Any difference between guitar-cab speakers and home hi-fi speakers?

I am bit crazy and I like both solutions..
With bass reflex box and a horn "tweeter" option I would like to make rectangular wooden horn which will be independent located above.. but I mainly see too large square horns in calpanos speakers

The dimensions of a horn might have to be specific (the length and the height of the mouth, and the angle comparing to the diameter of the tweeter). Those would change the frequencies and the directivity
Attache files to see what examples from internet search.
 

Attachments

  • diy wooden horn 5.jpg
    diy wooden horn 5.jpg
    112.7 KB · Views: 159
  • 6ae5c261f47be773bde67f2b155a7f04.jpg
    6ae5c261f47be773bde67f2b155a7f04.jpg
    40.4 KB · Views: 141
Last edited:
Can a speaker from an average/good home hi-fi system be used as a guitar speaker?...

Look at it this way: a guitar speaker is a part of a system designed to create a "tone", usually by shaping the frequency response, adding distortion/compression, etc... Whereas a Hifi speaker is supposed to be as neutral as possible.

So the answer to the original Q is: "Yes, it'll work, if the power handling is OK-ish, but no, it'll not be a good solution".
 
Member
Joined 2008
Paid Member
With a 12", the horn does not need to be that large. What brands can you buy at your place? Selenium, Eminence or RCF make some nice horns - e.g. RCF H100 or HF101 or Selenium HM25-25.

My horn stack is also in separate enclosures. Ideally, the acoustic centers od the 12" and HF driver in the horn should be aligned - which means either a wide shallow horn or the horn sticking a bit forward as you can also see in some pictures. The other option is active four channel amps + DSP for crossover and delays to achieve time alignment with the placement you need to look good.

I also own a clone of Yamamoto YS500 - Yamamoto YS-500 That one is using a smaller horn, but maybe too small and too high crossover point. The speakers sound great none the less. Actually, in PA, there are common combinations of 15" and small horn - not the best due to directivity mismatch. I am just refurbishing some old Italian FBT speakers with an unknown 15" speaker and OEM RCF N252 tweeter. There was only high pass, third order on the tweeter, I yet have to measure what frequency it was crossed over at. With some tuning, these will work fine as well.
 
Last edited:
From a quick search without checking type and specs I found :
SELENIUM HM-3950 SLF PRO-PA 60Hx30V 2 inch fiberglass 75€
SELENIUM HM-4750 SLF PRO-PA 90Hx40V, 2 INCH, FIBER GLASS 79€
B&C 1" aluminum B&C ME 45 – Thomann Ellada
On the very interesting Calpamos pdf I downloaded he uses a biradial horn.
A lso a the mid-low driver is a 15" faital pro driver. I do have access to those drivers locally but when I compare his 15" with the others 12" drivers they are not similar. See from the site the 12" drivers don't have so low responce comparing to the the 15" driver
Maybe we should check that one :12R310 what do you think

FaitalPRO | LF Loudspeakers
 
Last edited:
Member
Joined 2008
Paid Member
The ME45 should work fine. For the 12", look at BC Speakers - look for low Fs and high xmax, something like 12TBX100 - but I cannot really recommend any, since I did not use one. Fane has a Sovereign 12, that can go quite low. And a relatively cheap one would be a Delta12LF by Eminence - at the Prodance web, they have some nice combinations with it.
 
By the way I do have 2 pairs of Faital pro 4FE35. I purchase them to make a small speaker. They are very good,30W, with high sensitivity but they don't provide enough bass the have high Qts.. I was looking for a woofer to combine them in a system. Do you think they could be usefully here?
 
Member
Joined 2008
Paid Member
There are some acronyms known here. I think WAW stands for Woofer Assisted Wideband and I do not remember for what the FAST is - maybe Fullrange Assisted something?

The point is to use the fullrange, where it sounds the best, say above 150 - 400 Hz, depending on the size of the FR and cross it over to a large speaker for bass duty. There are many designs on this site e.g. this one came up when searching for these - I'm interested in a FAST / WAW build an have some questions :)
 
The first attachment is showing the difference between 60 l (dark) and 90 l (light). The second attachment is showing the effect of 6 dB boost at 50 Hz said:
Thank you for your help.


Watching back these 2 files focused on our conversation on the low frequencies but I am trying to understand on the other end with high frequencies? The curve seem to get down without any high frequencies.
 

Attachments

  • Fane12-250TC60-90.jpg
    Fane12-250TC60-90.jpg
    28.7 KB · Views: 131
Correct me if I am wrong:
I understand that in order to design a high efficient system we need to make sure to get a high sensitivity (a straight line above 93Db) throughout the whole spectrum of frequencies starting from 40Hz.?
The lower open E bass note is I think the at 45hz. The sensibility of the driver on those low edges must be higher?
And what happens when we use only one driver to cover from that low-end all over to the 4Khz for a 2way and even to 20Kh this full range...?
Is a multi-way system more efficient? We can even have 4 drivers each one dedicated to the range
lets say: 12inch low bass to 100Hz, 12inch low mid to 1Khz - High mid compression horn to 8Khz (or a 10inch mid-range), and a tweeter??
 
Member
Joined 2008
Paid Member
I would say the best bang for the buck is a three way biamped "PA" system. 15" subs up to 100 - 140 Hz with some powerful amps and a two way passive high efficiency "top", say 12" midbass + 1.4" (or a 1") horn in a small enclosure, time aligned and directivity matched. I know that that is a bit overkill, but my system is even more extreme:)

I am in the process of building a secondary PA like this, with my own horn designs using MaBat's ATH4 software. Mine will use a dual 8" (or single 12") + 1" horn and 15" subwoofers in ca 100l BR boxes. I am aiming for high sensitivity around 100 dB/2.83 V if possible for the tops, the BR boxes should end up somewhere around 95 dB/2.83 V

Saying that, I nowadays mostly listen to pair of single full range backloaded horn with a 6.5" Sonido and I am enjoying them. The same goes for the wonderful Claudiogan's pipes. The Fane 12-250TCs are in storage, but only due to lack of space for them.
 
Are you talking about a 3way active system with amp incorporated? I would prefer passive system (and maybe connected to external dadicated amps). refering to amps I have many old vitage amps, actualy I would use chip amps.
I am impressed with the Claudiogan's pipes I didnt have the time to get throught all the details. In two words what does it succed with pipes infront? I do have another pair of Faital 4" they are very good but need more bass. i will try the system with the pipes.
But basic question is how to get maximum bass out of it and why the back of the driver is not covered, especially this one who has high Qts need to be in infenit baffl?
 
Member
Joined 2008
Paid Member
Three way biamped - with a separate amp for the bass and separate amp running the mid-hi cabinet. So it means an active crossover in front of the two stereo amps. The boxes themselves are passive. I have now 3 separate amps for my 4way system with the mid/top horn crossed over passively fed by a SE tube amp (and spare two channels for ambient speakers when I have a bit more time for experiments).

The pipes do create this "3D" effect - it is hard to describe, but to me it is more like 2D in a plane parallel with the floor with amazing front-to-back and left-to-right instrument placement, also well outside the speakers. I really recommend to try with any kind of pipes (mine are square aluminium, thin wall PVC would work as well).

I have the short 1m version, which does not play too low. The bottom of the driver is bare, so you can imagine the pipes as a series of open baffles, from 0.5 to 1 meter width (that is equivalent to the pathlengths through the pipes somehow). The driver is also loaded by resonance of the tubes and the sound is spread via diffraction at the upper end of the tubes - and the wavefronts are delayed based on the lenth of the tubes.

For bass, you need more length, I have not tried the longer version yet as I have an active 12" subwoofer to use with them - but I mostly do not need it, I just use a loudness button or bass EQ on my Marantz amp that is feeding them.

I have an idea of compound loading the back side with a horn instead of having longer tubes. But that is at the moment quite low on the project list.