and power handling figures are correct it will be about as loud as the 10" I will use as simmed in hornresp. What I don't know is the horizontal and vertical dispersion etc, and they could not provide any info on it, they only have the specifications of the CD and horn available there. Hence I want to try before as I want a rather wide horizontal dispersion, 90° would be good.
 
Looks very similar indeed, but the powerhabdling and cutout dimensions look a little different. Maybe just a typo one way or the other? I hope it can be crossed around 2k to meet the 10". The visatron claim Professional CD-Horn (constant directivity) for the highrange above 3000 Hz. But it looks like it maybe could be crossed lower than 3k, just not maintain constant directivity?
 
I have a measurement microphone and will probably hook up a measurement system to optimise the crossover region between the two drivers, but I'm not sure how to go full science mode so some tuning will be done by ear as well. I have a driverack pa+ I'm gonna use two way active crossover. If it doesn't cut it the b&c me20 horn or eighteen sound xt120 also fit the baffle, maybe paired with BMS 4524 or the likes.

I will begin with the Rila dh-1 and see if it works fine.

Thanks for your help!
 
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