Ill try. ....
So. im trying to pick the best of each, and merge it with new ideas.
Lets see. Still hoping someone will say "better make this that way because..."
I think that this is unfamiliar ground for most of guys here. It also seems that you've done your homework and gave it a lot of thought - much more than someone who's not going to build these. So, at the moment, you are the most competent person to critique this system.
I'd quite like to hear where do you disagree with Romy. I still think that his system is one of the best designed multihorn systems i've seen on the web. I always like to see constructive clash of opinions
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Just be prepared to be called stupid if you post something Romi doesn't agree with.
Well. I disagree that digital has to be intrusive.
I disagree that SSamps are too.
I don’t want to see a ribbon tweeter or standard Subwoofer in my horn.
I cant stand SET sound. It bores me to death. I need the fresh kick and dramatic punch of a dynamic SS AB amp.
Reg. the digital i know that having all vinyl-tube chain, and plugging a really good ADDA in the chain that gives exactly 1:1 pass through, u cant hear a difference. Fact. You have to do it blind though then everybody will fail distinguishing! I bet my *** on that.
So everything that u “touch / eq / deform” within the 01010 part... is up to you. If this sounds bad, then u did something wrong. Likely vast majority does
Even if it does touch a molecule, room modes, phase delay, unlinearity is by far more intrusive. Its like comparing that molecule with a galaxy.
But making the right corrections is an art of a lifetime.
It took me 10 years in measuring plus 2 years experimenting with FIR, transient and paychoacoustics to get somewhere ... half way lets say
Sweeping ur Mike a moment and press the line flat, save and done, likely fails.
If u dont know what you’re doing, book a pro! Don’t blame the digits to be evil.
I disagree that SSamps are too.
I don’t want to see a ribbon tweeter or standard Subwoofer in my horn.
I cant stand SET sound. It bores me to death. I need the fresh kick and dramatic punch of a dynamic SS AB amp.
Reg. the digital i know that having all vinyl-tube chain, and plugging a really good ADDA in the chain that gives exactly 1:1 pass through, u cant hear a difference. Fact. You have to do it blind though
then everybody will fail distinguishing! I bet my *** on that. So everything that u “touch / eq / deform” within the 01010 part... is up to you. If this sounds bad, then u did something wrong. Likely vast majority does
Even if it does touch a molecule, room modes, phase delay, unlinearity is by far more intrusive. Its like comparing that molecule with a galaxy.
But making the right corrections is an art of a lifetime.
It took me 10 years in measuring plus 2 years experimenting with FIR, transient and paychoacoustics to get somewhere ... half way lets say
Sweeping ur Mike a moment and press the line flat, save and done, likely fails.
If u dont know what you’re doing, book a pro! Don’t blame the digits to be evil.
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This project is stunning and super exciting. I am really looking forward to following your progress. Who knows, maybe I will one day want to make a pilgrimage to your horn cave
I'm not even close to being competent enough to give technical feedback here. Intuitively, that many crossovers seem "dangerous" to me, but given your acoustics I think it might work.
My comment is more intuitive. I'm a non technical person, and my journey into hifi started with my appreciation of live unamplified music, both attending concerts and playing instruments myself. I became interested in hifi because I wanted to recreate that in my own living room. To me, hifi is about making me forget that I listen to speakers. So far, the only setups that have convinced me that I was listening to something real have been setups which actively used reflections in the room to enhance the stereo image. That is, the best dipole speakers currently available IMO - Linkwitz 521.4 - and the best point source omni speakers currently available (search for Morrison Audio). These setups have sounded "real" to me, given the right material. In the end I chose the Morrison speakers myself.
I've heard some excellent multiway horn setups as well. But with one exception, they all sounded like "speakers" to me. The best horn setup I've heard - which has many things in common with your approach btw - deliberately used room reflections as well, without any treatment of the room at all, in order to enhance the stereo image. Still, it felt more like "speakers" than the very best dipole or omni setups. To my ears at least.
Btw, if you haven't seen it, this talk about "spatial audio" may interest you: YouTube
So my only comment is intuitive: I'm afraid that a setup with that many ways in a heavily treated room, and so little of the "point source with reflections" approach, might sound like "speakers", and not like real instruments playing in your room/the room you look into. But: I will be delighted to be disproved! As said, I will follow this thread eagerly.
I'm not even close to being competent enough to give technical feedback here. Intuitively, that many crossovers seem "dangerous" to me, but given your acoustics I think it might work.
My comment is more intuitive. I'm a non technical person, and my journey into hifi started with my appreciation of live unamplified music, both attending concerts and playing instruments myself. I became interested in hifi because I wanted to recreate that in my own living room. To me, hifi is about making me forget that I listen to speakers. So far, the only setups that have convinced me that I was listening to something real have been setups which actively used reflections in the room to enhance the stereo image. That is, the best dipole speakers currently available IMO - Linkwitz 521.4 - and the best point source omni speakers currently available (search for Morrison Audio). These setups have sounded "real" to me, given the right material. In the end I chose the Morrison speakers myself.
I've heard some excellent multiway horn setups as well. But with one exception, they all sounded like "speakers" to me. The best horn setup I've heard - which has many things in common with your approach btw - deliberately used room reflections as well, without any treatment of the room at all, in order to enhance the stereo image. Still, it felt more like "speakers" than the very best dipole or omni setups. To my ears at least.
Btw, if you haven't seen it, this talk about "spatial audio" may interest you: YouTube
So my only comment is intuitive: I'm afraid that a setup with that many ways in a heavily treated room, and so little of the "point source with reflections" approach, might sound like "speakers", and not like real instruments playing in your room/the room you look into. But: I will be delighted to be disproved! As said, I will follow this thread eagerly.
One more comment: I'll try to explain a bit more depth the psychoacoustical point I was trying to get across. In the talk about spatial audio that I linked to above, Rumsey explains why two-channel stereo usually has an inherent artificiality compared to real instruments.
This is how reflections behave given a real stage - if there were actually real instruments at the artificial stereo stage (screenshots from the video):
Each instrument creates reflections, also the instruments in the middle of the soundstage.
But with two speakers, this is what happens:
The instruments between the speakers don't create any reflections. Because of this, two-channel stereo usually doesn't feel "real" to me - and this is supported by some psychoacoustical research into spatial audio.
My experience has been that omnis and dipoles feel less "artificial" than other speaker designs. I suspect the reason is that reflections from the room are coming from many more directions than with conventional speakers, and that this mimics how real instruments behave in a real room. But for that to work, it is an absolute necessity that the reflections are as similar as possible to the main signal. Most dipoles and "omnis" fail at this as well. The Morrisons are the only real point source omnis I know of. And placement and room acoustics are still vital. But there are trade-offs with everything. You are right that horns offer huge advantages when it comes to non-linear distortion and dynamics. In my future life I might keep my omnis in the salon, and have a horn system (perhaps mulitchannel) in the basement
The approach I have yet to explore is surround/multichannel for music. Haven't heard a really good setup yet. I suspect that it might work very well with the right kind of material, possibly even better than good dipoles and omnis in stereo, even though Rumsey dismisses it in his talk.
But back to your project: How does this relate? I am not sure how your setup will come around the inherent artificialty of two-channel stereo. My gut feeling tells me that a three-way system with a dipole sub, and two horns which cover all other frequencies with extremely constant directivity, and with the right kind of diffusion all over the room, might be better able at convincing a listener such as me that I'm hearing real instruments.
On the other hand, one might claim that the recreation of "instruments being in your room" is not the goal at all, but rather that the goal should be to look glimpse into another room from farther away. Then I think your setup should work excellently. Anyway, I'm still very excited about your project!
(sorry for the lengthy reply, but it is not often that I encounter projects such as yours, which seems so firmly grounded in both acoustic and psychoacoustic theory and relevant practical experience)
This is how reflections behave given a real stage - if there were actually real instruments at the artificial stereo stage (screenshots from the video):
Each instrument creates reflections, also the instruments in the middle of the soundstage.
But with two speakers, this is what happens:
The instruments between the speakers don't create any reflections. Because of this, two-channel stereo usually doesn't feel "real" to me - and this is supported by some psychoacoustical research into spatial audio.
My experience has been that omnis and dipoles feel less "artificial" than other speaker designs. I suspect the reason is that reflections from the room are coming from many more directions than with conventional speakers, and that this mimics how real instruments behave in a real room. But for that to work, it is an absolute necessity that the reflections are as similar as possible to the main signal. Most dipoles and "omnis" fail at this as well. The Morrisons are the only real point source omnis I know of. And placement and room acoustics are still vital. But there are trade-offs with everything. You are right that horns offer huge advantages when it comes to non-linear distortion and dynamics. In my future life I might keep my omnis in the salon, and have a horn system (perhaps mulitchannel) in the basement
The approach I have yet to explore is surround/multichannel for music. Haven't heard a really good setup yet. I suspect that it might work very well with the right kind of material, possibly even better than good dipoles and omnis in stereo, even though Rumsey dismisses it in his talk.
But back to your project: How does this relate? I am not sure how your setup will come around the inherent artificialty of two-channel stereo. My gut feeling tells me that a three-way system with a dipole sub, and two horns which cover all other frequencies with extremely constant directivity, and with the right kind of diffusion all over the room, might be better able at convincing a listener such as me that I'm hearing real instruments.
On the other hand, one might claim that the recreation of "instruments being in your room" is not the goal at all, but rather that the goal should be to look glimpse into another room from farther away. Then I think your setup should work excellently. Anyway, I'm still very excited about your project!
(sorry for the lengthy reply, but it is not often that I encounter projects such as yours, which seems so firmly grounded in both acoustic and psychoacoustic theory and relevant practical experience)
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Reg. the digital i know that having all vinyl-tube chain, and plugging a really good ADDA in the chain that gives exactly 1:1 pass through, u cant hear a difference. Fact. You have to do it blind though
So everything that u “touch / eq / deform” within the 01010 part... is up to you. If this sounds bad, then u did something wrong. Likely vast majority does
So you're telling me that interrupting an all-analogue system by introducing a AD converter won't change nothing.
And after that, by reconverting it to analogue and messing it up with anything a ( blown: why would you want to alter the information in the media ?! ) mind can think...yeah, ten years of suffering, and many more to come !
Hi Oivavoi
Thats a good thought and i had those too some time ago.
At the end i gave up because we are slaves to what is being served no matter what i want
What i mean is the recording. Your view on reflections of an authentic source sounding like it really is in my reverbant room works only under the condition:
- the instrument itself has to be omnidirectional by nature (never the case)
- the instr. has to be recorded in an anchoic chamber
- the speaker has to play it monoural
- consequently i can only play one instrument per channel
- the instr. has to have irrelevant small bone noise contributions under live circumstances (sometimes the case)
- the mastering shall not touch the recording in any way (EQ, Phase, Distortions, artificial reverberation, dynamic compression, panning, etc) -> NEVER the case!
Now having all the compromises in the damn reality to deal with, the illusion of “its really here” can only be brought from totally wrong to max kind of nice almost illusion. One of the many “special effects “ that technically bring us even further away from 1:1 reproduction are intensified reflections made by dipols or horizontal omnis. Id like to stress the horizontal as all those omnis still lobe in vertical dimension. Its only horizontally 360°. A real omni has 360 in XYZ dimension.
So talking about what is perfect is useless as long as u cant feed the best speaker with perfect input.
Talking about what is best possible, makes more sense as u can list existing misbehaviors of a conventional speaker that negatively influences the signal.
I hope not to be too naive thinking that i did that to the most possible extend - in theory though.
Another interesting point i wanted to raise to you is:
If an omni sounds like real in your room, would it still sound real in another room?
What if this other room has more absorbant surfaces?
Would it sound different then?
If one is different than the other, which one is actually correct?
And if i exchange absorbant surrounding by narrow dispersion (lets consider both frequency neutral to keep it easy), where is the actual difference?
Cheers
Josh
Thats a good thought and i had those too some time ago.
At the end i gave up because we are slaves to what is being served no matter what i want
What i mean is the recording. Your view on reflections of an authentic source sounding like it really is in my reverbant room works only under the condition:
- the instrument itself has to be omnidirectional by nature (never the case)
- the instr. has to be recorded in an anchoic chamber
- the speaker has to play it monoural
- consequently i can only play one instrument per channel
- the instr. has to have irrelevant small bone noise contributions under live circumstances (sometimes the case)
- the mastering shall not touch the recording in any way (EQ, Phase, Distortions, artificial reverberation, dynamic compression, panning, etc) -> NEVER the case!
Now having all the compromises in the damn reality to deal with, the illusion of “its really here” can only be brought from totally wrong to max kind of nice almost illusion. One of the many “special effects “ that technically bring us even further away from 1:1 reproduction are intensified reflections made by dipols or horizontal omnis. Id like to stress the horizontal as all those omnis still lobe in vertical dimension. Its only horizontally 360°. A real omni has 360 in XYZ dimension.
So talking about what is perfect is useless as long as u cant feed the best speaker with perfect input.
Talking about what is best possible, makes more sense as u can list existing misbehaviors of a conventional speaker that negatively influences the signal.
I hope not to be too naive thinking that i did that to the most possible extend - in theory though.
Another interesting point i wanted to raise to you is:
If an omni sounds like real in your room, would it still sound real in another room?
What if this other room has more absorbant surfaces?
Would it sound different then?
If one is different than the other, which one is actually correct?
And if i exchange absorbant surrounding by narrow dispersion (lets consider both frequency neutral to keep it easy), where is the actual difference?
Cheers
Josh
I would look into the Klipsch K402 which solves a lot of the issues of needing multiple horns to cover a wide bandwidth. When I heard it with the Jubilee bass bin it was the most coherent point source horn speaker I'd heard and it didn't have any detectable horn coloration. I suspect this is because this is a controlled directivity horn originally created for Klipsch's Pro home theater division.
There is another forum member in Norway that has a straight midbass horn operating below it down to (I think) 100 Hz.
There is another forum member in Norway that has a straight midbass horn operating below it down to (I think) 100 Hz.
Hi jpak
After testing I found distortion in general way more intrusive than slight amplitude attenuation. Especially that the second one is invertable easily. Distortion difficult, and even then rather harmonics, but the worst: intermodulation - is not.
Now. Pointsource, wideband coverage, little xover points, all nice yes. I take them if I get them for free.
You may noticed that I got crazy amount of xover and run most drivers max 2 octaves only.
Wideband is not a problem. Go with any of the many CD horns, round horns, whatever, plug a nice TAD driver in and u cover 5-6 octaves. There are even wider drivers with lower quality.
But you don't get this for free. Excursion in wide band is one of the main reasons for IM distortions. Imho that sounds nasty, nervous, artificial, unpleasant and costs lot of joy. Especially costs rendering of clean and clear details.
It was on the top of the list amongst modal room interference of non invertable distortion that need to be fixed by the speaker design.
cheers
Josh
After testing I found distortion in general way more intrusive than slight amplitude attenuation. Especially that the second one is invertable easily. Distortion difficult, and even then rather harmonics, but the worst: intermodulation - is not.
Now. Pointsource, wideband coverage, little xover points, all nice yes. I take them if I get them for free.
You may noticed that I got crazy amount of xover and run most drivers max 2 octaves only.
Wideband is not a problem. Go with any of the many CD horns, round horns, whatever, plug a nice TAD driver in and u cover 5-6 octaves. There are even wider drivers with lower quality.
But you don't get this for free. Excursion in wide band is one of the main reasons for IM distortions. Imho that sounds nasty, nervous, artificial, unpleasant and costs lot of joy. Especially costs rendering of clean and clear details.
It was on the top of the list amongst modal room interference of non invertable distortion that need to be fixed by the speaker design.
cheers
Josh
Thanks for a good reply, Josh! You've obviously given this a lot of thought, and I certainly don't think that what I'm saying is "right" and that the way you're doing it is "wrong". But you asked for critical comments on possible challenges with your design ideas...
As to omnis: You are right that most omnis are only omni horizontally. Not mine from Morrison Audio, though. They are completely omni 360 degrees horizontally, and 180 degrees vertically. Essentially their dispersion is like a mushroom. Look them up, if you want to.
My argument here is mainly about psychoacoustics, which goes beyond the 1:1-thing with regards to the signal. As I see it, the subjective experience of a soundstage is just an illusion. Different dispersion patterns, different placements and different rooms will create different kinds of soundstages, and I don't think there is a "right" answer. My experience tells me that the setup you're envisioning will be very correct, and give an excellent - bordering on perfect - window into the world of the recording. But I don't think it will give you the sense of having musicians in your own room. This might be worth it as a trade-off, though, especially given that low distortion is one of the most important goals for you. I think you are completely right that this necessitates a multi-way setup. As for me, I'd rather take some more distortion, if that gives me more of the wide dispersion point source thing.
But again - rather sure this will turn out pretty awesome!
As to omnis: You are right that most omnis are only omni horizontally. Not mine from Morrison Audio, though. They are completely omni 360 degrees horizontally, and 180 degrees vertically. Essentially their dispersion is like a mushroom. Look them up, if you want to.
My argument here is mainly about psychoacoustics, which goes beyond the 1:1-thing with regards to the signal. As I see it, the subjective experience of a soundstage is just an illusion. Different dispersion patterns, different placements and different rooms will create different kinds of soundstages, and I don't think there is a "right" answer. My experience tells me that the setup you're envisioning will be very correct, and give an excellent - bordering on perfect - window into the world of the recording. But I don't think it will give you the sense of having musicians in your own room. This might be worth it as a trade-off, though, especially given that low distortion is one of the most important goals for you. I think you are completely right that this necessitates a multi-way setup. As for me, I'd rather take some more distortion, if that gives me more of the wide dispersion point source thing.
But again - rather sure this will turn out pretty awesome!
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Hehe u got excellent modest attitude, respect.
I looked them up but see a woofer and tweeter in two separate places with a ball-reflector. That should technically not give a real omni. Unless i cought the wrong model .. (?)
You're right im asking for critics, thx for reminder while im in defending mode
Thats a valid point, overdamping can sound too dry. I like the wow-effect of dipols and omnis. I dont like the narrow in-head style of narrow-dispersion systems (8" fullrangers for example). Indeed, i have a pair of electrostatics here too.
Then one day, i had the chance to listen to the Vox Olympian. The tweeter using the long conical tube has xtremely narrow dispersion. They played a boring piano song that took ages and bound me on the chair hypnotized by its precision of details and realism in front of me. So its possible too Anyway, trying to take a piece of that performance, i found the inspiration of Living Voice: The JBL 2312. Its an almost 1:1 copy xcept of cosmetic deviation.
But I also own a pair of Fostex T825 Tweeter that i used by now, which is a 180° wide-dispersion slot style. I enjoyed the "air" but it cant compeed with the details in your face. Then I got inspired by a guy who worked with front+back speaker running separately driven via DSP. At first he only wanted to add some reflection to the back like others do.
But then, as the back is individually driven, he played with phase and loudness, finally with delay. The final setting was astonishing when he delayed the rear driver for full 5ms of time, and -6-10dB in level. Its no coincidence that it matches the precedence window (psychoacoustic of reverberation) of almost 6 feet. With that delay (despite the narrow disp. of the drivers) it suddenly "unleashed" the sound, the curtain vanished, air freedom size and realism increased.
Same effect, but on and off by button
It also brought some negative effect in the lows where 5 ms are not sufficient to prevent interference. Conclusively its only needed in the highs with a soft roll off, which is more relevant for localisation.
So, aiming for best of both worlds, i took the JBL 2312 Horn with 2420/LE85 driver (saves some bucks compared to TAD 2002, if good, otherwise goes to the bin), and plan to attach the T825 on the back with mentioned delay settings.
It is also interesting that this almost doesnt affect the measured response of the speaker itself, thx to the lower level.
Small cherry on the cake will be adding two of the tweeters on the back, angled slightly outwards, out of phase. The out of phase connection of 2 close sources creates additional diffuse perception and less localization of the "fake-source" on the back.
I did give this a lot of thought. And thats just about the tweeter
Could write a book, but who wants to read that
I looked them up but see a woofer and tweeter in two separate places with a ball-reflector. That should technically not give a real omni. Unless i cought the wrong model .. (?)
You're right im asking for critics, thx for reminder while im in defending mode
Thats a valid point, overdamping can sound too dry. I like the wow-effect of dipols and omnis. I dont like the narrow in-head style of narrow-dispersion systems (8" fullrangers for example). Indeed, i have a pair of electrostatics here too.
Then one day, i had the chance to listen to the Vox Olympian. The tweeter using the long conical tube has xtremely narrow dispersion. They played a boring piano song that took ages and bound me on the chair hypnotized by its precision of details and realism in front of me. So its possible too
Anyway, trying to take a piece of that performance, i found the inspiration of Living Voice: The JBL 2312. Its an almost 1:1 copy xcept of cosmetic deviation.But I also own a pair of Fostex T825 Tweeter that i used by now, which is a 180° wide-dispersion slot style. I enjoyed the "air" but it cant compeed with the details in your face. Then I got inspired by a guy who worked with front+back speaker running separately driven via DSP. At first he only wanted to add some reflection to the back like others do.
But then, as the back is individually driven, he played with phase and loudness, finally with delay. The final setting was astonishing when he delayed the rear driver for full 5ms of time, and -6-10dB in level. Its no coincidence that it matches the precedence window (psychoacoustic of reverberation) of almost 6 feet. With that delay (despite the narrow disp. of the drivers) it suddenly "unleashed" the sound, the curtain vanished, air freedom size and realism increased.
Same effect, but on and off by button
It also brought some negative effect in the lows where 5 ms are not sufficient to prevent interference. Conclusively its only needed in the highs with a soft roll off, which is more relevant for localisation.
So, aiming for best of both worlds, i took the JBL 2312 Horn with 2420/LE85 driver (saves some bucks compared to TAD 2002, if good, otherwise goes to the bin), and plan to attach the T825 on the back with mentioned delay settings.
It is also interesting that this almost doesnt affect the measured response of the speaker itself, thx to the lower level.
Small cherry on the cake will be adding two of the tweeters on the back, angled slightly outwards, out of phase. The out of phase connection of 2 close sources creates additional diffuse perception and less localization of the "fake-source" on the back.
I did give this a lot of thought. And thats just about the tweeter
Could write a book, but who wants to read that
Cool! The more I hear you explaining your design, the more convinced I get.
Concerning the Morrisons: I guess you may frame it that way... Technically, I think a single omni driver is a physical impossibility. AFAIK there are no such drivers in existence. But this speaker gets closer to that ideal than any other speakers I know of. The tweeter is digitally time-delayed in the crossover (I would never buy or build a speaker that wasn't driven actively and digitally), so the result is a sound field that is as close to a point source omni as it is possible to get.
But this thread isn't about omnis though... Last point for tonight: Another way of framing my point is like this. Almost all setups I've listened to so far - including the ones that are closest to what you're describing - have sounded to me like speakers. I've been able to localize the sound as coming from two distinct physical places. The only setups I've heard where the speakers have disappeared completely have been two dipole setups - the LX521, and the Piega Master One - and the Morrisons. With them, it has not. been possible to say where the speakers are located - the soundfield is just there. One may argue the point whether this is more or less fidelitous to the source or not, but the subjective result for me has been higher subjectively experienced fidelity to how I experience real acoustic music. Siegfried Linkwitz describes this well in several of his publications.
But: I've learnt in hifi to not be pre-conceived! I was skeptical of horns until I heard an amazing horn setup that blew me away. I know about the trick with the backwards-firing tweeter, even though I've never heard it myself. It might very well be that you might achieve a similar effect this way - that the backward-firing treble, combined with well-placed diffusion, might make the main speakers "disappear". I remain a little bit doubtful, but I'll be very happy if you're able to achieve that!
So in case there's any useful take-away for you from my comments here, perhaps it's this: I believe that distortion is not the only remaining "problem" to be solved. With conventional forward-firing speakers, I think localization of the speakers as speakers is an additional problem. So far, I've only heard dipoles and omnis solve that problem (but perhaps as a prize). If you're able to solve that as well in your horn setup... you can count me impressed
Concerning the Morrisons: I guess you may frame it that way... Technically, I think a single omni driver is a physical impossibility. AFAIK there are no such drivers in existence. But this speaker gets closer to that ideal than any other speakers I know of. The tweeter is digitally time-delayed in the crossover (I would never buy or build a speaker that wasn't driven actively and digitally), so the result is a sound field that is as close to a point source omni as it is possible to get.
But this thread isn't about omnis though...
Last point for tonight: Another way of framing my point is like this. Almost all setups I've listened to so far - including the ones that are closest to what you're describing - have sounded to me like speakers. I've been able to localize the sound as coming from two distinct physical places. The only setups I've heard where the speakers have disappeared completely have been two dipole setups - the LX521, and the Piega Master One - and the Morrisons. With them, it has not. been possible to say where the speakers are located - the soundfield is just there. One may argue the point whether this is more or less fidelitous to the source or not, but the subjective result for me has been higher subjectively experienced fidelity to how I experience real acoustic music. Siegfried Linkwitz describes this well in several of his publications. But: I've learnt in hifi to not be pre-conceived! I was skeptical of horns until I heard an amazing horn setup that blew me away. I know about the trick with the backwards-firing tweeter, even though I've never heard it myself. It might very well be that you might achieve a similar effect this way - that the backward-firing treble, combined with well-placed diffusion, might make the main speakers "disappear". I remain a little bit doubtful, but I'll be very happy if you're able to achieve that!
So in case there's any useful take-away for you from my comments here, perhaps it's this: I believe that distortion is not the only remaining "problem" to be solved. With conventional forward-firing speakers, I think localization of the speakers as speakers is an additional problem. So far, I've only heard dipoles and omnis solve that problem (but perhaps as a prize). If you're able to solve that as well in your horn setup... you can count me impressed
I don't know, but your outright rejection of passively / analogue driven loudspeakers sounds pretty pre-conceived to me...
You sure you've heard every possible incarnation of the latter before dismissing them altogether?
You're right, that came across too harsh. In fact, some of the best setups I've heard in my life have had passive crossovers. The very best passive speakers can easily beat quite a lot of good active setups. My point was more that I don't see any point in using passive crossovers at this point. Active crossovers can do everything passive crossovers do, and they can also do quite a lot of other things (like time delay, taking care of phase issues, etc). I just can't see any reason to keep using passive crossovers these days. Doesn't mean that passive speakers sound bad, just that active crossovers open up lots of possibilites that are difficult to achieve with passives.
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