Because of the long wavelengths of bass (40 Hz around 28 feet, 8.7 meters long) a bass waveguide would need to be huge.
More practical are cardioid or end fire arrays, but they don't work well in acoustically small rooms, that is rooms with dimensions much shorter than the wavelengths to be guided.
More practical are cardioid or end fire arrays, but they don't work well in acoustically small rooms, that is rooms with dimensions much shorter than the wavelengths to be guided.
First, go buy a few acres. 
OK, An old issue of Speaker Builder had quite a bit on bass horns. Full or folded at various times. You might look at Klienhorn for understanding bass and horns. There are several programs out there that will do the simulation. The throat and back loading are what I understand to be the biggest problem, besides pure size.
Are you looking to do a PA speaker? Physical dimensions pretty much limit them in home use. Can you say what this project is trying to achieve?
OK, An old issue of Speaker Builder had quite a bit on bass horns. Full or folded at various times. You might look at Klienhorn for understanding bass and horns. There are several programs out there that will do the simulation. The throat and back loading are what I understand to be the biggest problem, besides pure size.
Are you looking to do a PA speaker? Physical dimensions pretty much limit them in home use. Can you say what this project is trying to achieve?
Great question.
I did my first horn for a 12" H/H (UK) PA driver, in the 80's without software or any knowledge and it worked (call it prediction), and it's very operational after all this years.
I guess you have to start somewhere:
1. You are not Tom Danley
2. You need a driver
3. You have about S space for the mouth surface of the horn and X length for the horn flare, available ().
Horn loudspeaker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Horn / Waveguide Contour Comparisons
Hi!
Thanks for the responses!
I know how horns are working. I built some already.
Yes, I also think about waveguide as a helper and not a real horn. So, I think the classical horn calculation and theories are not 100% compatible.
Somewhere I read the the waveguide could be smaller, shorter than a normal horn. It is therefore not as efficient as a true horn but in return you'll have a bass free of colourations and a lot less room boundairy problems. It can help to the soundwaves to easily detach from the loudspeaker and fill the room with sound.
So my questions:
- Is a waveguide equal to a horn???
- if they are not equal:How to calculate the waveguide's throat, mouth, lenght and flare?
- How much efficient compared to a real horn?
greets:
Tyimo
Thanks for the responses!
I know how horns are working. I built some already.
Yes, I also think about waveguide as a helper and not a real horn. So, I think the classical horn calculation and theories are not 100% compatible.
Somewhere I read the the waveguide could be smaller, shorter than a normal horn. It is therefore not as efficient as a true horn but in return you'll have a bass free of colourations and a lot less room boundairy problems. It can help to the soundwaves to easily detach from the loudspeaker and fill the room with sound.
So my questions:
- Is a waveguide equal to a horn???
- if they are not equal:How to calculate the waveguide's throat, mouth, lenght and flare?
- How much efficient compared to a real horn?
greets:
Tyimo
Hi,
A waveguide on a bass speaker will not affect the bass
unless its huge. Your just manipulating midrange and
there is is not a lot to be gained compared to the size
penalty of the front baffle required fpr a waveguide.
Waveguides work on tweeters because they
end up about the same size as the lower units.
rgds, sreten.
A waveguide on a bass speaker will not affect the bass
unless its huge. Your just manipulating midrange and
there is is not a lot to be gained compared to the size
penalty of the front baffle required fpr a waveguide.
Waveguides work on tweeters because they
end up about the same size as the lower units.
rgds, sreten.
Hi!
Thanks for the responses!
I know how horns are working. I built some already.
So my questions:
- Is a waveguide equal to a horn???
- if they are not equal:How to calculate the waveguide's throat, mouth, lenght and flare?
- How much efficient compared to a real horn?
greets:
Tyimo
if 3way ...
one problem with such waveguide might be that it is most efficient where you probably want it to roll off
a 2way might be a different matter, where it might do some of the BSC work
but purely theoretical speculation
regarding throat size etc, wouldn't it all be part of any kind of 'ordinary' horn calculation ?
are 'math rules' not the same for all ?
I've only been mildly interested in horns, so I'm commenting while knowing very little about them. But I think the above question hits the nail on the head.
My understanding of a horn is that you must have a particular ratio of mouth to throat area, and rate of expansion from the area of the throat to mouth. If you don't do that, then what the horn is supposed to do suffers. So if you make the horn short, that means that your horn doesn't conform in some way to the design rules that have been developed for horns, and thus the response is incorrect.
If you did simulations with hornresp, I assume that the shortcomings would be apparent.
Regards,
cT
doing duty as phase allignment to the mid/tweeter horns
and plays a very important role doing that, even if that's all it does
phase offset will be the main factor when calculating the waveguide
funny they mounted the woofer reversed with magnet facing out
considering the volume, it might 'appear' like a bigger waveguide
once seen a backloaded hifi horn with a Lowther fullrange mounted the same way
I thought it looked strange, but maybe it actually works ok
and plays a very important role doing that, even if that's all it does
phase offset will be the main factor when calculating the waveguide
funny they mounted the woofer reversed with magnet facing out
considering the volume, it might 'appear' like a bigger waveguide
once seen a backloaded hifi horn with a Lowther fullrange mounted the same way
I thought it looked strange, but maybe it actually works ok
The reversed woofer does a couple things besides any time alignment- it acts as a low-pass filter, and creates a pseudo-phase plug in the middle of that manifold to help prevent the expected resonances of a cuboid volume. In spherical speakers, if the sphere is small enough relative to the driver, the magnet does the same thing on the inside- helping prevent standing waves due to the single enclosure dimension.
Horn Design Notes
At the frequencies of concern, you won’t be guiding the waves, they are simply too long for that to happen. The mission here is to correctly load the woofer driver(s) with a tapered air column so as to acoustically couple them to a room corner. The issue is efficiency, and some bandwidth will be traded for it by reducing the impedance mismatch between the driver and the air that surrounds it. At the lower c/o frequency you will want a large matching mid-range horn as well. Study the papers of Klipsch and Leach, and get yourself a copy of David McBean’s Horn Response program [1] to play with. Thanks to PWK a design of tractable bass horn is a fairly strait forward process. For best results, plan on using a DSP to perform the required, signal frequency division, delay and other conditioning that will be required by this type of loudspeaker system. As earlier noted, all loudspeaker horns trade bandwidth for efficiency, so here a 3-Way system design is required.
[1] Hornresp
At the frequencies of concern, you won’t be guiding the waves, they are simply too long for that to happen. The mission here is to correctly load the woofer driver(s) with a tapered air column so as to acoustically couple them to a room corner. The issue is efficiency, and some bandwidth will be traded for it by reducing the impedance mismatch between the driver and the air that surrounds it. At the lower c/o frequency you will want a large matching mid-range horn as well. Study the papers of Klipsch and Leach, and get yourself a copy of David McBean’s Horn Response program [1] to play with. Thanks to PWK a design of tractable bass horn is a fairly strait forward process. For best results, plan on using a DSP to perform the required, signal frequency division, delay and other conditioning that will be required by this type of loudspeaker system. As earlier noted, all loudspeaker horns trade bandwidth for efficiency, so here a 3-Way system design is required.
[1] Hornresp
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