From my experience, there is no issue using a compression driver down to horn cutoff in a domestic setting.
Radiation pattern will widen well before horn cutoff but match it correctly to a woofer of the right size and you're all good.
For instance, I use a Ciare PR614 which provides gain down to about 550 Hz even tho the radiation pattern starts to widen below 800 Hz.
Crossing to a small woofer at 550 Hz, the radiation pattern is more or less matched.
Distortion obviously starts to rise quite fast below actual horn cut-off but a steep filter fixes that.
See attached measurements of a small horn (STH100) vs a big horn (H812) and corresponding distortion plots.
Radiation pattern will widen well before horn cutoff but match it correctly to a woofer of the right size and you're all good.
For instance, I use a Ciare PR614 which provides gain down to about 550 Hz even tho the radiation pattern starts to widen below 800 Hz.
Crossing to a small woofer at 550 Hz, the radiation pattern is more or less matched.
Distortion obviously starts to rise quite fast below actual horn cut-off but a steep filter fixes that.
See attached measurements of a small horn (STH100) vs a big horn (H812) and corresponding distortion plots.
Attachments
"Crossing [..] at 550 Hz"
Yes indeed. Home use (low SPL) + a steep filter makes it work just fine.
Some TAD speakers (e.g. 2402) used a CD crossed at 650Hz, 2nd order, and they didn't use a particularly huge horn (the cabinet was only 60cm wide).
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My own preference is based on trials with less stratospheric $$ 2" drivers like these.
https://usspeaker.com/B&C-DE950-1.htm
http://warehousesound.com/jbl2445.php
...and they put me off the idea of using these big format CDs over a 5 octave band. Their top octave is all "secondary resonances" (JBL Technical Notes Volume 1, Number 8) and I don't like it.
You probably chose more wisely than I, by starting with 1.4" exit devices.
Yes indeed. Home use (low SPL) + a steep filter makes it work just fine.
Some TAD speakers (e.g. 2402) used a CD crossed at 650Hz, 2nd order, and they didn't use a particularly huge horn (the cabinet was only 60cm wide).
---
My own preference is based on trials with less stratospheric $$ 2" drivers like these.
https://usspeaker.com/B&C-DE950-1.htm
http://warehousesound.com/jbl2445.php
...and they put me off the idea of using these big format CDs over a 5 octave band. Their top octave is all "secondary resonances" (JBL Technical Notes Volume 1, Number 8) and I don't like it.
You probably chose more wisely than I, by starting with 1.4" exit devices.