It all started out with my making a pair of Tannoy GRF replicas and liking that sort of sound.
It ended up with a full 5 way horn system, evolving and my learning lots along the way.
A long way from Tannoy Dual Concentrics in scale, dynamics and detail.
Pictured in 2023
2015
The journey was From big conicals to a mixture of Le Cléac'h, Tractrix, Exponential, and of course the thunderous yet tuneful Tapped sub bass horns.
It all started when I first heard I_Should_Coco's (yes, he has a lot to be thanked and cursed for
), AH-300 conical horns with Vitavox S2 drivers and my making a pair of conical horns.. and crossing them at 1000Hz using Tannoy HPD's as bass in my birch plywood GRF cabs.
Under construction.
Then complete.
I used JBL2435Be's.
1.5" Beryllium diaphragm modern compression drivers.
I'd heard good things about them and they were not that expensive... Sounded pretty good to be honest!
I had to import them from the USA. They were not directly for sale, used as tweeters in JBL Vertec arrays.
this 2 way set up then had a cheap Eminence tweeter added and progressed to using Emience Kappa Pro LFII's instead of the Tannoys and my own 2nd order 12dB / oct crossovers.
After a while fingers started itching and I got a pair of JBL2482's 4" diaphragm, 2" throat, alnico compression drivers in good sounding condition.
Big mid horns for them world cross at 330Hz... The JBL2435's played up to around 1250Hz.
Once made they looked like this
So far that's 48 tapered compound angled petals cut out for the mid and upper mid horns.
Suddenly mid range was clear and fantastic. Piano OMG, clarinet!! Asking a paper cone to do that sort of thing just cannot compete with decent compression drivers...
Then of course a mid bass conical.
Read up and had some excellent advice...
Petals on the go...
Driver back box
Strengthening
Nice scale to these
Driver chamber
Kappa 15-A chosen after modelling in Hornresp - excellent proj/tool - respect and many thanks for use of it
First test
Using GRF;s as low bass bins
mid bass horns cross at 90hz
Rearranged - sounded better
Now for some deep bass - tapped horns
Thanks to Volvotreter and Cowanaudio and the Colborative taped horn sub project thread - excellent stuff.
I chose to use my Eminence Kappa PRO LFRII's, they had been in the Tannoy GRF cabs before - nice drivers and they modelled well in Hornresp.
First side done
Now to relax. listen, already tuned the upper / mid horns to work nicely with the md and tapped horns.
Really sounds good. Horns are the way to go. 5 way is the ultimate I think..
'Normal' music sound great with accurate fast bass and then ask it to do some sub stuff and oh yes you hear / feel that.
Makes lower listening levels enjoyable as you get full range without terribly loud. High WAF!
Loved this project and the results. Will do some fine tuning / measuring but my ears tell me it is close...
What next. Not sure about 5 way amping or fully active tbh...
It ended up with a full 5 way horn system, evolving and my learning lots along the way.
A long way from Tannoy Dual Concentrics in scale, dynamics and detail.
Pictured in 2023
2015
The journey was From big conicals to a mixture of Le Cléac'h, Tractrix, Exponential, and of course the thunderous yet tuneful Tapped sub bass horns.
It all started when I first heard I_Should_Coco's (yes, he has a lot to be thanked and cursed for
), AH-300 conical horns with Vitavox S2 drivers and my making a pair of conical horns.. and crossing them at 1000Hz using Tannoy HPD's as bass in my birch plywood GRF cabs.Under construction.
Then complete.
I used JBL2435Be's.
1.5" Beryllium diaphragm modern compression drivers.
I'd heard good things about them and they were not that expensive... Sounded pretty good to be honest!
I had to import them from the USA. They were not directly for sale, used as tweeters in JBL Vertec arrays.
this 2 way set up then had a cheap Eminence tweeter added and progressed to using Emience Kappa Pro LFII's instead of the Tannoys and my own 2nd order 12dB / oct crossovers.
After a while fingers started itching and I got a pair of JBL2482's 4" diaphragm, 2" throat, alnico compression drivers in good sounding condition.
Big mid horns for them world cross at 330Hz... The JBL2435's played up to around 1250Hz.
Once made they looked like this
So far that's 48 tapered compound angled petals cut out for the mid and upper mid horns.
Suddenly mid range was clear and fantastic. Piano OMG, clarinet!! Asking a paper cone to do that sort of thing just cannot compete with decent compression drivers...
Then of course a mid bass conical.
Read up and had some excellent advice...
Petals on the go...
Driver back box
Strengthening
Nice scale to these
Driver chamber
Kappa 15-A chosen after modelling in Hornresp - excellent proj/tool - respect and many thanks for use of it
First test
Using GRF;s as low bass bins
mid bass horns cross at 90hz
Rearranged - sounded better
Now for some deep bass - tapped horns
Thanks to Volvotreter and Cowanaudio and the Colborative taped horn sub project thread - excellent stuff.
I chose to use my Eminence Kappa PRO LFRII's, they had been in the Tannoy GRF cabs before - nice drivers and they modelled well in Hornresp.
First side done
Now to relax. listen, already tuned the upper / mid horns to work nicely with the md and tapped horns.
Really sounds good. Horns are the way to go. 5 way is the ultimate I think..
'Normal' music sound great with accurate fast bass and then ask it to do some sub stuff and oh yes you hear / feel that.
Makes lower listening levels enjoyable as you get full range without terribly loud. High WAF!
Loved this project and the results. Will do some fine tuning / measuring but my ears tell me it is close...
What next. Not sure about 5 way amping or fully active tbh...
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Thanks guys. Evolution - very nice to see those room shots on after the other. I have one of just the straight GRF's too. It looks quite empty in here!
I am lucky in that last year we built this room for hifi only - so not frowns or tuts from the Mrs.
She like the conicals - says they are like flowers. Did got some looks when introducing the the 90cm dia by 120cm deep mid bass horns and she even helped me carry round the tapped horns!
The 90cm + material mid bass widths do not fit through a standard house door or even front door. Handy to have the double doors and site entrance from the double garage workshop;-)
I will post up some crossover screen short and horn resp models soon and actual measurements when done.
Still loving the full range.
Not decided what to finish it all like yet...
Here some CAD and more building pics of the conicals
I am lucky in that last year we built this room for hifi only - so not frowns or tuts from the Mrs.
She like the conicals - says they are like flowers. Did got some looks when introducing the the 90cm dia by 120cm deep mid bass horns and she even helped me carry round the tapped horns!
The 90cm + material mid bass widths do not fit through a standard house door or even front door. Handy to have the double doors and site entrance from the double garage workshop;-)
I will post up some crossover screen short and horn resp models soon and actual measurements when done.
Still loving the full range.
Not decided what to finish it all like yet...
Here some CAD and more building pics of the conicals
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Well, amps not that exciting.
I mostly use a homebuild SoH KT88 PP 15-20W class A that has all silicon power reg
That's it before it became a power amp as I went TVC only.
Here it is all aglow
Unfortunately I put it on on Friday evening and one channel was down on vol and a bit muffled so I will have to have a look at it. Not valves as I did a quick check and they are quite new.
It's a bit overkill for the sensitivity I now have...
At the moment and for digital / streaming listening I am using a supposed 20W T-amp (more like 6W). But it is quite powerful enough to generate some great bass on the mid bass and tapped horn - it struggled with the GRF config when turned up. Not so with the proper horns.
So I use passive crossovers. Partly cost I don't think something like a Behringer jobbie will cut it ADC wise for my phono signal and not even as a dac. It would have to be a very much more superior one I think.
Also 4 or 5 amps - not really me somehow. I am thinking of a nice SE sometime. Hope to audition one tomorrow so will know more about them.
So I use simple 2nd order 12dB / oct passive.
Some nice meaty windings for the lower freq stuff.
Here's the crossover from upper mid JBL2435BE to JBL2482 to Kappa 15A
Here's the JBL 2435Be
Not readily available as JBL don't sell them separately.
They are in their pro audio stacks, 3 of yhe as tweeters I believe.
Mounted up, clamped from the rear using soft pads and long grubscrews🙂
Wasn't sure how they'd sound, or if they were keepers, at this point.
I use a Zobel on the Kappa 15A to stop it rising. - Similar on the Kappa Pro LFII's too.
Then the Cross between Kappa 15A Mid bass horn and Kappa Pro LFII tapped horn looks like this.
The tweeter is just added on with it's one little crossover.
When trying the first experiments with a Tannoy HPD bass cone and JBL2435 horn I found how much better the simple 2nd order 12dB crossover sounded and decided to stick with it throughout this project.
Adding the JBL 2482's going 4 way worked well and I just kept on with the tapped horns and 5 way.
The JBL2482 phenolics.
Testing with just a throat adapter.
They can work like this but were rather quiet.
Same clamping arrangement. Just much larger!
These are heavy drivers!
The driver specs are
Tweeter - cheap little Eminence thing - might replace for nicer work situation pending...
JBL2435be's upper mid (1250Hz to 10000Hz) - you don't find much about them spec wise as they were always in arrays... Crisp, quite cutting dynamic upper mid.
JBL2482's mid / lower mid horn (330Hz to 1250Hz). Rich toneful mid Compression driver.
Kappa 15A - Cheap and nice sounding bass guitar pro driver (90Hz to 330Hz)
Eminence Kappa Pro LFII (Pro audio low freq driver) Robust and can do deep effortlessly.
Now to the Horn resp side.
Mr Coco kindly modelled the mid bass horn for me
Horn resp schematic
Params to get that
Now for the tapped horns. I played with Hornresp and came up with what would fit in my room and was a compromise crossing with the midbass at around 90Hz.
I am not so much for fiddling with models endlessly and talking about it - like to get on and make sawdust and build. Still The models point to something usable.
I will have the tapped horns fully in the corners so use 0.5 x Pi.
I am using L-Pads on the JLB2435's and 2482's - 13dB on both. Nothing on the tweeters or mid bass / tapped sub horn. Balance is to my ear about right.
Measuring to be done as and when.
Listening to test tone across freq ranges all seems ok , no dips and nice room resonance down in the 30Hz area
Today I have made sure all the inspection / driver installation hatches are air tight. Bead of silicone sealant on one side and Vaseline smear on the other face and bingo - perfect seal / removable and re-usable for virtually nowt.
Listening to Pink Floyd - Wish you were here just now - sounds nice...
Now onto Beautiful South - nice clear dynamic sound and goes loud very well!
Must get some Yello sub bass on or Joan as police woman later ;-)
I mostly use a homebuild SoH KT88 PP 15-20W class A that has all silicon power reg
That's it before it became a power amp as I went TVC only.
Here it is all aglow
Unfortunately I put it on on Friday evening and one channel was down on vol and a bit muffled so I will have to have a look at it. Not valves as I did a quick check and they are quite new.
It's a bit overkill for the sensitivity I now have...
At the moment and for digital / streaming listening I am using a supposed 20W T-amp (more like 6W). But it is quite powerful enough to generate some great bass on the mid bass and tapped horn - it struggled with the GRF config when turned up. Not so with the proper horns.
So I use passive crossovers. Partly cost I don't think something like a Behringer jobbie will cut it ADC wise for my phono signal and not even as a dac. It would have to be a very much more superior one I think.
Also 4 or 5 amps - not really me somehow. I am thinking of a nice SE sometime. Hope to audition one tomorrow so will know more about them.
So I use simple 2nd order 12dB / oct passive.
Some nice meaty windings for the lower freq stuff.
Here's the crossover from upper mid JBL2435BE to JBL2482 to Kappa 15A
Here's the JBL 2435Be
Not readily available as JBL don't sell them separately.
They are in their pro audio stacks, 3 of yhe as tweeters I believe.
Mounted up, clamped from the rear using soft pads and long grubscrews🙂
Wasn't sure how they'd sound, or if they were keepers, at this point.
I use a Zobel on the Kappa 15A to stop it rising. - Similar on the Kappa Pro LFII's too.
Then the Cross between Kappa 15A Mid bass horn and Kappa Pro LFII tapped horn looks like this.
The tweeter is just added on with it's one little crossover.
When trying the first experiments with a Tannoy HPD bass cone and JBL2435 horn I found how much better the simple 2nd order 12dB crossover sounded and decided to stick with it throughout this project.
Adding the JBL 2482's going 4 way worked well and I just kept on with the tapped horns and 5 way.
The JBL2482 phenolics.
Testing with just a throat adapter.
They can work like this but were rather quiet.
Same clamping arrangement. Just much larger!
These are heavy drivers!
The driver specs are
Tweeter - cheap little Eminence thing - might replace for nicer work situation pending...
JBL2435be's upper mid (1250Hz to 10000Hz) - you don't find much about them spec wise as they were always in arrays... Crisp, quite cutting dynamic upper mid.
JBL2482's mid / lower mid horn (330Hz to 1250Hz). Rich toneful mid Compression driver.
Kappa 15A - Cheap and nice sounding bass guitar pro driver (90Hz to 330Hz)
Eminence Kappa Pro LFII (Pro audio low freq driver) Robust and can do deep effortlessly.
Now to the Horn resp side.
Mr Coco kindly modelled the mid bass horn for me
Horn resp schematic
Params to get that
Now for the tapped horns. I played with Hornresp and came up with what would fit in my room and was a compromise crossing with the midbass at around 90Hz.
I am not so much for fiddling with models endlessly and talking about it - like to get on and make sawdust and build. Still The models point to something usable.
I will have the tapped horns fully in the corners so use 0.5 x Pi.
I am using L-Pads on the JLB2435's and 2482's - 13dB on both. Nothing on the tweeters or mid bass / tapped sub horn. Balance is to my ear about right.
Measuring to be done as and when.
Listening to test tone across freq ranges all seems ok , no dips and nice room resonance down in the 30Hz area
Today I have made sure all the inspection / driver installation hatches are air tight. Bead of silicone sealant on one side and Vaseline smear on the other face and bingo - perfect seal / removable and re-usable for virtually nowt.
Listening to Pink Floyd - Wish you were here just now - sounds nice...
Now onto Beautiful South - nice clear dynamic sound and goes loud very well!
Must get some Yello sub bass on or Joan as police woman later ;-)
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I liked reading this, as it reminded me so closely of the journey I made with horns back when I was living in the house.
I started with Tannoy Gold/HPD 15 in ported boxes, bought some Khorns and whilst I liked them, could hear the defects and started to modify around them until I ended up with something I was happy with, which basically meant no more Khorn parts. I was looking to experiment with conicals before I moved and dismantled it all circa 2003. Like you I ended up 5 way and driven by class A PP tube amps (biggest being 813 based), either passively or with SS xovers and some early pro digital units. It would have been interesting to see where it would have evolved if I'd stayed in a house with a huge room capable of fitting in that system and especially with the design and measurement software and tools available today.
I started with Tannoy Gold/HPD 15 in ported boxes, bought some Khorns and whilst I liked them, could hear the defects and started to modify around them until I ended up with something I was happy with, which basically meant no more Khorn parts. I was looking to experiment with conicals before I moved and dismantled it all circa 2003. Like you I ended up 5 way and driven by class A PP tube amps (biggest being 813 based), either passively or with SS xovers and some early pro digital units. It would have been interesting to see where it would have evolved if I'd stayed in a house with a huge room capable of fitting in that system and especially with the design and measurement software and tools available today.
Thanks for the nice complements too. It really boost morale and keeps me going when on the treadmill of madness that is DIY - but we love it too don't we.
Just had the family in listening and we all agreed that the tweeters were a bit aggressive. Quick 3dB pad - ah that is nice. Depends a little on recording of course. Pink Floyd stuff needs all the tweet it can get - not so other stuff.
Now for some BASS
Just had the family in listening and we all agreed that the tweeters were a bit aggressive. Quick 3dB pad - ah that is nice. Depends a little on recording of course. Pink Floyd stuff needs all the tweet it can get - not so other stuff.
Now for some BASS
Yeah I had fun reading your exploits on the great Collaborative tappet horn thread.
I am in love with your avatar pic BTW
I am in love with your avatar pic BTW
I never ended up building the LAB12 based TH as I moved and the project changed again. My subs back in the big horn system were LABhorns.
She is lovely. I have a thing for blonde Russian (OK Ukrainian - close enough) pianists.
Great
Fantastic work Steve .
Great to see someone pushing the limits .
I'm in the middle of making a four-way system myself ( hoping to assemble the first bass/mid horn today ) so I can understand the effort you've made there .
I think you need a 3 or 4-channel SE amp though - it won't be much bigger than what you have there . The integration and dynamics will improve substantially if you can get the passive components out of the amp/speaker interface .
So, did talking to C.V. have anything to do with you launching into this madness ?
Fantastic work Steve .
Great to see someone pushing the limits .
I'm in the middle of making a four-way system myself ( hoping to assemble the first bass/mid horn today ) so I can understand the effort you've made there .
I think you need a 3 or 4-channel SE amp though - it won't be much bigger than what you have there . The integration and dynamics will improve substantially if you can get the passive components out of the amp/speaker interface .
So, did talking to C.V. have anything to do with you launching into this madness ?
4 way nice. Do you already have a tapped horn? I am surprised how good they are!
Please post up about the construction and modelling as you go.
Tapped's do everything they all said about them - makes music with sub tones addictive and takes the pressure off the midbase unit so it can really shine in doing what it needs to do.
I was listening to some lighter bass rock and was surprised how little the tapped where working but what was there was lovely mid bass detail and accuracy.
I remember the ProAc D25 towers I had and thinking they did deep. Really all they did was an ill defined not very deep plunge / rumble. Hard to actually hear a deep bass riff at all. What a difference to this system. The GRF's were miles better but still not in this class. Size matters.
Today I am throating the big mid horns a little more accurately. I did a fairly quick job on them in my rush to try the 2482's out, so a re-visit will put my mid at rest on them.
I am still amazed how easily all these horns integrate and work as unit.
Got some horn'ists coming over today - interesting to see what they make of them.
+ The spanish GP to watch - could Sunday get any better? Yes, a BBQ in the late afternoon / evening & some pop, I guess.
Please post up about the construction and modelling as you go.
Tapped's do everything they all said about them - makes music with sub tones addictive and takes the pressure off the midbase unit so it can really shine in doing what it needs to do.
I was listening to some lighter bass rock and was surprised how little the tapped where working but what was there was lovely mid bass detail and accuracy.
I remember the ProAc D25 towers I had and thinking they did deep. Really all they did was an ill defined not very deep plunge / rumble. Hard to actually hear a deep bass riff at all. What a difference to this system. The GRF's were miles better but still not in this class. Size matters.
Today I am throating the big mid horns a little more accurately. I did a fairly quick job on them in my rush to try the 2482's out, so a re-visit will put my mid at rest on them.
I am still amazed how easily all these horns integrate and work as unit.
Got some horn'ists coming over today - interesting to see what they make of them.
+ The spanish GP to watch - could Sunday get any better? Yes, a BBQ in the late afternoon / evening & some pop, I guess.
Had some Wammers round ths afternoon.
We did some measurements which showed I need to have a check over the lower crossover. Seems it crossing a bit high and there are a few ups and downs that were not predicted by hornresp. Room or driver variation perhaps. The Zobels are doing something to curtail freq rising but not as much as expected.
One thing I had not done was to reverse the phase of each alternating.
Needs to be so Mr Coco informed me. Once that was sorted it sounded even better to my ears. Less lumpy in the bass but still as nice and deeeeep.
Horns are just so effortless.
Here's a sweep using Holmimpulse. 1/3 oct smoothed.
Need to revisit the throat size in the tapped horn vs the 100Hz peak and see or is it my crossovers?
An open throat (same size as the driver might be the way to go / or somewhere in between.
We tried the mid 2482 horns with no pad on for measurement and according to the mic it's a 11dB pad not a 13dB pad. Real measured vs calc's are never going to be quite the same
To be honest for me it is sounding good as is, but I've only had quite narrow cab speakers / Tannoy GRFs to compare against!
These are on a different scale entirely.
So much more going on.
Some way to go but definitely on the right road. Fun and games.
We did some measurements which showed I need to have a check over the lower crossover. Seems it crossing a bit high and there are a few ups and downs that were not predicted by hornresp. Room or driver variation perhaps. The Zobels are doing something to curtail freq rising but not as much as expected.
One thing I had not done was to reverse the phase of each alternating.
Needs to be so Mr Coco informed me. Once that was sorted it sounded even better to my ears. Less lumpy in the bass but still as nice and deeeeep.
Horns are just so effortless.
Here's a sweep using Holmimpulse. 1/3 oct smoothed.
Need to revisit the throat size in the tapped horn vs the 100Hz peak and see or is it my crossovers?
An open throat (same size as the driver might be the way to go / or somewhere in between.
We tried the mid 2482 horns with no pad on for measurement and according to the mic it's a 11dB pad not a 13dB pad. Real measured vs calc's are never going to be quite the same
To be honest for me it is sounding good as is, but I've only had quite narrow cab speakers / Tannoy GRFs to compare against!
These are on a different scale entirely.
So much more going on.
Some way to go but definitely on the right road. Fun and games.
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There's plenty to do in a project like this, eh ?
You've done all the hard stuff, I reckon, the bass will come good in time.
My own project is mainly on here :
audio-talk :: View topic - Something stirs in the Undergrowth
The tapped horn design is also on here :
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/subwoofers/182885-ideas-35-150-hifi-tapped-horn-2.html
Been busy today .
My progress will be slow, don't hold your breath !
You've done all the hard stuff, I reckon, the bass will come good in time.
My own project is mainly on here :
audio-talk :: View topic - Something stirs in the Undergrowth
The tapped horn design is also on here :
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/subwoofers/182885-ideas-35-150-hifi-tapped-horn-2.html
Been busy today .
My progress will be slow, don't hold your breath !
Very impressive indeed...!!!
Or as the Engineering Department sometimes says to the Marketing Department: "If you can't hide it........make a feature of it!!!"
Btw, the next step. Ben Duncan did an DIY electronic X-over in HFN/RR many years ago and raved about its application to horn loaded systems. It is definitely on the Net if you want to pursue it... I'll chase it up if you want.
I notice that there is still plenty of room out the back of the house if you ever decide to take this hobby seriously!! Ha ah..
Cheers, Jonathan
Or as the Engineering Department sometimes says to the Marketing Department: "If you can't hide it........make a feature of it!!!"
Btw, the next step. Ben Duncan did an DIY electronic X-over in HFN/RR many years ago and raved about its application to horn loaded systems. It is definitely on the Net if you want to pursue it... I'll chase it up if you want.
I notice that there is still plenty of room out the back of the house if you ever decide to take this hobby seriously!! Ha ah..
Cheers, Jonathan
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