I built already a few MEH's - single and dual expansion of pretty large dimensions. On the other hand, I built some really nice large horns (like the WN300ALO) and I was thinking about a way of using these together somehow.
And I think it should be actually possible to build a MEH without the HF driver and use the large horn on top of it. What would be the motivation?
1) To make the horn less deep - the woofers would be mounted from the sides, not at the back of the horn - which should save some considerable depth. Maybe the acoustical center could be quite well matched in distance from the listener.
2) More SPL/efficiency in a more compact box - e.g. 4 woofers could be enclosed in a relatively simple back box, the result being more "squarish" than when mounted from the back in a separate chamber - the volume behind the horn would be used as the "free" back chamber.
3) Bandpass filtering could reduce distortion and make the low pass easier, simply by using peak filters at the high end (with a DSP).
There are definitely some cons to this. I can imagine a passive crossover would be difficult, but not impossible.
One of the inspirations was my large test MEH, where a single 8PE21 did a really nice midbass job - which it could also do in a dedicated traditional midbass horn, which would be definitely much deeper. I can imagine 4 x 8-12" or 2x15" could be still relatively compact (compared to the size of the HF horn).
I will try to run some Hornresp simulations using the OD model with the woofers I have at hand. With a bit of effort, a different than conical profile could be used to improve the low end loading. The target for the low end is somewhere around 90 - 120 Hz, where the large bass horns would take over.
Any thoughts about this being a good idea or a bad idea are very welcome!
And I think it should be actually possible to build a MEH without the HF driver and use the large horn on top of it. What would be the motivation?
1) To make the horn less deep - the woofers would be mounted from the sides, not at the back of the horn - which should save some considerable depth. Maybe the acoustical center could be quite well matched in distance from the listener.
2) More SPL/efficiency in a more compact box - e.g. 4 woofers could be enclosed in a relatively simple back box, the result being more "squarish" than when mounted from the back in a separate chamber - the volume behind the horn would be used as the "free" back chamber.
3) Bandpass filtering could reduce distortion and make the low pass easier, simply by using peak filters at the high end (with a DSP).
There are definitely some cons to this. I can imagine a passive crossover would be difficult, but not impossible.
One of the inspirations was my large test MEH, where a single 8PE21 did a really nice midbass job - which it could also do in a dedicated traditional midbass horn, which would be definitely much deeper. I can imagine 4 x 8-12" or 2x15" could be still relatively compact (compared to the size of the HF horn).
I will try to run some Hornresp simulations using the OD model with the woofers I have at hand. With a bit of effort, a different than conical profile could be used to improve the low end loading. The target for the low end is somewhere around 90 - 120 Hz, where the large bass horns would take over.
Any thoughts about this being a good idea or a bad idea are very welcome!
Of course you can! It's what I cobbled together when TD gave me some hints in a PM back before he went public. Note some of the W.E. side throat loaded cinema bass horns. Drat! More pics gone! 
This is one man's version.
This is one man's version.
GM - what do you figure the spacing was of Cerwin's Dhorm tweeters? - Is there a modern equivalent of those units? (I had a pair of S1 Loud - gas bag/6th order reflex 3 way with large waveguide on the Dhorm back in the 80's and they would play crazy loud in a small room with a DH200. I'd love to have a similar diy effort but am worse than broke - plus too "old" and worn out - lol