Why not horns?

Radio Shack's top the line speaker for years when I worked there was the famous Mach One, which was a horn hydrid design. I never cared much for those and used to steer people away. As I recall, they did sound like a lot of the bad stereotypes of how horns sound. They used to sit prominently right in the front of almost every Radio Shack store in the country. I suspect these helped to give horns a bad name. Some of the other Realistic gear was OK though BTW.

Hello Audiokinesis,

I stated the woofer would be directional @ 400hz, not that 400 hz was it's cutoff frequency.

At 400 hz 12db/octave, the dispersion would not be "wide " IMO and Having such a large woofer radiating into the lower midrange would tend to have a lot of coloration's due to it's associated inherent back waves and cabinet reflections emanating thru such a large driver.

For the record , i never told Macrojack that his speaker did not sound good , that was his opinion, he is entitled to it . I'm asking question based on the technical data off the drivers being used which contradict some of his statements. Technically speaking and IMO this speaker would require Eq-ing to have a decent balance....

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Weseixas wrote: "There is no such thing as a fast 15 inch woofer operating @ 400 Hz IMO ! Consider how directional the speaker will be @ 400 Hz and it's large mass ( relative ) with it's accompanying cone coloration ..."

Four hundred hertz is probably more than two octaves below that woofer's upper rolloff frequency, so it will be plenty "fast" enough to do its job. The radiation pattern will be fairly wide at that frequency, and the cone will probably still be pistonic.

Mapman,

Nothing wrong with larger woofers, horses for courses!400hz @ 12db is a bit high for that particular woofer IMO

Bass is pretty much omnidirectional until about 500 Hz. Running even a 15 inch woofer to 400 Hz should be fine.

Please refer to the Chart 3-6 in this manual (kind of a bible for horns)

Weseixas- You have been told repeatedly and politely that you and your friend, IMO, don't know what you are talking about. The JBL L-300 Summit loudspeaker I referenced above crosses from a 15 inch woofer to a horn at 800 HZ. The L-200 does the same at 1200 HZ. If you check another source besides your trusty IMO, you will find numerous examples from other esteemed manufacturers. When you are in this deep, it is usually best to stop digging.