Hi guys
On the SLA thing, I should have been clearer.
The SLA or CNC milled part (which for a large part can be cheaper) is the shape of what you want to end up with, in our case was entirely on the computer screen and as you noted, the material is usually not really strong enough for anything but “careful” testing and fitment.
This part is then used to make the mold, which is cast around that original.
The mold is the cool part here as it is comparatively inexpensive and while cast, has aluminum re-enforcement and will produce a good number of parts (much more than silicone) before it needed to be replaced.
The exact goo they cast I have not seen yet but it is supposed to be similar to the cold cast plastic some of our other horns are molded from. That stuff can have a shiny high gloss finish if the mold does and is tough, dense and dead.
I do plan to use this approach for a number of things but the first one is plenty complicated. When it is done or near done so far as getting the part made, it will be safe to add on.
I am not suggesting that this is something for the diy’r but in Earls case, at some volume, it will make sense to have someone mold horns for him who has made the investment in the equipment, that can deliver 50pc in shipping condition, when you need them.
Earl I can’t help thinking you need others selling your speakers.
Given it’s a DIY thing, that makes it pretty un-interesting for a hifi magazine because your not going to be a big advertiser.
Also and to be honest this was a while ago when I stopped reading any of it, my impression of much of the hifi press was that they spent far too much time inhaling the Vapors at Delphi wink wink.
Given that, one possible angle of attack would be to contact one of the pro-sound, commercial sound , or even church sound magazine editors and propose a DIY article, best would be if a writer there were interested in building them, he would write about the process. I was just at the big trade show Infocomm and passed by dozens of different magazines but didn’t pick any up except for parts express.
Given many professionals in the sound industry built things like speakers once and given there is no freak out factor when science is mentioned or used in design and no one is going to debate a magazine writer, this might be a way to speed things up.
I wouldn’t say it’s a sure thing but they do like to bring up “roots” and building a set of speakers is that in spades.
I am sure, if you have something that sounds good next to the other choices, a third of your battle is won. If you have a third party build them write about it and say “these are great”, you will have your foot in the door in that area and it will be easier to get more press...
Best,
Tom
On the SLA thing, I should have been clearer.
The SLA or CNC milled part (which for a large part can be cheaper) is the shape of what you want to end up with, in our case was entirely on the computer screen and as you noted, the material is usually not really strong enough for anything but “careful” testing and fitment.
This part is then used to make the mold, which is cast around that original.
The mold is the cool part here as it is comparatively inexpensive and while cast, has aluminum re-enforcement and will produce a good number of parts (much more than silicone) before it needed to be replaced.
The exact goo they cast I have not seen yet but it is supposed to be similar to the cold cast plastic some of our other horns are molded from. That stuff can have a shiny high gloss finish if the mold does and is tough, dense and dead.
I do plan to use this approach for a number of things but the first one is plenty complicated. When it is done or near done so far as getting the part made, it will be safe to add on.
I am not suggesting that this is something for the diy’r but in Earls case, at some volume, it will make sense to have someone mold horns for him who has made the investment in the equipment, that can deliver 50pc in shipping condition, when you need them.
Earl I can’t help thinking you need others selling your speakers.
Given it’s a DIY thing, that makes it pretty un-interesting for a hifi magazine because your not going to be a big advertiser.
Also and to be honest this was a while ago when I stopped reading any of it, my impression of much of the hifi press was that they spent far too much time inhaling the Vapors at Delphi wink wink.
Given that, one possible angle of attack would be to contact one of the pro-sound, commercial sound , or even church sound magazine editors and propose a DIY article, best would be if a writer there were interested in building them, he would write about the process. I was just at the big trade show Infocomm and passed by dozens of different magazines but didn’t pick any up except for parts express.
Given many professionals in the sound industry built things like speakers once and given there is no freak out factor when science is mentioned or used in design and no one is going to debate a magazine writer, this might be a way to speed things up.
I wouldn’t say it’s a sure thing but they do like to bring up “roots” and building a set of speakers is that in spades.
I am sure, if you have something that sounds good next to the other choices, a third of your battle is won. If you have a third party build them write about it and say “these are great”, you will have your foot in the door in that area and it will be easier to get more press...
Best,
Tom
Hey Tom
Thanks for the tips. I don't want to give away too much of my business plan, but the fact is that I haven't advertised at all because I couldn't make the product even if I got the sales. Right now I can't keep up with orders, not necessarily because there are so many orders, but because there are so few of me. The catch-22 is not sales at this point, but a well developed product line that CAN be mass produced without difficulty, expense or poor quality. None of this requires sales. The idea is to lay low, sell what I need to support what I am doing while I get my ducks in a row. Hopefully by that time the economy has turned arround and l will go for a bigger facility (bigber than my garage) and some help. But thats a big jump and commitment and I'm not confident in the business as it is right now. Not that I am not confident in the product, of that I have no doubts - no one who has bought them has been disappointed and virtually no one who has heard them has bought anything else. I'm not sure of how big the next step should be and how much control to give up to make it. Those are serious questions.
Thanks for the tips. I don't want to give away too much of my business plan, but the fact is that I haven't advertised at all because I couldn't make the product even if I got the sales. Right now I can't keep up with orders, not necessarily because there are so many orders, but because there are so few of me. The catch-22 is not sales at this point, but a well developed product line that CAN be mass produced without difficulty, expense or poor quality. None of this requires sales. The idea is to lay low, sell what I need to support what I am doing while I get my ducks in a row. Hopefully by that time the economy has turned arround and l will go for a bigger facility (bigber than my garage) and some help. But thats a big jump and commitment and I'm not confident in the business as it is right now. Not that I am not confident in the product, of that I have no doubts - no one who has bought them has been disappointed and virtually no one who has heard them has bought anything else. I'm not sure of how big the next step should be and how much control to give up to make it. Those are serious questions.
gedlee said:
Hey Earl,
I was a building contractor for 20 years or so in the middle of my working career. I think Tom has the right idea that you should remain a one-man shop and subcontract things out as you get bigger. Owning a big shop and having employees really puts you at risk financially. If everything is subcontracted, the risk is theirs, not yours if business slows down. Naturally you need to pay the subs if they do the work but you don't have to deal with hiring/firing employees and paying the mortgage on a shop and equipment. I know more than a few contractors who went broke trying to keep everything in house. They got too big in the good times and went broke in the bad times.
gedlee said:
I see there is some confusion about this. I only meant to show the accuracy and flexibilty of FDM. Not recommend you buy the machine. There are plenty of Rapid Prototype shops who already have one. Indeed you would probably need to make about 10K pieces before it payed for itself.
I remember these tweeters being used in the EV Eliminator 1a many years ago - other than for aesthetic reasons (it looked good), the tweeters allowed a user standing close up in front of the cab to hear what was emanating from the tweeters as they dispersed well in the vertical plane - remember, these cabs were recommended as guitar speakers and rated accordingly.
With regards to the high frequency anomalies noted at long distances from line arrays - does this problem 'creep' down the audio spectrum as distances increase or is the problem purely due to the design of the HF source device (waveguide/waveformer etc)?
Regards,
Jazomir
Paraline
while reading the paraline patent:
Horn-loaded acoustic line source - Google Patent Search
Fig.6 is there any restriction of A1 length? say max A1 = min lowest cutoff freq?
while reading the paraline patent:
Horn-loaded acoustic line source - Google Patent Search
Fig.6 is there any restriction of A1 length? say max A1 = min lowest cutoff freq?
I have no idea what's going on in this picture. The mind can only wonder:
It's a new Danley Sound Labs product.
Which 8inch drivers are used in this design?
Are these sealed like the Celestion Truvox MR as well?
Tom,
In one of your recent posts, you mentioned that DSL was going to be at Infocomm this year. I know your gear is well-represented in the stadium and house of worship market. Have you considered trying to sell into the EDM market? (electronic dance music)
Electric Daisy Carnival happens three days before Infocomm, in the same city. If I'm not mistaken, this will be the largest EDM festival of all time. Here's a few reasons this would be a great venue for DSL products:
- In a typical festival, there are six to ten stages going simultaneously. Systems with controlled directivity would solve a lot of headaches for the promoters. It's challenging to get good sound when you have two stages 'bleeding' into each other
- Most of the big EDM festivals are outside, where it's difficult to produce a lot of bass
- EDM is extremely bass-heavy, far more so than rock and roll. At a recent event I went to I could actually see the concrete walls flexing from the amount of bass. (no joke.)
- EDM festivals are a huge market. Last year the attendance at Electric Daisy Carnival was eighty five THOUSAND people. That's nearly the size of Superbowl Sunday. Three day tickets are $300 this year, so it's safe to say the festival is "well funded."
- EDM tends to attract DJs from all over the world, so this might be an innovative way to drum up interest in DSL products overseas.
Just thought I'd mention the festival is happening right about the same time in Vegas, so if your sales team has ever considered selling into that market, this might be an excellent opportunity to demo your gear for the ppl that are involved. I don't know the promoters personally, but all of their info is freely available on linkedin, twitter, etc... Would be easy to contact them.
Last edited:
Hi Patrick / John
Thanks for the suggestion I will pass that on to Paul and see if he can set up a demo. The reason we are not addressing a number of areas is simply lack for resources and manpower.
We started the company about 7 years ago now after I left SPL and I would say our path has not been the traditional one at least so far as I understood live / commercial sound.
The normal approach has been to pursue live sound as it is the glamor and publicity with the goal of being in the contracting sound area as that is the bread and butter. That works too, back at Intersoncs, when Michael Jackson had the Servodrives on tour, that really opened up our sales.
My partner Mike on the other hand, has not pursued live sound at all and instead focused on the installation business which he had already been in and involved with through Synaudcon etc.
The reason for the stadium area taking off is I think a convergence of several things. First, the problems with sound at that scale are so difficult that stadiums are famously bad sounding and the large Synergy horns really are something different.
At the point the team owners / alummi demand "it be fixed" and look beyond the original system installer / designer, they want to find something better and don’t care at all if they know the name. Branding is such a powerful thing for those who follow marketing but nearly irrelevant when only listening to two systems side by side.
At that point, usually after an invitation, a powerful side by side demo is often enough to cause the decision to be made right then or shortly after.
That is not to say it always goes our way though, we just had a demo a couple weeks ago where the sound guy was a key decision maker.
He had commented that “he wanted to be able to hurt people with 2Khz” and “I know what a PA is supposed to sound like”, he was not pleased with such a low lf corner and lack of upper mid bite. The other system a quarter million dollar pile had the nail in forehead bite and the sound guy was not interested in hearing it from more than one location. They will have more of the same.
Personally, I would love to have several hifi versions of the Synergy horns, I could never go back to normal speakers now and I am sure others would feel that way too but that is not an area we can address right now either. I am a bit envious of you guys creeping up on that goal.
Thanks for the mention too. I have built speakers most of my life now and a number of times I passed the chance to work for one of the big guys but sometimes I wonder what it might have been like to have been part of them instead of an annoying gnat in their faces. I can’t say that I would do that part of my life over differently though in fact It makes me want to design something new.
Best,
Tom
Thanks for the suggestion I will pass that on to Paul and see if he can set up a demo. The reason we are not addressing a number of areas is simply lack for resources and manpower.
We started the company about 7 years ago now after I left SPL and I would say our path has not been the traditional one at least so far as I understood live / commercial sound.
The normal approach has been to pursue live sound as it is the glamor and publicity with the goal of being in the contracting sound area as that is the bread and butter. That works too, back at Intersoncs, when Michael Jackson had the Servodrives on tour, that really opened up our sales.
My partner Mike on the other hand, has not pursued live sound at all and instead focused on the installation business which he had already been in and involved with through Synaudcon etc.
The reason for the stadium area taking off is I think a convergence of several things. First, the problems with sound at that scale are so difficult that stadiums are famously bad sounding and the large Synergy horns really are something different.
At the point the team owners / alummi demand "it be fixed" and look beyond the original system installer / designer, they want to find something better and don’t care at all if they know the name. Branding is such a powerful thing for those who follow marketing but nearly irrelevant when only listening to two systems side by side.
At that point, usually after an invitation, a powerful side by side demo is often enough to cause the decision to be made right then or shortly after.
That is not to say it always goes our way though, we just had a demo a couple weeks ago where the sound guy was a key decision maker.
He had commented that “he wanted to be able to hurt people with 2Khz” and “I know what a PA is supposed to sound like”, he was not pleased with such a low lf corner and lack of upper mid bite. The other system a quarter million dollar pile had the nail in forehead bite and the sound guy was not interested in hearing it from more than one location. They will have more of the same.
Personally, I would love to have several hifi versions of the Synergy horns, I could never go back to normal speakers now and I am sure others would feel that way too but that is not an area we can address right now either. I am a bit envious of you guys creeping up on that goal.
Thanks for the mention too. I have built speakers most of my life now and a number of times I passed the chance to work for one of the big guys but sometimes I wonder what it might have been like to have been part of them instead of an annoying gnat in their faces. I can’t say that I would do that part of my life over differently though in fact It makes me want to design something new.
Best,
Tom
Demo's are all about "expectation". If they expect bad sound and it sounds good then its "not right". The only way to "be right" is to be what they expect. That is most likely NOT an improvement over what they have always done.
I have heard some absolute embarasments in sound done by people who really should have known better. It continues to amaze me how people can get locked into really bad sound quality and expect that everything else should sound the same or its "no good".
Hi Pano
Hey, that would be cool, do stop by! I have not heard the details for this year but we usually have a demo room and a booth on the trade show floor, I spend my time going back and forth between them. The last time it was in Vegas (year before last) is when Mike noticed the rear doors to the demo room opened to a parking lot and at the end of the first day we demo’d the Jh90 outdoors (once) for the first time. I don’t expect we will be able to do that again haha.
One potentially important thing, back then there was a deal you could sign up for, all you can eat for 24hrs and it was for any of 7 big casinos buffets. We got our pass (after a day of set up) at 9pm and ate dinner, breakfast, lunch and dinner. I don’t gamble but in that case, what happened in vegas, stayed in vegas . We have bunch of speakers installed around the strip if you catch some shows, subs in the Beatles Love, a magician my kids like (and who’s name I can’t think of) and such. Someone like Mike or Paul would be more up on other places. Anyway, do stop by.
Best,
Tom Danley
Hi Earl
It is funny how some people know so strongly what something is supposed to be like that they are effectively blind to what they hear. In a thread bashing blind testing, one can slip a “baby ruth” into the punch bowl by using a link to the McGurke effect which clearly demonstrates the only time you hear reality is when your eyes are closed (that is prior knowledge is removed).
The thing is, I know , probably everyone who has heard a bad pa knows what that piercing “ice pick in the head” sound is, I don’t understand why someone would seek that intentionally. Heck, they can take a table saw and cut a big sheet of thin aluminum with a rip blade if they only want “that sound”.
I have had an idea for something in high intensity acoustics, not really part of the speaker business I have wanted to bounce off you for a few years now but have always had too much going on. Actually if you are still a “hired gun”, maybe I can get a small amount of funds if this seems possible.
I usually can picture how things will work before I make them (and I measure then find out where the assumptions are wrong and modify) and I can see this working too BUT if it worked, it would be a new category of “thing” and so that makes me also suspect I am not seeing some part of it.
I bounced it off Dr Patronis a couple years ago and after a couple days of pondering he encouraged me to build one and see, but given the effort I would feel better about the effort if it were possible to model it .
Anyway, if your able to take a look, drop me a line by e-mail.
Best,
Tom
Hey, that would be cool, do stop by! I have not heard the details for this year but we usually have a demo room and a booth on the trade show floor, I spend my time going back and forth between them. The last time it was in Vegas (year before last) is when Mike noticed the rear doors to the demo room opened to a parking lot and at the end of the first day we demo’d the Jh90 outdoors (once) for the first time. I don’t expect we will be able to do that again haha.
One potentially important thing, back then there was a deal you could sign up for, all you can eat for 24hrs and it was for any of 7 big casinos buffets. We got our pass (after a day of set up) at 9pm and ate dinner, breakfast, lunch and dinner. I don’t gamble but in that case, what happened in vegas, stayed in vegas . We have bunch of speakers installed around the strip if you catch some shows, subs in the Beatles Love, a magician my kids like (and who’s name I can’t think of) and such. Someone like Mike or Paul would be more up on other places. Anyway, do stop by.
Best,
Tom Danley
Hi Earl
It is funny how some people know so strongly what something is supposed to be like that they are effectively blind to what they hear. In a thread bashing blind testing, one can slip a “baby ruth” into the punch bowl by using a link to the McGurke effect which clearly demonstrates the only time you hear reality is when your eyes are closed (that is prior knowledge is removed).
The thing is, I know , probably everyone who has heard a bad pa knows what that piercing “ice pick in the head” sound is, I don’t understand why someone would seek that intentionally. Heck, they can take a table saw and cut a big sheet of thin aluminum with a rip blade if they only want “that sound”.
I have had an idea for something in high intensity acoustics, not really part of the speaker business I have wanted to bounce off you for a few years now but have always had too much going on. Actually if you are still a “hired gun”, maybe I can get a small amount of funds if this seems possible.
I usually can picture how things will work before I make them (and I measure then find out where the assumptions are wrong and modify) and I can see this working too BUT if it worked, it would be a new category of “thing” and so that makes me also suspect I am not seeing some part of it.
I bounced it off Dr Patronis a couple years ago and after a couple days of pondering he encouraged me to build one and see, but given the effort I would feel better about the effort if it were possible to model it .
Anyway, if your able to take a look, drop me a line by e-mail.
Best,
Tom
A1 is 1/2 the length of the exit slot. The cutoff frequency is determined by the size and shape of the horn.
I don't know if there would be a practical limit on the slot length, but 9.75", over double the size of some 1" Paraline devices used by VTC, worked quite well for me.
Art
Hi Art
One can make a Paraline any desired size if pattern control over driver density is the object. There is a 60 inch tall one at work made like the one in fig 9 except it has 6 mids. I have a smaller one at home that is very hifi and I have hopes to do that with it.
The important relationships; When A1 and B1 +B2 and C1 + C2 and D1 +D2 are all equal path lengths, then the exit wave front is a plane wave in the vertical.
If you make D1 shorter relative to A1, you end up with a diverging wavefront, if you reverse that, you get a converging wavefront, to a degree, adjustable focal length in one plane.
Mostly where I have used the Paraline is as the rear portion of a narrow vertical horn, it supplies the somewhat curved wavefront a much deeper point source would have produced.
The other part is the dimension or thickness of the passageways like as seen in fig 5. Sound will readily bend around a 90 degree corner like a fluid IF the acoustic dimension is small (for example . The thickness of that or actually the difference in the paths between the inner and outer pressure path will control how high a frequency will pass before the geometry causes cancellation and low pass filtering.
Anyway, have fun with them, I was pleased with that one, it was a simple but effective invention and it's roots lead to the layered combiner used on the J speakers and an upcoming something.
Best,
Tom Danley
Danley Sound Labs
One can make a Paraline any desired size if pattern control over driver density is the object. There is a 60 inch tall one at work made like the one in fig 9 except it has 6 mids. I have a smaller one at home that is very hifi and I have hopes to do that with it.
The important relationships; When A1 and B1 +B2 and C1 + C2 and D1 +D2 are all equal path lengths, then the exit wave front is a plane wave in the vertical.
If you make D1 shorter relative to A1, you end up with a diverging wavefront, if you reverse that, you get a converging wavefront, to a degree, adjustable focal length in one plane.
Mostly where I have used the Paraline is as the rear portion of a narrow vertical horn, it supplies the somewhat curved wavefront a much deeper point source would have produced.
The other part is the dimension or thickness of the passageways like as seen in fig 5. Sound will readily bend around a 90 degree corner like a fluid IF the acoustic dimension is small (for example . The thickness of that or actually the difference in the paths between the inner and outer pressure path will control how high a frequency will pass before the geometry causes cancellation and low pass filtering.
Anyway, have fun with them, I was pleased with that one, it was a simple but effective invention and it's roots lead to the layered combiner used on the J speakers and an upcoming something.
Best,
Tom Danley
Danley Sound Labs
Tom,
I have been having lots of fun with the “new” (some of the drivers are more than 20 years old) Paraline speaker system. People are amazed that the sound level at 5 feet can actually be less than at 50 feet.
Your 12/31/09 patent application pictures would have come in handy back in 2008 when I built my Paraline small format line array.
My units all have A1 and B1 +B2 and C1 + C2 and D1 +D2 equal path lengths.
In retrospect, I probably would make D1 shorter relative to A1, though it is pretty amazing as built to be able to focus HF energy at a far distant point, counter acting the HF air attenuation problem.
Despite the line being 67.5” tall, like your stadium horns it is pretty well immune to crosswind “swishing”, but each module only ways 50 pounds, so no cranes or chain motors are required ;^).
Using a mid/high arrangement as in figure 9, what keeps the mid output from modulating the HF diaphragm, is the HF compression ratio simply enough to keep that from being a problem?
Is the layered combiner used on the J speakers like figure 9 or 11, or something different?
Art
Attachments
Hi Art
If your version is immune to crosswinds, it is radiating as if it were a simple, single source (cool) and not an interference pattern like one gets with a complex radiation source or uncoupled multiple sources. It is the porcupine appearance of the dispersion pattern at high resolutions that makes the audible swishy swishy effect if the wind blows or the system or listener moves.
Fig11 is the oldest version, the first one I built in the old days and of the two, might be closest to the layered combiner although not that close in appearance.
The idea came from thinking about the horn / reflector assembly used by telephone companies when I was a kid and and old one was used to discover the cosmic background radiation.
I found a picture of one;
The problem with doing this with sound is the wavelength varies so much that the reflector is a variable not a constant. In microwaves, the bandwidth is very narrow and the dimensions large.
It occurred to me that unlike a reflection, a pathway had no such issue, worked at any frequency up to where the passageway acted like a low pass filter etc.
If you look at fig 11 and the radio horn, you can see the direct analogy and the root for the idea.
Fig9 is fig 11 extended to full symmetry. A cool part here is on one side, the radial plane, the expansion is 360 degrees radial originating from a point, no chance for a reflection or interference in this plane while in the thickness plane, the dimension is too small to permit reflected sound.
Some of the Paraline elements, like the ones used by VTC or in the GH-60 actually show a smoother frequency response (less grass in the curve) than normal horns.
Unfortunately, due to the situation of now being not only on the radar “but in the sights” of much larger and more well funded foes, I can’ t really publicly disclose the combiner until the patent office publishes the application.
If you are attending the Infocomm trade show in Lost Wages Nev in June, I would be happy to show you, in fact I am hoping we will have a new more powerful horn there using this and that has 64 hf compression drivers acting as a single source AND you can fit this through a normal house doorway so a pair will be perfect for a dorm room or desk top stereo haha.
Hi panjilaras
Gosh, thanks but I am just one of God’s DIY’rs who loves sound too.
Hi Earnie
Well he SH-50 crossover I developed in my living room and so at the time, it was as close to the ideal measurement wise as I could get. An issue here was also partly cost, it usually takes three passive components to remove a peak or dip in the system response.
Each part has to be sized so that it will not change even at high power.
That parts cost is much less a concern for a hifi product or at least that's my take.
The only real acoustic difference between the “target” for a home version of any of them would be to make the response roll off at about -1 dB per octave as the frequency climbs and to make some of them a bit flatter.
Hifi speakers are usually measured at one meter while the response may be a little different at 2, 3 or 4 meters (listening position) due to non-constant directivity.
Since these are much more “constant”, what you measure at the LP is much closer to what you measure at 1m and “Flat” loudspeakers at the LP actually sounds bright with today’s recordings. Floyd Tools study showed that the drooping response was preferred over any other choices by listeners and although not having it flat goes against my grain, I have to agree, that’s how it sounds to me too.
Ugh, work calls, got to run.
Best,
Tom
If your version is immune to crosswinds, it is radiating as if it were a simple, single source (cool) and not an interference pattern like one gets with a complex radiation source or uncoupled multiple sources. It is the porcupine appearance of the dispersion pattern at high resolutions that makes the audible swishy swishy effect if the wind blows or the system or listener moves.
Fig11 is the oldest version, the first one I built in the old days and of the two, might be closest to the layered combiner although not that close in appearance.
The idea came from thinking about the horn / reflector assembly used by telephone companies when I was a kid and and old one was used to discover the cosmic background radiation.
I found a picture of one;
The problem with doing this with sound is the wavelength varies so much that the reflector is a variable not a constant. In microwaves, the bandwidth is very narrow and the dimensions large.
It occurred to me that unlike a reflection, a pathway had no such issue, worked at any frequency up to where the passageway acted like a low pass filter etc.
If you look at fig 11 and the radio horn, you can see the direct analogy and the root for the idea.
Fig9 is fig 11 extended to full symmetry. A cool part here is on one side, the radial plane, the expansion is 360 degrees radial originating from a point, no chance for a reflection or interference in this plane while in the thickness plane, the dimension is too small to permit reflected sound.
Some of the Paraline elements, like the ones used by VTC or in the GH-60 actually show a smoother frequency response (less grass in the curve) than normal horns.
Unfortunately, due to the situation of now being not only on the radar “but in the sights” of much larger and more well funded foes, I can’ t really publicly disclose the combiner until the patent office publishes the application.
If you are attending the Infocomm trade show in Lost Wages Nev in June, I would be happy to show you, in fact I am hoping we will have a new more powerful horn there using this and that has 64 hf compression drivers acting as a single source AND you can fit this through a normal house doorway so a pair will be perfect for a dorm room or desk top stereo haha.
Hi panjilaras
Gosh, thanks but I am just one of God’s DIY’rs who loves sound too.
Hi Earnie
Well he SH-50 crossover I developed in my living room and so at the time, it was as close to the ideal measurement wise as I could get. An issue here was also partly cost, it usually takes three passive components to remove a peak or dip in the system response.
Each part has to be sized so that it will not change even at high power.
That parts cost is much less a concern for a hifi product or at least that's my take.
The only real acoustic difference between the “target” for a home version of any of them would be to make the response roll off at about -1 dB per octave as the frequency climbs and to make some of them a bit flatter.
Hifi speakers are usually measured at one meter while the response may be a little different at 2, 3 or 4 meters (listening position) due to non-constant directivity.
Since these are much more “constant”, what you measure at the LP is much closer to what you measure at 1m and “Flat” loudspeakers at the LP actually sounds bright with today’s recordings. Floyd Tools study showed that the drooping response was preferred over any other choices by listeners and although not having it flat goes against my grain, I have to agree, that’s how it sounds to me too.
Ugh, work calls, got to run.
Best,
Tom
- Status
- This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.