Acoustic Horn Design – The Easy Way (Ath4)

The electrical impedance with and without the horn (still the DFM-2535):

DFM-electrical-impedance.png


...and again the well-known effect, the impedance curve is ragged in a horn like this. Is it more susceptible to picking up acoustic noise via the voice coil, or why is that?
 
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Here's the influence of adding various lengths of a straight duct segment to a 1" throat, zero exit angle.

Obviously, as a result, it 1) increases efficiency at LF, 2) decreases efficiency in the middle of the passband, 3) adds some FR ripple, not nearly as pronounced with the real devices, however - this can be vital. Note the directivity remains virtually unchanged.

Effects 1 and 2 together cause the driver's response to become more extended and flat - that's the only explanation I have. Perhaps different drivers require different lenghts of the extension. Anyway, starting the duct right at the exit of a phase plug, I think this can be a promising way how to proceed, after all.

ext.PNG

0 mm
ext-0.png

25 mm
ext-25.png

50 mm
ext-50.png

75 mm
ext-75.png
 
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Do you have some impulse response or ETC or something with time domain visible to wonder is that resonance with the extension? I wonder if sound gets better or worse, or just different, assuming frequency responses with or without duct were equalized with DSP?:) what if the input driving modes are manipulated, does effects of the extension change, like ill effects on top octave(s)? Basically, where is the trade-off?
 
The above was for k=1. This is for k=3 (the 75 mm extension).
Basically it makes the transition less abrupt, the impedance less wavy (lower-Q peaks) with all the features shifted lower in frequency. The downside is the HF beaming (which would be the same without the extension, that's just the result of a higher k).

ext_k=3.PNG
ext-75-3.png


- With a tubular duct it's even not necessary to have any advanced model for that - one can easily try different lengths.

And I assume a piece of open-cell foam inside the duct wouldn't hurt either.
 
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Straight vs conical (0 vs 8 degrees), 1" throat, 75 mm extension:

straight.png
conical.png

ext-straight.png
ext-conical.png


With the conical it's basically a 1.4" throat. To retain the directivity of a 1" throat, it needs to be tubular, maybe requiring further dampening (?).
This would need to be actually tested, I guess, with different lengths of the tube.
 
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How about the opposite?
Conical adapter like 2”-1”. We know from TL speakers that this can be made shorter for the same tuning, and the higher harmonics gets damped somewhat.

And as long as we talking home audio, there shouldn’t be any significant downside to trying to squeeze the sound thru a small throat.
 
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