Bass Horns?

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Hi! I´m new to this forum, although not to speakerdesign. I´ve had that hobby almost my entire 23 yr life. I live in Stockholm / Sweden and drive my Voighhorns (www.valutronic.se) with a Marantz 2325 and my 12" with a sucky old generic brand.

I´ve built a couple of Voighthorns and am ready to take the next step. Building real powerful BassHorns! But ´cause I don´t have unlimited space I wonder which would be best for a normal livingroom? Am now using an ordinary closed with a 12" Rockord.

What I´m thinking of is the DEC wicked! @ http://www.decware.com/whorn.htm have anyone here tried it?

Unfortunately I don´t have enough room for: http://www.royaldevice.com/custom3.htm
 
For fidelity, I don't think a sealed enclosure can be beat. I just thought I would mention it since you are at a potenital transition stage. The physical laws do not permit getting away with back radiation escaping and canceling out front radiation, which is worse the lower the frequency. Today, since high power amps can be had for a good price, I think the back radiation can be completely sacrificed if possible. High excursion woofers permit more dB from a smaller enclosure too.

Even if the horn is very big, other problems are likely to result. The bass may not quite seem right because of the time delay. You may also find that it booms because of the reinforced nature of the reproduction.

Many don't like sealed enclosures because they think the simplicity must mean too many trade-offs. My experience has been otherwise. Unless totally new technology employing different physical laws takes hold, I don''t see my view changing.
 
But what of the Wicked One? It´s a kind of horn although you use the speaker in an enclosure...

wh4.jpg
 
It is a variation of the famous folded horn design. They usually are very efficient in reproducing bass in the upper registers but usually the lack of lower response cannot be compensated for even with much active equalization. I saw the response graph, and it just doesn't make sense to me. Maybe the test set-up was skewing the results to give the impression of deeper response. The response of a horn is dependant on the length of the passageway. The horn throat can reinforce waves with a length less than twice its length. For full low end, you would need a horn 25 feet long to begin reinforcing 20htz which has a wavelength of 1000ft/s divided by 20cycles/s = 50ft/cycle.
 
hi.

to make a horn subwoofer play with a bass-horn (hmm) isnt an easy task and i think it should be avoided alltogether.....

start designing a complete new system with the performance you like or seek and give/sell the voight horns to somebody who just like them and the way they play :)

making an all horn system with flat response from say 30hz to 20 khz isnt easy (have you heard any at all) so i wish you good luck....

but one could ask ; why horns??

there are so many good speakers and designs out there and if you dont mind me saying i dont think the voight horn is ne of them ;)

what the rest of the system (amplifier , cd player , dac , room , music taste.....)??

k madsen -
 
Chris---Those Voight horns and goofy little rear-horns Lowther guys use have mouths far too small to give decent bass. You have to understand the tradeoffs with basshorns before you get into them (I've used many, some turnkey and some DIY). Basshorns are BIG and even big basshorns have limited low-end response, with a horn like the Peavey FH-1, about 12 cubic feet large with a 29" by 24" mouth, you can only expect good response down to 50hz or so, my modded FH-1s placed in corners died below 50hz. Horns must get longer and the mouths larger as bass response gets lower, things can quickly get out of hand though some fanatics have built 15' long concrete basshorns with 12'x12' mouths. And folded bashorns have a problem with top-end response (I'm talking proper basshorns here with the front of the driver loaded by the horn and the rear of the driver into a sealed compression chamber) and have trouble getting above the 500-700hz area, the famous Klipsch cornerhorn only responds to 400hz. Now in the range in which they work horns make the best bass, they have the lowest distortion and best dynamics and the air load in the horns provides the driver with excellent damping. Efficiency is also very high, generally 103+ db. And very few woofers are suited for horn use; they must have huge magnets for a low Q but need a high Fs, they are invariabley expensive and made by companies like EV and JBL Pro. So you have to live with the limited extension and a pair of very big boxes with expensive drivers. And to match the dynamics and clarity of the basshorn you must use compression drivers on horns for the mids and highs, these are expensive and a whole world of discussion unto themselves. To talk to helpful and experienced hornies try the high efficiency speaker forum at www.audioasylum.com We hornies are the outlaws of the hi-fi world and stick together and help each other, nobody will flame you there. And there's no way I beleive that Wicked One performs as claimed; it's too short and the mouth is far too small, even with boundary reinforcement from floor placement.
 
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