Change to Horns or stay Dynamic

Dgad,

Excessively high compression ratio :You get non-linearities in air compression in the compression chamber at extreme compression (high efficiencies). It creates harmonic distortion. I would not think you need to worry about this with hi-fi designs - however it is worth asking about. Bear in mind, the higher the compression and the greater the efficiency the overall more difficult and precise the design - phase plugs and such in the throat can be tricky and tolerances become very important. I guess I am saying don't just aim for the highest efficiency you can find - like something you can rock the whole neighbourhood with on a mere 1 watt amp!

Avoid long throws (narrow dispersion): This is easier to explain. The Bass radiates in all directions - so it uniformly fills your room in every direction. A long throw narrow dispersion horn is going to "beam" energy in a narrow path towards the listener. The hard part is where do you sit and how is it voiced and does this match your room and listening position. There is a danger that your brain interpretes the two very different soundfields separately. This effect was studied by Dr Floyd Toole at NRC labs in Canada in the 70's. Since then it has been the general consensus that the dispersion in the midrange and treble needs to be very wide horizontally in order to provide a pleasing "natural" sound field (i.e the reverberant energy from the room matches what you would expect to hear across the entire frequency range if you replaced your stereo by real musicians). If you look at the modern Klipsch and JBL designs you will see that they tend to respect this by using short throw horns with wider dispersion.

If you look at the modern Klipsch and JBL designs you will see that they tend to respect this by using short throw horns with wider dispersion

And I would add - that they sound great!

Along the lines of what Shadorne is describing, there is usually a minimum recommended distance the listening position needs to be from the mouth of the horn. This may not be such a big deal with a single full range horn, but with a 2 or 3 way it is needed to give the sound time to blend. This distance is probably related to some dimension of the horn but I don't know what it is.

Dan

A very happy horny guy. ;-)

Shadorne,

Based on what you are saying (I am new to understanding horns) a long throw horn - front loaded - will be longer in length rather than wider? In the case of a very long Bass Horn that is front loaded (rather than a folded bass horn - I assume that is rear loaded?) will be to directional and not disperse well?

Dan_ed,

I looked at your system. I see Edgarhorns & Acapellas. So my question to you is do you have an Ion tweeter? How does it compare to a Compression driver? I assume the Acapellas have some issues with the bass speed compared to the horn. Correct me if I am wrong.

And to all - do you go DIY for horns in a full range sense. I get a feeling going all out the speakers will sell for well above $100K. Hence, I respect Shadorne's use of ATC to keep things in perspective. I have been told by a few hornys that their dynamic speakers of choice are either PMC or ATC.

Guys,

Did you read what I wrote? I said there is little _practical_ difference in the dynamic range of horns vs. *some* (definitely not most!) coned speakers on *much* music (NOT orchestral!). IOW, on jazz, and smaller scale music, some very good coned speakers are _practically_ as dynamic _in the home environment_ as front horns.

Why the talk of stadiums and pro sound? Who cares?

Admittedly I do not speak from vast experience as I've never owned front horns. But I've been to the shows and listened to them.

You are quite right to say that on symphonic music, it's a different story, and that very few boxed speakers of any kind display impressive dynamics in general.

And come to think of it some of the non-horn speakers I'm thinking of do have some horn-loaded elements (Audiokinesis, E-P). But some of them do not.