1'' horn to combine with a 5'' midrange driver

I am planning a compact three-way loudspeaker. It will have the Beyma 12LX60V2 as woofer and the FaitalPro M5N8-80 as midrange driver.

I still have a pair of RCF N350 compression drivers here. Which horn would fit in conjunction with the M5N8-80?

Many greetings,
Azrael
 
Cool drivers, interrested in seeing the finished project for sure!
The bass and mids power rating and sensitivity rating indicate a system max SPL around 120dB peaks with a 1000 watt amp. You say you're designing a compact box. Is it for home use? Will you have a sub to it? Active or passive crossovers? Horn depends much on what spread character you need for the app hence my questions. For home use I would get a narrow horn and cut around 4kHz with a -6dB LPad on the mid depending slightly on the baffle step correction calculations, and then a variable LPAD on the HF as horn type will modify the character a bit. Id probably cut the HF a bit higher to tame the 2kHz but again depends on the flare and the overall system sensitivity target, and again whethers its going to be passive or active.
 
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I am planning a compact three-way loudspeaker. It will have the Beyma 12LX60V2 as woofer and the FaitalPro M5N8-80 as midrange driver.

I still have a pair of RCF N350 compression drivers here. Which horn would fit in conjunction with the M5N8-80?

Many greetings,
Azrael
Those are all great drivers and should make one hell of a system. Certainly worth spending the money and time to get the cabs and crossovers right.

min my experience with all the horn speakers I’ve built, the bigger the horn, the more open the sound will be.

with the right cabs you’ll get down below 35hz.

If you have 3 amps you can borrow a 3way active crossover and play with the crossover points before you build the passive.
 
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Hey Allen, I have used many round horns and have round horns in my main system for many years. The one thing the OP should know is how beamy they are. My sweet spot is only 6” wide vs rectangular or square horns which have wide sweet spots.

I only sit in one spot so it’s not an issue for me.
 
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Probably using the wrong terms. With round horns the imaging and depth and wholistic effect is truly remarkable if my head is in the exact middle of where the horns are pointing….within 6”.

with all the rectangular horns I’ve owned that “sweet spot” is much larger. So if my wife and I are sitting on the couch with my Yuchi horns we both experience imagining and depth.
 
Thanks. You'd be right about some horns, but I'm thinking waveguides which have a higher priority given towards constant directivity. But even rectangular or square horns move to narrow at higher frequencies, it's just sometimes altered by the modes. The Yuichi is a unique blend.
 
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I like the B&C ME20 and ME15 (older version) with smaller 5-6 inch mids, even though they don't measure as good as some other WGs off axis. The ME20 works well with the JBL2407 and similar ring radiator drivers. This pairing sounds alot like a hgher end dome tweeter when crossed higher. The Faital STH100 is another great WG, but you have to consider the driver exit angle, which should match the WG throat angle closely. The HF108 (non R version) with the STH100 sound very nice together. The 18sound NSD1095N with XT1086 are another great combo.
 
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Also, here is the graph for your CD. Different horns may effect the 12db hump around 1k differently.
043E035D-21B3-4B83-AA15-AB731349A998.jpeg
 
Cool drivers, interrested in seeing the finished project for sure!
The bass and mids power rating and sensitivity rating indicate a system max SPL around 120dB peaks with a 1000 watt amp.
I measured the TSP of the two LX60V2s to run simulations in WinISD with. A bass-reflex cabinet with a volume of 70 liters, tuned to 40 Hz, was simulated. Above the tuning frequency, the calculated Xmax ((Hc-Hg)/2) of +/-5 mm is little bit exceeded with a power of 200 watts. The SPL of one LX60V2 is then about 115 dB/1m. Surely Xmax can also be exceeded somewhat more, but the maximum that I need in terms of power will certainly be below 500 watts.

The box is tuned very low, it is already an EBS tuning, so that here the mechanical load capacity is reached much earlier than the electrical.
You say you're designing a compact box. Is it for home use? Will you have a sub to it? Active or passive crossovers?
Yes, the box is intended for home use. The format of the box is based on speakers like the JBL L100 classic. Although subwoofers are present (4 x Eminence Lab 12, each built in 100 liters bass reflex @ 23 Hz), the box should also be able to be used without subwoofers.

The plan is to develop a passive crossover, but to do something active is not yet completely out of my head. It's a bit of a cost-benefit issue. My skills would probably be enough for both, I hope. 😗
Horn depends much on what spread character you need for the app hence my questions. For home use I would get a narrow horn and cut around 4kHz with a -6dB LPad on the mid depending slightly on the baffle step correction calculations, and then a variable LPAD on the HF as horn type will modify the character a bit. Id probably cut the HF a bit higher to tame the 2kHz but again depends on the flare and the overall system sensitivity target, and again whethers its going to be passive or active.
I don't want the directivity to be too narrow, not much less than 90 degrees horizontally. I would like to set the crossover frequency between the midrange and tweeter where the respective directivity characteristics of the midrange and tweeter there are approximately the same. All crossover development will be based on measurements of the individual drivers in the concrete enclosure, including from different angles.

That's why I can't say exactly where the crossover frequency will end up, but certainly not particularly low (the dispersion of a small midrange will be narrower at higher frequencies than that of a large bass-midrange), perhaps around 2 to 2.5 kHz.

The original plan was actually to use a "normal" tweeter without a waveguide, the Sica LP 110.28/380 TW. But I just have the two RCF N350s here as well. Maybe I will try both.

I like the suggestions to try the small B&C horns, especially since they also have CD behavior and they also seem to fit well visually with a 5-inch midrange driver in terms of dimensions.

Round horns are often spherical wave horns that do not have CD behavior. Instead, their dispersion behavior narrows towards high frequencies. This is rather out of the question for me.

I know the table and also the Excel sheet from Dieter Achenbach, I will also take a look at it.

And the idea to look for a suitable tuning first with an active crossover, in order to orient oneself then with the development of the passive crossover on it, is also not bad. I happen to have a suitable device for this here. 😎

At the end I would like to apologize for my English: I have extensively used a translation program. Where the result of the translations seemed strange to me, I have touched up a bit by hand. I hope you can understand the text well.

Many greetings,
Azrael

edit:
Thanks. You'd be right about some horns, but I'm thinking waveguides which have a higher priority given towards constant directivity.
Do you have any suggestions for round horns or waveguides whose directivity pattern is constant and not too narrow, that are about the size of a 5-inch driver, and to which you can attach a compression driver like the RCF N350 mentioned above?

Hi Azrael, greetings from Germany 😀
Greetings back, also from germany. :wave2:
 
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Just to clarify when I said narrow horn I didn’t mean in acoustic ways but physical depth meaning actually less horn effects. Like the Eminence APT50S I’ve used In recent similar project. Love the L100 and Heresy form factor myself can’t wait to see your end results 🙂
Fwiw here’s my most recent build, quite ghetto but works surprisingly good and the design quite similar to what you seem to up to here…
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...eeded-on-midrange-options.382116/post-7005226
 
The plan is to develop a passive crossover, but to do something active is not yet completely out of my head. It's a bit of a cost-benefit issue. My skills would probably be enough for both, I hope. 😗

That's why I can't say exactly where the crossover frequency will end up, but certainly not particularly low (the dispersion of a small midrange will be narrower at higher frequencies than that of a large bass-midrange), perhaps around 2 to 2.5 kHz.

I like the suggestions to try the small B&C horns, especially since they also have CD behavior and they also seem to fit well visually with a 5-inch midrange driver in terms of dimensions.
Azrael,

I also like the B&C ME20.
145mm x 145mm, fits the size you want, and the directivity control is really good, as you probably have seen in the spec sheet.

I'm using it above a B&C 8NDL64-8, driven by a B&C DE14TN, with an acoustic crossover point of 1600 Hz, which results in a good phase and polar response match for the pair. At 2 to 2.5 kHz, the ME20 would be a good match for your 5".

A 2uF capacitor ahead of a 10 ohm resistor in series with the driver, and a 20 ohm resistor in parallel took care of both CD compensation EQ and crossover.
Raw & Xover Response.png

The green "BCT" trace is the DE14TN/ME20 raw response on axis, the grey "Txa20" with the passive crossover.

https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/hot-rod-8-2-way-pa-studio-monitor.343215/

The speakers have since been moved from the studio to the "home theater", not using any DSP, other than for the subwoofers below.

Art
 
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