As two of three of our esteemed members had quipped this may be the most protracted speaker project in this forum’s history; sadly, and probably true. But thanks to all of them for suggesting that I create this thread. I know I would have done it long ago if it didn’t take this long to learn what I could about speakers generally and some details about specific horns and drivers.
And about the kind of sound which I believe I will find desirable: A determined balance of spacious (indirect) and “accurate” (direct) sound. But whether my room and how I use it (described below) is suitable to present this kind of sound may well determine which horn/driver combo I should then seek help in selecting.
Several things have complicated and delayed this project: Again, I lack thorough knowledge on driver/horn/ crossover design, nor have the workspace or time away from my day job to learn more by DIYing. I’ve comprehended a fair amount from forum members and elsewhere, though it’s been slow going to formulate questions to learn more. Ultimately, I will have to rely on Troy Crowe, who tested the completed midwoofers https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news/altec-416-8b-in-100l-sealed , to judge final compatibility of suggested horns and drivers to then build and test the completed system. BUT I am very quickly nearing the end of the extended deadline Troy gave for horn/driver selection vs. his work schedule after I granted him permission last month to use my midwoofers (still in his listening space) to design crossovers for another client’s two-way system. Troy said that customer wanted to essentially clone my midwoofers and use this horn. https://josephcrowe.com/products/es-600-bi-radial-horn-3d-cad-file
And that is the horn Troy suggests for me, by virtue of his crossover design, he said. And though I think Cask05 had said that any horn that can provide good directivity coverage down to 900Hz is fine (“some more than others”) for a 15” midwoofer, Marco_gea and PierreQuiRoule here have argued the ES600-and even Troy’s next biggest ES450 horn-is too small acoustically to minimize beaming and distortion of my midwoofers, as discussed later below. And as I can’t do air travel or days by train from New York to Ontario Canada, there’s no way to hear Troy’s proposed two-way system, however much compatible they might be with my midwoofers.
The only system I heard of Troy’s was quite different; in a customer’s room back in March. https://josephcrowe.com/products/speaker-system-no-2095 While that 3-way system sounded completely devoid of coloration and most of my recordings were very listenable from the lower midrange on up, Glen did mention that Troy advised him to add subwoofers as the bass was much absent. But while then concentrating on what I heard above the bass region ( https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news/lens-no-1896-for-fostex-t96a?_pos=1&_sid=dd4de98b8&_ss=r and https://bcspeakers.com/en/products/hf-driver/archive/2/8/DCM50 ) during Glen’s generously session time, I kept wishing to have been able to compare the sound of my WAV files of CD track rips to two-way systems using drivers (beryllium Radian, 18Sound JBL) I’ve never heard.
Glen’s speakers were ~ 10 ft apart on the long wall of a room 23 ft x 31 ft, though two walls opposite the long wall were L-shaped. 8 ft ceiling; no room treatment. However, as Glen said that he found the extreme right side of that sofa (attached photo) to be the sweet spot for the ES450 horn, would not the smaller ES600 horn have an even narrower directivity?
In any case, I have no chance to hear Troy’s proposed smaller ES600 horn speaker design. However, given my room and degree feasible room treatment, preferred speaker placement, listening location, use of multiple subwoofers attached sketch of the room and list of its features, I am hoping for suggested horn/driver combos compatible with my midwoofers and my room to achieve the least compromised horizontal and vertical constant directivity coverage pattern.
Suitability of Room for Which, If Any, Constant Directivity Horn/Driver/Midwoofer Combos:
Arez and Weltersys have cautioned that though Cask05 and others have argued for the superiority of constant directivity horns https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/horn-speakers-is-it-me-or.9633/page-48 , room size, shape, number and intensity of resonant modes speaker, subwoofer and seating and/or standing locations will determine whether constant directivity or narrowing exponential horns patterns are best for my situation.
To that end, please critique the usefulness of the attached sketch of my room and the following details:
Basic Room:
Living room in a second story co-op apartment building constructed in 1999.
Triangular ceiling peaking at 11 ft and extending over living room, kitchen and staircase.
Three ~31” x 42” bay windows on that triagonal section of the ~ 14 ft north wall.
All original thin pile carpeting but ~ 40% was recently covered over with 3/4” remnants.
Staircase has 3/4” carpeting.
Sheetrock walls.
Room Furnishings:
One ~ 33” wide upholstered low back swivel/rocker chair.
One ~ 52” w x 27” d x 16” h elliptical open glass table.
65” Sony A80L OLED TV (57” x 34”) atop a wood table ~ 47” w x 22” d x 12” h
Four Rythmik F12 subwoofers 15-3/4" w x 15-3/4" h x 17" d (18-1/2" d with grille)
Except for the requisite electronics and perhaps one more such chair, there won’t be any other items added to the room.
Preferred Speaker and Subwoofers location
Of course, here’s where problems begin with relatively small rooms like this.
Arez said:
If you sit and have the system on the short/wide dimension of the room, a 2-way system with a wider directivity, especially in the horizontal would be the reasonable solution. As there is also little distance for summation, meaning older deep horns like the AH425 is not the right fit most likely.
But if you place yourself on the long axis of the room, which makes the width fairly narrow even if you sit out from the back wall. Then the deeper horns, 3-ways and summation is easier. And a narrower dispersion like 60x40 is likely a better solution to reduce the room impact from the limitations in dimensions.
Though I wasn’t planning on using AH425 horns anyway as I’m shooting for wider directivity (if practical), main speaker placement on the 11-foot South (short) wall-much less placing the TV between them-is a likely poor choice for, as stereo effect will be lost and optimal subwoofer placement likely impossible. And subs are necessary as my midwoofers likely won’t play low enough without appreciable distortion. https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news/altec-416-8b-in-100l-sealed
Unfortunately, while the North would otherwise look to offer acoustic and other advantages, I am reluctant to choose that wall for the main speakers as I would periodically need to get behind the speakers to open windows. FWIW, I don’t do this often and hang room darkening curtains over all three windows. But every other week I draw the curtains and blast the room with UV solar rays, as I expect this is necessary to neutralize airborne contaminants. I expect this is necessary even though I have central air conditioning. Consequently, the horns would have to be temporarily removed from atop the cabinets and diaphragms of midwoofers then carefully protected while working my way behind the midwoofers and subs to the windows. Then place ~ 55-gallon black trash bags over them to protect them from UV ray exposure any unexpected outside moisture with the windows opened to aerate and UV ray blast the room for an hour or so.
Unless there is another way to still use the North wall for the main speakers (even with the TV instead put on the South wall), it looks like the only other option is diagonal placement. That is, left side of a sub at ~ 2 ft from the East wall/left side of left speaker near that sub; right side of a sub approaching hallway/right side of right speaker near that sub. And TV in between main speakers but placed ~ a foot or so behind front of the horns.
Such are the horrors of living on overpopulated Shiit Island, land of tiny and obscenely priced housing.
Preferred Listening location
Assuming the described East wall to end of South wall diagonal placement is the only sensible option, I would be located near the northwest corner, mostly in front of the open closet, ~ 11 ft from the speakers. Optimal horn/driver/midwoofer matching for seated listening is priority, though it would be great to be able to stand up without losing sonic coherency.
Preferred Listening level:
State in a simple manner, your listening habits in terms of volume desired etc.
I have no loudspeakers save those in my 65” Sony TV and only this (probably uncalibrated) device https://indomultimeter.com/Pdf/TSI-Quest-SD200-Manual.pdf
But as per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour# and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phon , I can’t be sure if I use ~ 45 to 50 phons at 1kHz as a baseline reference SPL, or more like 40 phons at 1kHz.
Of course, another Shiit Island concern will be how my downstairs neighbor might react to the requisite low frequency SPLs from my subs for a given 1kHz reference level. I would have to get lucky not to get complaints to enjoy content below 70Hz this way.
Might I get even luckier and find that at 1kHz, 40 phons or less, ~ 11 ft away, is sufficiently loud? No way to be sure yet. But by also managing 3 or 4 subs https://danvillesignal.com/dspnexus...nvillesignal.com/dspnexus-dsp-audio-processor , system/room measurements and treating the room accordingly, I’m hoping that my bass will be boom free enough not to carry though the floor to my neighbor below.
Recap on Compatible Horn Options:
Room Size/Dimension & Placement Limitations and Required Fc of Horn for Midwoofer vs. Directivity Pattern Goals
Given my described room above, Troy said that horn https://josephcrowe.com/products/3d-cad-files-horn-no-1994-es450-biradial-for-jbl-2446-2-throat “fills the size gap between the ES290 and ES600 biradial. It has been optimized for use with a standard 15" bass cabinet such as this one.”
But Marco pointed out https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...001-clones-makers.375215/page-13#post-7803367 , the that ES450, much less the ES600, are acoustically** too small to be crossed low enough to keep the midwoofer from 1.) beaming or at least being overly directional by having it handle excessively higher frequencies; and 2.) playing in the bandwidth where it’s harmonic and IM distortion measured relatively high; see curves. https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news/altec-416-8b-in-100l-sealed
Otherwise, Marco notes that all of Troy’s biradials have rolled back edges to reduce diffraction. And during my long session with Glen’s ES450 system I heard nothing that I could describe as coloration. Presumably, this is indicative of very low high order mode (HOMs) activity.
Driver Lobing Concerns:
However, given the height of the ES290 horn, will it be too far away from the midwoofer to avoid lobing? What tradeoffs by using a different horn), like the TH4001 or Rey RH3 Kinoshita?
If no audible lobing between the ES290 (or which constant directivity horn?) and midwoofer, what driver to select for optimal electrical midrange/midwoofer crossover frequency? https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...ssus-build-thread.357825/page-16#post-7246389
Horn Directivity Pattern and Angular Coverage vs. Room Size:
Regarding the horn’s desired directivity pattern, until Marco pointed out the acoustical mismatch of the ES450 and my midwoofer, I liked that Troy said “……we only suggest the ES450 for medium to large rooms so that you can get a good blend of direct and reflected sound to achieve the desired level of spaciousness.” Indeed, that kind of directivity is a fundamental part of the sound that I have been after.
The speakers would be 11 ft away but given that the ES290 is a considerably bigger horn, and while not a constant directivity horn https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0...BMS_4591-8_off-axis3_480x480.png?v=1649504045 , will it require that the room be treated to obtain a better balance between direct and reflected sound-like I think Kevinkr found he had to do with his A-290 horns? If yes, how hard is the REW software learning curve for dummies?
So, if I go with a Troy Crowe horn the ES290 seems the only option. But it’s a big horn; 2” wider than cabinets and will need to confirm with Troy about any depth issues. May need to use a small table in back of midwoofers.
These or Which Other Horns for my Situation?
But horn/driver/midwoofer off-axis response will have as much if not more impact on sound quality. This will be determined by the directivity pattern of the horn. Most of Troy Crowe exponential horns begin narrowing with rising frequency above 1kHz. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0...lar_Map_ES600_ND-840_480x480.jpg?v=1586452787
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0...BMS_4591-8_off-axis3_480x480.png?v=1649504045 , compared those like the EV, while
compared to these constant directivity horns
Unfortunately, some of the most praiseworthy CD horns are too large to sit at all safely atop my 2 ft x 1.5 ft midwoofer cabinets. https://audio-database.com/ELECTRO-VOICE/unit/hr9040.html
https://community.klipsch.com/topic/161404-a-k-402-based-full-range-multiple-entry-horn/
Like the JBL 2384, there is a copy of this quite manageably sized K510.
https://community.klipsch.com/topic/189901-new-49-aftermarket-k-510-horn-anyone-try-yet/
But “mumps” would need to be added?
https://community.klipsch.com/topic/195675-k-510-horns-with-mumps-and-jbl-2446-drivers-sold/
I haven’t finished reading through these two threads yet
but how impressive is this JBL 2385a horn’s off-axis curves?
However, which of these horns might suffer too much from anomalies like HOMs?
Sorry for the length of this thread starter but I thought it best to include what I understand are important horn speaker design considerations, and within the context of my midwoofers, a specific room and towards attaining the best balance of direct and indirect sound.
Please share thoughts and suggestions.
And about the kind of sound which I believe I will find desirable: A determined balance of spacious (indirect) and “accurate” (direct) sound. But whether my room and how I use it (described below) is suitable to present this kind of sound may well determine which horn/driver combo I should then seek help in selecting.
Several things have complicated and delayed this project: Again, I lack thorough knowledge on driver/horn/ crossover design, nor have the workspace or time away from my day job to learn more by DIYing. I’ve comprehended a fair amount from forum members and elsewhere, though it’s been slow going to formulate questions to learn more. Ultimately, I will have to rely on Troy Crowe, who tested the completed midwoofers https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news/altec-416-8b-in-100l-sealed , to judge final compatibility of suggested horns and drivers to then build and test the completed system. BUT I am very quickly nearing the end of the extended deadline Troy gave for horn/driver selection vs. his work schedule after I granted him permission last month to use my midwoofers (still in his listening space) to design crossovers for another client’s two-way system. Troy said that customer wanted to essentially clone my midwoofers and use this horn. https://josephcrowe.com/products/es-600-bi-radial-horn-3d-cad-file
And that is the horn Troy suggests for me, by virtue of his crossover design, he said. And though I think Cask05 had said that any horn that can provide good directivity coverage down to 900Hz is fine (“some more than others”) for a 15” midwoofer, Marco_gea and PierreQuiRoule here have argued the ES600-and even Troy’s next biggest ES450 horn-is too small acoustically to minimize beaming and distortion of my midwoofers, as discussed later below. And as I can’t do air travel or days by train from New York to Ontario Canada, there’s no way to hear Troy’s proposed two-way system, however much compatible they might be with my midwoofers.
The only system I heard of Troy’s was quite different; in a customer’s room back in March. https://josephcrowe.com/products/speaker-system-no-2095 While that 3-way system sounded completely devoid of coloration and most of my recordings were very listenable from the lower midrange on up, Glen did mention that Troy advised him to add subwoofers as the bass was much absent. But while then concentrating on what I heard above the bass region ( https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news/lens-no-1896-for-fostex-t96a?_pos=1&_sid=dd4de98b8&_ss=r and https://bcspeakers.com/en/products/hf-driver/archive/2/8/DCM50 ) during Glen’s generously session time, I kept wishing to have been able to compare the sound of my WAV files of CD track rips to two-way systems using drivers (beryllium Radian, 18Sound JBL) I’ve never heard.
Glen’s speakers were ~ 10 ft apart on the long wall of a room 23 ft x 31 ft, though two walls opposite the long wall were L-shaped. 8 ft ceiling; no room treatment. However, as Glen said that he found the extreme right side of that sofa (attached photo) to be the sweet spot for the ES450 horn, would not the smaller ES600 horn have an even narrower directivity?
In any case, I have no chance to hear Troy’s proposed smaller ES600 horn speaker design. However, given my room and degree feasible room treatment, preferred speaker placement, listening location, use of multiple subwoofers attached sketch of the room and list of its features, I am hoping for suggested horn/driver combos compatible with my midwoofers and my room to achieve the least compromised horizontal and vertical constant directivity coverage pattern.
Suitability of Room for Which, If Any, Constant Directivity Horn/Driver/Midwoofer Combos:
Arez and Weltersys have cautioned that though Cask05 and others have argued for the superiority of constant directivity horns https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/horn-speakers-is-it-me-or.9633/page-48 , room size, shape, number and intensity of resonant modes speaker, subwoofer and seating and/or standing locations will determine whether constant directivity or narrowing exponential horns patterns are best for my situation.
To that end, please critique the usefulness of the attached sketch of my room and the following details:
Basic Room:
Living room in a second story co-op apartment building constructed in 1999.
Triangular ceiling peaking at 11 ft and extending over living room, kitchen and staircase.
Three ~31” x 42” bay windows on that triagonal section of the ~ 14 ft north wall.
All original thin pile carpeting but ~ 40% was recently covered over with 3/4” remnants.
Staircase has 3/4” carpeting.
Sheetrock walls.
Room Furnishings:
One ~ 33” wide upholstered low back swivel/rocker chair.
One ~ 52” w x 27” d x 16” h elliptical open glass table.
65” Sony A80L OLED TV (57” x 34”) atop a wood table ~ 47” w x 22” d x 12” h
Four Rythmik F12 subwoofers 15-3/4" w x 15-3/4" h x 17" d (18-1/2" d with grille)
Except for the requisite electronics and perhaps one more such chair, there won’t be any other items added to the room.
Preferred Speaker and Subwoofers location
Of course, here’s where problems begin with relatively small rooms like this.
Arez said:
If you sit and have the system on the short/wide dimension of the room, a 2-way system with a wider directivity, especially in the horizontal would be the reasonable solution. As there is also little distance for summation, meaning older deep horns like the AH425 is not the right fit most likely.
But if you place yourself on the long axis of the room, which makes the width fairly narrow even if you sit out from the back wall. Then the deeper horns, 3-ways and summation is easier. And a narrower dispersion like 60x40 is likely a better solution to reduce the room impact from the limitations in dimensions.
Though I wasn’t planning on using AH425 horns anyway as I’m shooting for wider directivity (if practical), main speaker placement on the 11-foot South (short) wall-much less placing the TV between them-is a likely poor choice for, as stereo effect will be lost and optimal subwoofer placement likely impossible. And subs are necessary as my midwoofers likely won’t play low enough without appreciable distortion. https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news/altec-416-8b-in-100l-sealed
Unfortunately, while the North would otherwise look to offer acoustic and other advantages, I am reluctant to choose that wall for the main speakers as I would periodically need to get behind the speakers to open windows. FWIW, I don’t do this often and hang room darkening curtains over all three windows. But every other week I draw the curtains and blast the room with UV solar rays, as I expect this is necessary to neutralize airborne contaminants. I expect this is necessary even though I have central air conditioning. Consequently, the horns would have to be temporarily removed from atop the cabinets and diaphragms of midwoofers then carefully protected while working my way behind the midwoofers and subs to the windows. Then place ~ 55-gallon black trash bags over them to protect them from UV ray exposure any unexpected outside moisture with the windows opened to aerate and UV ray blast the room for an hour or so.
Unless there is another way to still use the North wall for the main speakers (even with the TV instead put on the South wall), it looks like the only other option is diagonal placement. That is, left side of a sub at ~ 2 ft from the East wall/left side of left speaker near that sub; right side of a sub approaching hallway/right side of right speaker near that sub. And TV in between main speakers but placed ~ a foot or so behind front of the horns.
Such are the horrors of living on overpopulated Shiit Island, land of tiny and obscenely priced housing.
Preferred Listening location
Assuming the described East wall to end of South wall diagonal placement is the only sensible option, I would be located near the northwest corner, mostly in front of the open closet, ~ 11 ft from the speakers. Optimal horn/driver/midwoofer matching for seated listening is priority, though it would be great to be able to stand up without losing sonic coherency.
Preferred Listening level:
State in a simple manner, your listening habits in terms of volume desired etc.
I have no loudspeakers save those in my 65” Sony TV and only this (probably uncalibrated) device https://indomultimeter.com/Pdf/TSI-Quest-SD200-Manual.pdf
But as per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour# and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phon , I can’t be sure if I use ~ 45 to 50 phons at 1kHz as a baseline reference SPL, or more like 40 phons at 1kHz.
Of course, another Shiit Island concern will be how my downstairs neighbor might react to the requisite low frequency SPLs from my subs for a given 1kHz reference level. I would have to get lucky not to get complaints to enjoy content below 70Hz this way.
Might I get even luckier and find that at 1kHz, 40 phons or less, ~ 11 ft away, is sufficiently loud? No way to be sure yet. But by also managing 3 or 4 subs https://danvillesignal.com/dspnexus...nvillesignal.com/dspnexus-dsp-audio-processor , system/room measurements and treating the room accordingly, I’m hoping that my bass will be boom free enough not to carry though the floor to my neighbor below.
Recap on Compatible Horn Options:
Room Size/Dimension & Placement Limitations and Required Fc of Horn for Midwoofer vs. Directivity Pattern Goals
Given my described room above, Troy said that horn https://josephcrowe.com/products/3d-cad-files-horn-no-1994-es450-biradial-for-jbl-2446-2-throat “fills the size gap between the ES290 and ES600 biradial. It has been optimized for use with a standard 15" bass cabinet such as this one.”
But Marco pointed out https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...001-clones-makers.375215/page-13#post-7803367 , the that ES450, much less the ES600, are acoustically** too small to be crossed low enough to keep the midwoofer from 1.) beaming or at least being overly directional by having it handle excessively higher frequencies; and 2.) playing in the bandwidth where it’s harmonic and IM distortion measured relatively high; see curves. https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news/altec-416-8b-in-100l-sealed
Otherwise, Marco notes that all of Troy’s biradials have rolled back edges to reduce diffraction. And during my long session with Glen’s ES450 system I heard nothing that I could describe as coloration. Presumably, this is indicative of very low high order mode (HOMs) activity.
Driver Lobing Concerns:
However, given the height of the ES290 horn, will it be too far away from the midwoofer to avoid lobing? What tradeoffs by using a different horn), like the TH4001 or Rey RH3 Kinoshita?
If no audible lobing between the ES290 (or which constant directivity horn?) and midwoofer, what driver to select for optimal electrical midrange/midwoofer crossover frequency? https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...ssus-build-thread.357825/page-16#post-7246389
Horn Directivity Pattern and Angular Coverage vs. Room Size:
Regarding the horn’s desired directivity pattern, until Marco pointed out the acoustical mismatch of the ES450 and my midwoofer, I liked that Troy said “……we only suggest the ES450 for medium to large rooms so that you can get a good blend of direct and reflected sound to achieve the desired level of spaciousness.” Indeed, that kind of directivity is a fundamental part of the sound that I have been after.
The speakers would be 11 ft away but given that the ES290 is a considerably bigger horn, and while not a constant directivity horn https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0...BMS_4591-8_off-axis3_480x480.png?v=1649504045 , will it require that the room be treated to obtain a better balance between direct and reflected sound-like I think Kevinkr found he had to do with his A-290 horns? If yes, how hard is the REW software learning curve for dummies?
So, if I go with a Troy Crowe horn the ES290 seems the only option. But it’s a big horn; 2” wider than cabinets and will need to confirm with Troy about any depth issues. May need to use a small table in back of midwoofers.
These or Which Other Horns for my Situation?
But horn/driver/midwoofer off-axis response will have as much if not more impact on sound quality. This will be determined by the directivity pattern of the horn. Most of Troy Crowe exponential horns begin narrowing with rising frequency above 1kHz. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0...lar_Map_ES600_ND-840_480x480.jpg?v=1586452787
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0...BMS_4591-8_off-axis3_480x480.png?v=1649504045 , compared those like the EV, while
compared to these constant directivity horns
Unfortunately, some of the most praiseworthy CD horns are too large to sit at all safely atop my 2 ft x 1.5 ft midwoofer cabinets. https://audio-database.com/ELECTRO-VOICE/unit/hr9040.html
https://community.klipsch.com/topic/161404-a-k-402-based-full-range-multiple-entry-horn/
Like the JBL 2384, there is a copy of this quite manageably sized K510.
https://community.klipsch.com/topic/189901-new-49-aftermarket-k-510-horn-anyone-try-yet/
But “mumps” would need to be added?
https://community.klipsch.com/topic/195675-k-510-horns-with-mumps-and-jbl-2446-drivers-sold/
I haven’t finished reading through these two threads yet
but how impressive is this JBL 2385a horn’s off-axis curves?
However, which of these horns might suffer too much from anomalies like HOMs?
A dude on the FB forum was asking why horns suck, and I wanted to explain that it's mostly due to HOMs.
But when I went googling around, I couldn't find any succinct explanation of why HOMs suck.
So here goes:
Sound travels 13.5 inches in a millisecond. Our hearing mechanism is particularly attuned to events that happen in the first few milliseconds that the sound is radiated...
But when I went googling around, I couldn't find any succinct explanation of why HOMs suck.
So here goes:
Sound travels 13.5 inches in a millisecond. Our hearing mechanism is particularly attuned to events that happen in the first few milliseconds that the sound is radiated...
Sorry for the length of this thread starter but I thought it best to include what I understand are important horn speaker design considerations, and within the context of my midwoofers, a specific room and towards attaining the best balance of direct and indirect sound.
Please share thoughts and suggestions.
Attachments
Hello
Well let's see here. You have nothing nailed down aside from your woofers design. A sketch of your room is nice but without a current system actually in use you have no idea of where the new speakers will potentially end up and to further complicate you have a sub/subs to place as well. No one can tell you where to place, or what directivity will work best and so on without some idea of where the speakers will be. Even if they do feel comfortable giving advice it's based on their experience so it's biased because of their own preferences.
Just went through this on my last speaker build. Thought they would work best on one wall ended up changing the entire room around, Picked the wrong wall first try. You don't know until you get them in the room. If you don't have the flexibility to position the speakers and "build" the room around them which is not the norm, damn near all placements will be a compromise governed by your own bias which is what matters. What some key board warrior thinks including me doesn't matter.
I stand by my previous post in the other thread IMHO don't need 300 Hz loading and way to much emphasis on distortion. You won't be playing them hard to begin with so 800Hz would be fine. Best to use a horn closely matching directivity at crossover. YMMV
As I have said before you have to make the call. For now just get the speaker designed nailed down. The rest will follow after you physically get them up and running. It's good to try and foresee issues but you can't solve issues when you don't know what they are or if there are any too solve. Lot's of waisted time chasing ghosts.
Rob 🙂
Well let's see here. You have nothing nailed down aside from your woofers design. A sketch of your room is nice but without a current system actually in use you have no idea of where the new speakers will potentially end up and to further complicate you have a sub/subs to place as well. No one can tell you where to place, or what directivity will work best and so on without some idea of where the speakers will be. Even if they do feel comfortable giving advice it's based on their experience so it's biased because of their own preferences.
Just went through this on my last speaker build. Thought they would work best on one wall ended up changing the entire room around, Picked the wrong wall first try. You don't know until you get them in the room. If you don't have the flexibility to position the speakers and "build" the room around them which is not the norm, damn near all placements will be a compromise governed by your own bias which is what matters. What some key board warrior thinks including me doesn't matter.
I stand by my previous post in the other thread IMHO don't need 300 Hz loading and way to much emphasis on distortion. You won't be playing them hard to begin with so 800Hz would be fine. Best to use a horn closely matching directivity at crossover. YMMV
As I have said before you have to make the call. For now just get the speaker designed nailed down. The rest will follow after you physically get them up and running. It's good to try and foresee issues but you can't solve issues when you don't know what they are or if there are any too solve. Lot's of waisted time chasing ghosts.
Rob 🙂
To the OP:
I find it difficult to understand the purpose of your post.
Maybe you could reorganise it so that it is more purposeful?
It is unclear as to which questions have been asked of you, and which questions you are asking of us.
Clarity of thought is the most important aspect of design.
Best regards,
Mike
I find it difficult to understand the purpose of your post.
Maybe you could reorganise it so that it is more purposeful?
It is unclear as to which questions have been asked of you, and which questions you are asking of us.
Clarity of thought is the most important aspect of design.
Best regards,
Mike