Dome vs Horn for front and center speaker

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Hi!

I have to design a center and two front speakers for a friend of mine for his home theater. The speakers needs to be relative high sensitivity/efficiency, about 95-96dB/1m/2.83V. The midrange would be a 8" pro mid, bass would be one 15"/speaker for the fronts and two 10" in horizontal arrangement for the center. The mid-tweeter section would be in normal (tweeter on top) vertical arrangement in all speakers. The listening distance is about 3m.

What would be a better choice? A bare dome, a dome with a shallow waveguide or a CD+horn?
My eyes caught on a nice compact Elliptical Tractrix FaitalPro STH100 + Hf10AK combination.
Is this combo have wide enough coverage for multiple seats, or too narrow even with a relatively wide 80-70 beam?

All advices are welcome!

FaitalPRO | HF Horns | STH100

FaitalPRO | HF Drivers | HF10AK

FAITAL HF10AK (Driver 1.73", 8 Ohm, 120 Wmax)
 
Hi,
I've got prototype playing in livingroom, sth100 hf10ak, 8" pro mid and 15" woofer. I think coverage is fine especially if toed in so design for example for 20deg listening axis. Hf10ak in sth100 has bumpy response, newer Faital hf108 looks better responsewise, never heard it though. This combo works fine, a bit more work with the crossover than with hifi tweeters, better use DSP or different driver/horn if not made a purchase yet.

I'm a hobbyist and been practicing speaker building with this set of drivers almost a year now, still in mono, currently listening crossover versions dsp. Next year, build a pair :) I'd propably pick different driver, constant directivity horn and maybe 6" mid if I was shopping with current knowledge. I feel I'm strugling with the mid driver, which is the most important. Seems to have bumpy response and picky with the enclosure, so a bit hard to build if want to optimize. 6" drivers might be better, i suspect, also sth100 starts to lose control above 2k so better match to a 6" I think.

If you use pro woofer and haven't build large speakers before, prepare with good plans how to build it. >150l cabinet is already pretty cumbersome to hande, glue, measure.

Good luck!:)
 
I would go with a CD horn combo. I have a 15/10/CD horn L/R and a 2X8 CD Horn center. I can't see a dome being used with a base sensitivity that high. You would get much more headroom as well from a CD Horn combo even accounting for and CD compensation.

Rob:)
 
Thanks the replies!

I will consider an Eighteensound XT120 + ND1030 or another CD, the Xt120 seems wider coverage and lower cut-off than the STH100.
Although no one recommended a dome, but there are 95dB+ sensitivity examples from this type too.

A horizontal MTM center is not the worst thing for wide coverage? I've never built a center speaker yet.

EIGHTEEN SOUND ND1030 + XT120 (Driver 1.1/3", 8 Ohm, 120 Wmax)
 
Good advice already. You want controlled directivity, ie: waveguide/horn because it improves intelligibility of dialogue so much. But you don't want a Tractrix horn for theater because the high frequencies beam so narrowly. Great for single listening chair, not for theater. Use a constant directivity waveguide or horn. But that makes filter design more complex . Look at the econowave. Consider using outboard amps and dsp if his receiver has preouts.
 
Troels did not use horns despite having designed a waveguide (it is a small horn) that behaves very well with the dome tweeter he used in the DTQWTII, - which I built and I can attest to its excellent integration between treble and media - in any of its three projects.
The dome with the waveguide sounds very clear and with good dispersion on both axes, so it is that while I used the HT system (it has been unused for a few years, like the projector) I did not see the need to really build nor buy an exclusive cabinet for the central channel.
But I remembered his explanations about how to achieve a good dispersion of the voices throughout the room, in case of facing the construction, so I attached the link, it may serve to clarify some concept.

8008-Center

" This center speaker has been on the to-do list for a long time and started as a "classic" horizontal d'Appolito set-up. However, unless we cross over at a very low frequency between midbass drivers and tweeter, we may experience crossover lobing, that is uneven frequency response as we move from seat to seat in our home cinema. Usually we have an even horizontal dispersion from vertical aligned drivers if the chosen points of crossover have been done with respect to the diameters of the drivers and slopes of crossover. When wavelength hits a value equal to the diameter of the driver, we start having beaming (wellknown from fullrange drivers) and if the point of crossover is above this frequency we may have irregularities off-axis. "


CENTER-641

( See Prestige and Next models here )
 
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This is to fit it under a screen. If you made it the same as the sides it would be better.

Yes, I want the same mid-tweeter section for L/R/C.

The XT120 seems a constant directivity horn to me, at least according to the manufacturer and the test that I linked. There is an example filter in the test, seems not too complicated.

I don't get why manufacturers doesn't make more waveguided dome tweeters, just all this bare, flat faceplate.

Thanks the advices anyway!
 
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