That's also how a good portion of companies work actually.Yeah, very typical thing in the forums. First choose the most exotic drivers, then hack them together without ever thinking what would actually make a good system for the application. But, it is a hobby and anything fun is fine
Difference being the companies are thinking what they are doing, they wanna make money! People like to be guided by marketing folks and trends, and not think about what they are doing, with their own brains. We are bunch of zombies politely called "consumers" until waking up and start utilizing the brain for ourselves
There is nothing wrong using exotic expensive top of the line components, quite contrary, but the system needs to be right for the application, otherwise it is waste of time and money and it won't be best. Any system that suits the application would be better, with any components. Hammer made out of diamond won't be any better than rusty wallmart circular saw if you need to rip some wood. If one had to nail down 100k planks together then the diamond hammer would be nice, would last the job. Wallmart nailgun would be 10x faster though and one could buy diamond for the lover and spend the time with them instead. It is just backwards, and problem of the planet, the consumer and the company.
There is nothing wrong using exotic expensive top of the line components, quite contrary, but the system needs to be right for the application, otherwise it is waste of time and money and it won't be best. Any system that suits the application would be better, with any components. Hammer made out of diamond won't be any better than rusty wallmart circular saw if you need to rip some wood. If one had to nail down 100k planks together then the diamond hammer would be nice, would last the job. Wallmart nailgun would be 10x faster though and one could buy diamond for the lover and spend the time with them instead. It is just backwards, and problem of the planet, the consumer and the company.
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Just keep it at that last bit, thinking; not so much LOL
There is quite a lot of zombie behavior with companies as well.
I agree, one can make beautiful products.
A big majority is more like a turd with beautiful packaging and a lot of words to describe basically nothing.
Well made drivers in a crappy design still make a crappy product.
Decent made drivers in a very well thought out design make a product that will leave the other one miles behind.
Well I have a bunch of "exotic" drivers and its working out pretty good for me. If I were to just switch to a waveguide a lot more people would be happy with what I've come up with...
Then again the td15m and the 18h+ work together very well...and I went for the compression driver that had the best low end...and midrange apparently...justifying for me...the sacrifice of the top end which has been described as being as good as many other top end tweeters, living by; midrange is everything.
How do people configure multi horn systems and match polars? I'll have eventually a set of 150hz and 350hz matching profile horns, do they mate?
Heres a good question...lets say I use the Obertons, in a dual vertical stack...symmetrically behind the listener...how far are you guys "running" up? 80hz? 120hz
Then again the td15m and the 18h+ work together very well...and I went for the compression driver that had the best low end...and midrange apparently...justifying for me...the sacrifice of the top end which has been described as being as good as many other top end tweeters, living by; midrange is everything.
How do people configure multi horn systems and match polars? I'll have eventually a set of 150hz and 350hz matching profile horns, do they mate?
Heres a good question...lets say I use the Obertons, in a dual vertical stack...symmetrically behind the listener...how far are you guys "running" up? 80hz? 120hz
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Progress!
Big multihorn systems are usually associated with big spaces with distance to audience, that require the sensitivity and possibly smoothens out irregularities in directivity. Some use them in small spaces and close distances and while they work, they are not optimal for that kind of situation.
Midrange is everything yeah, but you don't have to use big systems to get it I think, single full range driver could do it nicely at near field.
Big multihorn systems are usually associated with big spaces with distance to audience, that require the sensitivity and possibly smoothens out irregularities in directivity. Some use them in small spaces and close distances and while they work, they are not optimal for that kind of situation.
Midrange is everything yeah, but you don't have to use big systems to get it I think, single full range driver could do it nicely at near field.
Im not making excuses....but hear me out, I have more ideas to be criticized
so those 2 boxes are like 43" tall...all volume I need for dual 15" is there, with enough room for the dual 18"s yet...
Merging the boxes from 2 to 1...I could put 2 vertically stacked 15"s on front....burry the dual 18"s on the bottom and towards the back...then create a vent from the burried 18's to the front, bottom, remaining 13"x32" baffle
crazy?
so those 2 boxes are like 43" tall...all volume I need for dual 15" is there, with enough room for the dual 18"s yet...
Merging the boxes from 2 to 1...I could put 2 vertically stacked 15"s on front....burry the dual 18"s on the bottom and towards the back...then create a vent from the burried 18's to the front, bottom, remaining 13"x32" baffle
crazy?
AllenB, There is no need for the excess SPL capability and even benefits of the directivity could be argued for nearfield listening. For far field, why not. Point is the big size and benefits from it come with trade-offs and weighting both against application is necessary in order to judge which system is more suitable than the other.
Sure big speakers are lots of fun. The latest discussion seem to revolve around problems that arise from the big size though, too big. Mating huge horn to woofers will come with some wiggle in the graphs. It would be lot smoother with single 15" and smaller CD, with possibly better topend and more enjoyable sweetspot for example. There would still be loads of SPL capability for nearfield. Even smaller ones would do have loads of it. Perhaps the top of the line drivers are worth it?
Sure big speakers are lots of fun. The latest discussion seem to revolve around problems that arise from the big size though, too big. Mating huge horn to woofers will come with some wiggle in the graphs. It would be lot smoother with single 15" and smaller CD, with possibly better topend and more enjoyable sweetspot for example. There would still be loads of SPL capability for nearfield. Even smaller ones would do have loads of it. Perhaps the top of the line drivers are worth it?
Total side-track:
I discovered the GRS PT6816-8 planar magnetic driver over at PE today and come to think of this thread. Could that driver be the answer to this thread's original question: Is it possible to cover the whole spectrum, high spl, low distortion with a 2-way?
I found some measurements, and to me, they look happy playing down to 800hz at normal volumes (<95db). I think that is an interesting thing, as the tweeter usually is the problem in a line array. They are either too small to extend low enough and meet a proper bass driver or they are too large and result in beaming horizontally and massive comb filter effects vertically. A long planar source like that driver is much closer to the ideal line array tweeter. Because they are cheap, 10x of these drivers are reasonable (~50% cost of the Axi 2050) and will cover the entire room, floor to ceiling with HF energy. And also increase capacity towards the low end of their passband massively.
Crossed to 10 x 8" woofers, the 800hz XO is low enough that the horizontal C-C spacing is within 1/4" = no horizontal lobing. (Even 10" woofers would probably work fine)
The surface area of 10x8" woofers is more than dual 15" so with an 8" woofer with a similar X-max it should perform close to 3x15" woofers in terms of SPL potential. The vertical spread of the units will also eliminate floor bounce and ceiling bounce and reduce the influence of certain room modes.
I know this thread revolves around horns, but as much as I like horns, to me they are just means to an end. To me, the above concept seems to achieve the goal of the thread with fewer compromises, on paper. In-wall or soffit mounting would be even better.
Thoughts?
I discovered the GRS PT6816-8 planar magnetic driver over at PE today and come to think of this thread. Could that driver be the answer to this thread's original question: Is it possible to cover the whole spectrum, high spl, low distortion with a 2-way?
I found some measurements, and to me, they look happy playing down to 800hz at normal volumes (<95db). I think that is an interesting thing, as the tweeter usually is the problem in a line array. They are either too small to extend low enough and meet a proper bass driver or they are too large and result in beaming horizontally and massive comb filter effects vertically. A long planar source like that driver is much closer to the ideal line array tweeter. Because they are cheap, 10x of these drivers are reasonable (~50% cost of the Axi 2050) and will cover the entire room, floor to ceiling with HF energy. And also increase capacity towards the low end of their passband massively.
Crossed to 10 x 8" woofers, the 800hz XO is low enough that the horizontal C-C spacing is within 1/4" = no horizontal lobing. (Even 10" woofers would probably work fine)
The surface area of 10x8" woofers is more than dual 15" so with an 8" woofer with a similar X-max it should perform close to 3x15" woofers in terms of SPL potential. The vertical spread of the units will also eliminate floor bounce and ceiling bounce and reduce the influence of certain room modes.
I know this thread revolves around horns, but as much as I like horns, to me they are just means to an end. To me, the above concept seems to achieve the goal of the thread with fewer compromises, on paper. In-wall or soffit mounting would be even better.
Thoughts?
SPL is never a real constrain for just home usage.AllenB, There is no need for the excess SPL capability and even benefits of the directivity could be argued for nearfield listening. For far field, why not. Point is the big size and benefits from it come with trade-offs and weighting both against application is necessary in order to judge which system is more suitable than the other.
Sure big speakers are lots of fun. The latest discussion seem to revolve around problems that arise from the big size though, too big. Mating huge horn to woofers will come with some wiggle in the graphs. It would be lot smoother with single 15" and smaller CD, with possibly better topend and more enjoyable sweetspot for example. There would still be loads of SPL capability for nearfield. Even smaller ones would do have loads of it. Perhaps the top of the line drivers are worth it?
Even just a closed 8-10 inch will be able to give you permanent hearing damaging when listening on regular basis.
The mean reason to go for an compression driver, is just because the horn will bring automatically a better directivity.
Big horns just don't make any sense for home usage at all, unless you are just someone who would like to use a tiny teeny tube amp or something.
Sound reinforcement is a totally different beast all together.
Very different priorities, the majority not even directly audio quality related (something people just don't even seem to consider)
In reality, larger speakers have more potential to damage our ears because they give much less distortion so that we can listen to them for a very long period without noticing how loud we are listening to them.
Damaging ears has to do with the absolute amount of SPL's not with distortion perse.
But I guess what you're trying to say, is that smaller speakers will warn you sooner.
Although at these distortion levels even smaller speakers are already very loud in terms of the road towards such hearing damage or loss.
This has been intresting discussion to follow over year.
My intrests have been in larger speakers that are capable to higher listening volumes with good dynamic range and frequency response from bottom to highs without subwoofer. Something similar to old school 4345/4355 JBL’s or Genelec flagship 1236A.
I have been able to listen Genelecs 1235A (like 1236A but with 2x15” woofers instead of 2x18”) and that was very exciting experience! Brutal force and deep extension in bottom end with endless dynamics in midrange and tweeter -that was something that I haven’t experienced before. Room where I listened those was with quite heavy acoustic treatment and high listening levels weren’t problem.
JBL 4345, and very similar design, modern version of that is Troels The Loudspeaker 1/2 but both of those are quite rare and hard to get demo. I was able to listen similar sized Taipuu 3-way (15” coax and 18” bass) in local store. That room wasn’t not so heavily treated and there listening levels were lower because of neighbours. Taipuu 3-way was very similar to 1235A but there were also differencies. Midrange and treble was a bit easier to listen and more enjoyable in Taipuu than G 1235A. I liked overall sound of Taipuu more.
I have been intrested in-wall or soffit mount setup in future so large size is not biggest concern.
I leaned towards 3-way concept build with 15” coaxial and 18” bass. Already have pair of BMS 15C262 and BMS 18N862. I also have Hypex FA-123 (200W bridged @8Ohm and 100W@8ohm) for each 15” coax.
Minidsp SHD and some powerful AB-class stereo poweramp to 18” basses should complete the setup.
I am curious should I go with dual (like G 1236A or JBL 4355) or single (like Taipuu 3-way or JBL 4345) 18” bass with one speaker. Also one woofer top and one woofer under of coax is possible.
Next step is to decide bass setup and make test cabinets.
My intrests have been in larger speakers that are capable to higher listening volumes with good dynamic range and frequency response from bottom to highs without subwoofer. Something similar to old school 4345/4355 JBL’s or Genelec flagship 1236A.
I have been able to listen Genelecs 1235A (like 1236A but with 2x15” woofers instead of 2x18”) and that was very exciting experience! Brutal force and deep extension in bottom end with endless dynamics in midrange and tweeter -that was something that I haven’t experienced before. Room where I listened those was with quite heavy acoustic treatment and high listening levels weren’t problem.
JBL 4345, and very similar design, modern version of that is Troels The Loudspeaker 1/2 but both of those are quite rare and hard to get demo. I was able to listen similar sized Taipuu 3-way (15” coax and 18” bass) in local store. That room wasn’t not so heavily treated and there listening levels were lower because of neighbours. Taipuu 3-way was very similar to 1235A but there were also differencies. Midrange and treble was a bit easier to listen and more enjoyable in Taipuu than G 1235A. I liked overall sound of Taipuu more.
I have been intrested in-wall or soffit mount setup in future so large size is not biggest concern.
I leaned towards 3-way concept build with 15” coaxial and 18” bass. Already have pair of BMS 15C262 and BMS 18N862. I also have Hypex FA-123 (200W bridged @8Ohm and 100W@8ohm) for each 15” coax.
Minidsp SHD and some powerful AB-class stereo poweramp to 18” basses should complete the setup.
I am curious should I go with dual (like G 1236A or JBL 4355) or single (like Taipuu 3-way or JBL 4345) 18” bass with one speaker. Also one woofer top and one woofer under of coax is possible.
Next step is to decide bass setup and make test cabinets.
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