Acoustic Horn Design – The Easy Way (Ath4)

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Joined 2007
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Very interesting to see how the results in the test room compare. ~how much did the booking cost? (assuming your OK with disclosing that)

*Yeah time gating your REW results is very easy and gets rid of reflections at the expense of imposing a low frequency limit and reducing frequency resolution.
 
This is the latest for the 1.4" HF146 guide.

15"x 11" x 114mm.

Bit wibbly up top at the moment using these settings.

Code:
Mesh.AngularSegments = 120
Mesh.LengthSegments = 20
Mesh.CornerSegments = 6
Mesh.ThroatSegments = 6
Mesh.ThroatResolution = 3.0 ; [mm]
Mesh.InterfaceResolution = 8.0 ; [mm]
 

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TNT

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Joined 2003
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All impedance variations (physical or electrical) effects the timing aspects by storing and releasing energy at a different time depending on frequency. Yes, there are no free lunches and the ultimate horn/wg will have to have all relevant aspects in place - then, and only then, will it shine completely. Especially the imaginary are tricky - they migth be jsut that, but they come back as a reality.. later...

The above looks very good reactance wise - no for the directivity ;-)

//
 
I've been working on optimizing an axisymmetric waveguide for the Dayton ND25FN-4 tweeter element, which runs about $14 in the US and should be easily adapted to a waveguide front plate due to it's construction.

I've set up an ABEC simulation that uses CircSym and allows me to rapidly iterate the waveguide shape based on mabat's OS-SE equation. It also uses an LE_Script in ABEC to incorporate the electro-dynamic driver behavior. My goal is to evaluate the impact of the different variables in the OS-SE equation and develop a waveguide that can be used in a future project of mine. This experiment is far from complete, but I wanted to share my progress.

I started with the following variables:
waveguide length = 85mm
throat angle = 0 deg
coverage angle = 90 deg
q = 1.000
s = 0.5
n = 2

I began by changing "n" from 2-10 in 0.5 steps. Here are the results:
Optimizing OS-SE Waveguide on Dayton ND25FN-4 - Modifying "n" term - Album on Imgur

From that pool, I selected n=3.5 as the best. I then modified the "s" term from 0 to 1 in 0.1 increments:
Optimizing OS-SE Waveguide on Dayton ND25FN-4 - Modifying "s" term - Album on Imgur

I selected s=1 as optimal. Next I modified the length from 40-115mm in 15mm steps. These simulations started taking much longer due to the larger waveguides:
Optimizing OS-SE Waveguide on Dayton ND25FN-4 - Modifying length - Album on Imgur

From this set, I picked length=55mm to continue, as it appears to be a good balance of directivity and overall size for my intended crossover point (~2500Hz in a three-way). Next up was optimizing the throat angle, which I varied from 0-45 in 5deg steps:
Optimizing OS-SE Waveguide on Dayton ND25FN-4 - Modifying throat angle - Album on Imgur

This was a harder set to pick from, because increasing the throat angle reduces the dip at 10kHz, but also squeezes the response above 14kHz. Is this audible? No idea. But until I can get a sample of the tweeter and a 3D printer to make some waveguide prototypes, I won't be able to test it myself. I'll settle on 10 degrees for now.

To summarize, here are my preferred variables so far:
waveguide length = 55mm
throat angle = 10 deg
coverage angle = 90 deg
q = 1.000
s = 1.0
n = 3.5

The resultant waveguide is 228mm in diameter (~9in) and has very good directivity up to about 10kHz, and decent directivity from there to 20kHz. It will be my starting point when I start prototyping!
 
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Member
Joined 2004
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All impedance variations (physical or electrical) effects the timing aspects by storing and releasing energy at a different time depending on frequency. ...//

Well, a non-constant acoustic impedance could be compensated by a simple electrical equalization (including the time domain as these are all minimum phase phenomena I believe). You can't equalize directivity.
 
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Joined 2004
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... Classic horn freaks should love this.
I'd like to simulate the behaviour when made from segments like on the picture but unfortunatelly that's not how the mesh is generated anymore... Otherwise it would be easy to make such a horn from e.g. balsa (wood) stripes.

(To explain - this is only a simplified visualiation in the CircSym mode; it is actually solved for a perfectly axisymmetric shape, not segmented like this.)

882075d1602077332-acoustic-horn-design-easy-ath4-umrealla-mash-png
 
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