Ugly, but with something like that you could be sure there is no dispersion problem:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Megaton Aluminium Waveguides
I was kind of lucky to find these: http://eshop.prodance.cz/DetailPage.asp?DPG=83921
Cast aluminium waveguides usable from 1800 Hz up for 20 Eur (or around 30 USD). They are sand cast most probably without any surface treatment. I will probably buy a pair to hear, what they can do. This company "Megaton" make all kinds of cast aluminium horns for a price that is next to nothing, they are used by the pro audio guys here. With a bit of work (sanding and polishing, painting and deadening with clay) I think they should be high quality waveguides.
I was kind of lucky to find these: http://eshop.prodance.cz/DetailPage.asp?DPG=83921
Cast aluminium waveguides usable from 1800 Hz up for 20 Eur (or around 30 USD). They are sand cast most probably without any surface treatment. I will probably buy a pair to hear, what they can do. This company "Megaton" make all kinds of cast aluminium horns for a price that is next to nothing, they are used by the pro audio guys here. With a bit of work (sanding and polishing, painting and deadening with clay) I think they should be high quality waveguides.
Waveguides
Acually there are two sizes (6" and 8") with two models for each size (deep/shalllow). There are some real measurements with untreated horns, see http://www.prodance.cz/protokoly.php?AnchorID=56&Lng=CZ there is quite lots of measurements for different 1" horns.
Acually there are two sizes (6" and 8") with two models for each size (deep/shalllow). There are some real measurements with untreated horns, see http://www.prodance.cz/protokoly.php?AnchorID=56&Lng=CZ there is quite lots of measurements for different 1" horns.
Hi RJ,
I have also seen some other plots that might say otherwise about the T48 on some websites.
But the matter is past now.
There was no shootout between Bill's and Phil's speakers (well nobody really has heard of phil's), but AFAIK there are results between it and the danley sound TH-115.
pelanj,
speakerstore.nl is currently doing a deal on the Limmer 042s, just to inform you. It contains the horn with quality drivers as well. The horn itself is a bit vintage Turbo-ish.
I have also seen some other plots that might say otherwise about the T48 on some websites.
But the matter is past now.There was no shootout between Bill's and Phil's speakers (well nobody really has heard of phil's
), but AFAIK there are results between it and the danley sound TH-115.pelanj,
speakerstore.nl is currently doing a deal on the Limmer 042s, just to inform you. It contains the horn with quality drivers as well. The horn itself is a bit vintage Turbo-ish.
Aubergine, thanks for the information. That looks good.
I have some measurements for the MBS driver in two of the Megaton A9090 horns, with and without a crossover. A9090 is 220 mm in diameter, A9090m is 160 mm in diameter. The crossover is a rough estimate for lowest possible crossover frequency for this driver/waveguide combination and it corrects for constant directivity of the waveguide. The sensitivity coul be made higher if a higher CO point is needed. The measurements were done by Hubert at Prodance.cz
I have some measurements for the MBS driver in two of the Megaton A9090 horns, with and without a crossover. A9090 is 220 mm in diameter, A9090m is 160 mm in diameter. The crossover is a rough estimate for lowest possible crossover frequency for this driver/waveguide combination and it corrects for constant directivity of the waveguide. The sensitivity coul be made higher if a higher CO point is needed. The measurements were done by Hubert at Prodance.cz
After all the years, I have found out, that the system I wrote about in the first post was based on the Jealvox Monitor - a Danish three way horn design: Something about Jealvox speakers - but triamped, separate cabinets and different drivers for the mid horn and tweeter (there was only one).
On Saturday, I will pick up two PA w-bins that I got for the price of the drivers only, so finally after 10 years of other priorities, this project may start
On Saturday, I will pick up two PA w-bins that I got for the price of the drivers only, so finally after 10 years of other priorities, this project may start
Many W-horns have relatively short paths so horn action occurs >100Hz.
Many 3-way systems will need a subwoofer of some sort if the bottom octave is desired.
A few resources:
The Klipsch Technical and Modification forum (with strong emphasis on Klipsch designs - but University's "Classic" and Ernst Beck's "California" horn have been discussed)
Technical/Modifications - The Klipsch Audio Community
Inlow Sound - from what I've read Mr. Inlow feels any folded horn will be inferior to a properly designed straight horn. John sells plans for several midbass horns besides other interesting designs.
inlowsound.com
Bill Fitzmaurice has some curved bi-furcated midbass horn designs which incidentally look a lot like the old Victor "Orthophonic"
horn from the 1920's - perhaps one of those setup for a given driver would be a fine hi-fi performer.
Speaking of straight midbass horns, "Volvotreter" has built some nice ones and his website has some of Dr. Bruce Edgar's articles on midhorn and basshorn construction:
Articles – Volvotreter Homepage
University Sound's 1950's "Classic" horn by Abraham Cohen and Saul White may be worth consideration. It is rather large.
http://www.geocities.ws/loudspeakerguru/CorrectedUniversityClassic.gif
there are other interesting folded horns from the past such as the Vitavox "Thunderbolt" and a Fane - how they fare for hi fi - I don't know.
fwiw I sometimes prefer a Karlson to a midbass horn - but must be in a minority (I have Klipschorns, Peavey FH1, EV Sentry IV, a custom midbass horn based on a RCA-Fan horn, and a 0.7 scale Classic - so not completely devoid of the things)
Many 3-way systems will need a subwoofer of some sort if the bottom octave is desired.
A few resources:
The Klipsch Technical and Modification forum (with strong emphasis on Klipsch designs - but University's "Classic" and Ernst Beck's "California" horn have been discussed)
Technical/Modifications - The Klipsch Audio Community
Inlow Sound - from what I've read Mr. Inlow feels any folded horn will be inferior to a properly designed straight horn. John sells plans for several midbass horns besides other interesting designs.
inlowsound.com
Bill Fitzmaurice has some curved bi-furcated midbass horn designs which incidentally look a lot like the old Victor "Orthophonic"
horn from the 1920's - perhaps one of those setup for a given driver would be a fine hi-fi performer.
Speaking of straight midbass horns, "Volvotreter" has built some nice ones and his website has some of Dr. Bruce Edgar's articles on midhorn and basshorn construction:
Articles – Volvotreter Homepage
University Sound's 1950's "Classic" horn by Abraham Cohen and Saul White may be worth consideration. It is rather large.
http://www.geocities.ws/loudspeakerguru/CorrectedUniversityClassic.gif
there are other interesting folded horns from the past such as the Vitavox "Thunderbolt" and a Fane - how they fare for hi fi - I don't know.
fwiw I sometimes prefer a Karlson to a midbass horn - but must be in a minority
(I have Klipschorns, Peavey FH1, EV Sentry IV, a custom midbass horn based on a RCA-Fan horn, and a 0.7 scale Classic - so not completely devoid of the things)
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Thanks for the input, freddi. These were used as the only bass in a small PA system (the speaker is Kappa 15LFA). They will be placed in a corner. I tried some quick simulations for corner placement based on mouth area and estimated lenght and it looks like this:
I hope these will serve me the "kick" I am after, I may use a dedicated subwoofer at some later stage. This is more like a proof of concept stage, as I can get rid of them for the same money pretty fast. Since this is a dedicated room, I have a lot of space for crazy sized bass boxes
I hope these will serve me the "kick" I am after, I may use a dedicated subwoofer at some later stage. This is more like a proof of concept stage, as I can get rid of them for the same money pretty fast. Since this is a dedicated room, I have a lot of space for crazy sized bass boxes
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I suspect its largely the balance of clean upper bass vs midrange and perhaps even a bit of stored energy - but the old (1951) Karlson cabinet can subjectively have more kick than a lot of horn. Karlson boxes need low moving mass and fairly strong motors. If run with a midhorn, the crossover needs to be probably 600Hz or higher. They like power and I would think a flea watt 45 amp would disappoint compared to 200 watt run of the mill AB power.
that's a pretty deep playing horn in your graph and should cover a lot of kick and floor tom energy.
my custom midbass for a 12 might not reach quite as deep.
that's a pretty deep playing horn in your graph and should cover a lot of kick and floor tom energy.
my custom midbass for a 12 might not reach quite as deep.
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pelanj,
Take the midrange down to about 500hz. and take advantage for a good 2"compression driver on a proper horn.
Play wood horn TAD TH-4001 vintage speaker drivers horns, perfect Clone | eBay
Then all you would need is a Fostex type tweeter and a simple 6db crossover.
Take the midrange down to about 500hz. and take advantage for a good 2"compression driver on a proper horn.
Play wood horn TAD TH-4001 vintage speaker drivers horns, perfect Clone | eBay
Then all you would need is a Fostex type tweeter and a simple 6db crossover.
freddi: It is just an estimated simulation, I will know the real performance only after I get the boxes. I always found the Karlson style cabinet interesting, but never got to listen to one, I doubt anyone in CZ has ever seen one
hottattoo: Yes, that is one of the options. What drivers would you recommend? I can choose only from the currently manufactured models.
There is an high end audio show next week in Prague, there will be a lot of speakers to listen to. I am especialy interested in Sonido speakers (Sonido akusztika) - a fullrange unit will be much quicker to get and setup than the rest of the horns. And I hope to see and listen to some large horn systems, the famous Lowthers, etc.
hottattoo: Yes, that is one of the options. What drivers would you recommend? I can choose only from the currently manufactured models.
There is an high end audio show next week in Prague, there will be a lot of speakers to listen to. I am especialy interested in Sonido speakers (Sonido akusztika) - a fullrange unit will be much quicker to get and setup than the rest of the horns. And I hope to see and listen to some large horn systems, the famous Lowthers, etc.
The simulations and estimations were a bit optimistic. This is actual simulation from physical measurements.
It is recalculated to wall position, the grey line was the optimistic version
I tried just some really fast measurements with my phone and pink noise:
It does not look really impressive, but the sound is definitely close to what I want to achieve. One funny thing was, that I sent left channel to the horn and right channel to the coax and I got actually some nice image and timber out of the music. Definitely not correct, also asymetrical, but nice indeed. Once set up properly in stereo with crossovers and delays, it will be good enough for my workshop and I can have my listening room system built up nicely - these are not handsome enough and the material is also not the best (plank sandwich).
I now know that the bass horn will be a different design that will play lower. Even the Kappa 15LF simulates really well in e.g. the University Classic or even K15
I was also very lucky to get a pair of JBL2445J drivers with the 2385 horn for a very good price, so that will be the next experiment when I will have them at hand.
It is recalculated to wall position, the grey line was the optimistic version
I tried just some really fast measurements with my phone and pink noise:
It does not look really impressive, but the sound is definitely close to what I want to achieve. One funny thing was, that I sent left channel to the horn and right channel to the coax and I got actually some nice image and timber out of the music. Definitely not correct, also asymetrical, but nice indeed. Once set up properly in stereo with crossovers and delays, it will be good enough for my workshop and I can have my listening room system built up nicely - these are not handsome enough and the material is also not the best (plank sandwich).
I now know that the bass horn will be a different design that will play lower. Even the Kappa 15LF simulates really well in e.g. the University Classic or even K15
I was also very lucky to get a pair of JBL2445J drivers with the 2385 horn for a very good price, so that will be the next experiment when I will have them at hand.
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Slowly getting there. Here are the bass bins, JBL horns and D210Ti on small wooden horns. The system is triamped and slightly equalized by t.racks 4x4 DSP mini. The sound is really dynamic as I like it. I need to get different HF drivers, the Seleniums are not too nice. And hopefully, my large Cervin Vega bass horns will arrive this weekend.
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A pair of these are now installed below the rest. I could not test or measure, because I finished rebuilding around midnight. I will not use the HF horn, so I will keep it 3-way for now, using the DSP to EQ the large JBL horn - until I get the tweeters. They will be most probably BC DE35 as they look nice and flat.
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So this is how it looks like now. The bass horns measure quite flat from 40 Hz above 100 Hz. The drivers needed 18 dB boost to compensate for CD and loss of HF. Now it is +- 3 dB from ca 38 Hz to 20 kHz at the listening position with some small exceptions.
This arrangement is far from ideal as the mid horns are too high. I need to rebuild it with the mid horns in the middle. It also needs a tweeter for sure. There is no need to torture the JBL horn above 8kHz. The previous setup with bass boost and tweeter sounded better, but this one plays bass without the boost.
I am very happy with the Cervin Vega-style bass bins. They are just awesome. One of the next steps will be to use Fane 12-250TC from 100 Hz up in a sealed box.
I am also very happy with the t.racks DSP. It is really a nice little unit and I will most probably get a second one to have the option of 4 way operation. The changes with the software are instant, the disadvantage is that it us Windows only.
But before that, which tweeter or HF horn would you recommend to match the polar pattern of the JBL2385 mid horn?
This arrangement is far from ideal as the mid horns are too high. I need to rebuild it with the mid horns in the middle. It also needs a tweeter for sure. There is no need to torture the JBL horn above 8kHz. The previous setup with bass boost and tweeter sounded better, but this one plays bass without the boost.
I am very happy with the Cervin Vega-style bass bins. They are just awesome. One of the next steps will be to use Fane 12-250TC from 100 Hz up in a sealed box.
I am also very happy with the t.racks DSP. It is really a nice little unit and I will most probably get a second one to have the option of 4 way operation. The changes with the software are instant, the disadvantage is that it us Windows only.
But before that, which tweeter or HF horn would you recommend to match the polar pattern of the JBL2385 mid horn?
