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In reply to a critical posting on another forum about horn speakers that the OP had heard to at Audio Shows, I replied as follows. It would be interesting to hear from others here who use horn speakers.Responding to the OP's plight, I'd need to ask which horn speakers has he heard at shows that have disappointed him?
Secondly, he's dead right, horns do have a small sweet spot because they are very directional. This means that at Shows where many seats are set up for listeners (and potential customers) the exhibitor has a real dilemma. Does he set them up for best sound - for the guy in the centre front seat? Or does he deliberately compromise this ideal and set them up so that all listeners get an idea of the sound, yet no one gets the full benefit? I've personally been in this position when I loaned my horn speakers to a tube amp manufacturer at a UK show. We took the compromise route by facing the speakers far more directly forward than they would be if installed in your home. Despite this, many visitors commented that this combo of tube amps and speakers produced the best sound in how.
So, please don't judge good horn speakers by how they may sound at a Show - they simply won't be set up for best performance. Visit a reputable dealer showroom where hopefully they can be set up for the listening chair - then arrange a home demo or loan if sufficiently impressed!
Because horns are so directional, they offer big advantages as well as a disadvantage. The disadvantage, as suggested above, is a small sweet spot so ideal for you to listen on your own leaving any other listeners with good but not best sound.
The advantages are that well set-up horns will deliver the best (of all types of speaker) imaging - the ability of the listener to close his eyes and be able to point unambiguously at each instrument and vocalist at the original performance as if he is sitting in the best seat at that performance. That's a pretty good test and is overwhelmingly won by horns, with perhaps electrostatics next and omnis last and the best of conventional box speakers somewhere between.
The other huge advantage that horns offer is their tolerance of room anomalies. With most speakers, you need to place them x ft from the wall behind them and well away from side walls if you want their best sound. Horns, being so directional ignore the proximity of walls or other obstacles - but they still need precise positioning in terms of toe-in, distance from listener, perhaps tilt for optimum sound. Get these things right and I challenge any other type of speaker to deliver the degree of excitement and detail that you get from the original live version of the performance you are listening to.
Perhaps like the OP, I had seen fancy horn systems at shows and walked past them, even without listening to them - if they look that bonkers, the designer must be concentrating more on looks than sound quality! It was only when I bought the speakers that I'd been hankering after for years, only to be seriously disappointed (these were ATC Active 50s), that I seriously started research mainly via Stereophile that I was then (2002) subscribing to. I read Robert Deutsch's excellent and highlly descriptive review of the Avanthgarde Uno speaker that I'd noticed had recently picked up their "Speaker of the Year" award. Robert described EXACTLY the sound that I was looking for and so different from the ATCs. After a 10 minute demo in a grubby London basement showroom, I was convinced and bought a pair. 17 years later, I upgraded (after an unsatisfactory excursion into electrostatics) to Duos and more recently into the Duo XDs I currently own.
I'll grant you there are lots of pretty poor horn or "honky" speakers around, but that's largely because these are at the cheaper end of the market. The best horns are unrivalled in their ability to recreate the original performance with startling detail and accuracy. I hope the OP will look again at the pros (and cons) of horn speakers and arrange a proper demo.
PS - With sensitivities of 100+ dB, only a handful of watts are required so no massive outlay on monstrous power amps is needed. I use a first-class Class D amp after previously using SETs. Both get my horns singing just like the artist was at the original performance!
Edits: 08/21/24 08/21/24 08/21/24 08/21/24 08/21/24 08/21/24Follow Ups:
Nt
You SHOULD listen to anything made by Danley Sound labs and get an "attitude readjustment" via GREAT horns with NONE of the anomalies you seem to be paranoid about. We have come a long way in 100 years of improvements!
He should listen to any well designed horn speaker. If anything they're far less fatiguing than direct radiators due to their much lower THD.
As well as the "unmentionable" Lower Intermodulation Distortion that is really high in direct radiators, as propagated by Paul W. Klipsch!
Paul may have made more of IMD than he should have,at least back in his day when xmax longer than 4mm was rare. With the huge xmax in some drivers today it's more significant.
I saw the Plexiglas Khorn in the museum, with PWK as my tour guide.
They measured the woofer excursion at 1.5 MM at high output.
Khorns had other issues, since PWK did not care about time alignment and phase as much, until his later years. He always moved along slowly in his company, until a freshout engineer named Roy Delgado came along. Moving him into the new millenium!
Both the next gen La Scala and Klipschorn look promising!
FYI - I am the new owner of the Edgar Titan II's. After some discussion with @claudeJ1 I replaced the JBL midrange driver with a B&C DCX-462 coaxial driver. As he mentioned I am using DSP and tri-amping the Edgarhorns. They sound pretty darn good to my ears, not quite as good as ClaudeJ1's SH-50s but close!
More amps and DSP. Without that, they are still not up to modern standards put forth by Tom Danley.His SH-50's have too much bass in room corners and the resultant peak at 50 Hz. gets knocked down by room EQ and flat to 40 hz. in a horn 1/2 the size of a LaScala and 1/3 the size of a Klipshorn, all with PASSIVE network!!
Only one amp required. Lower distortion/superior performance for less money!!
Tapped horn subs below 40 Hz. gets down flat to 16 Hz. with useable output at over 120 decibels.
Edits: 09/26/24
Winston Churchill reportedly said, "you can depend on Americans doing the right thing after they try everything else first." That is pretty much how I arrived at my opinion that horn speakers are the best. I owned sealed speakers, ported boxes, aperiodic speakers, Magneplanars, electrostatics and even omnis if you count Bose 901s as Omnis. I was never satisfied even though some of these speakers did some things right. Then twenty years ago I designed and built my DIY, triamplified , DSP controlled horn speakers. I have never looked back.
Much of the drama and excitement in music is provided by micro and macro dynamics. Nothing does dynamics like good horns. Also horns have very low distortion and can have good frequency response free of coloration if properly regulated.
If anyone is interested my horns comprise Bill Fitzmaurice designed HT Tuba horn woofers, Oris 150 horns driven by AER BD3 drivers and Fostex t900a bullet tweeters. My preamp/DSP is a DEQX Pre 8.
The only possible downside is that they are somewhat large. Some try to diminish the size by combining horn mids and highs with sealed or ported box woofers. In my opinion that combination blends like coffee and spoiled milk. Nothing blends as seamlessly and musically correctly with horn speakers as other horn speakers.
I dream of an America where a chicken can cross the road without having it's motives questioned.
I concur with your findings. I have had similar experiences, designing speakers since I was 12 years old, using EV and Altecs horns in my late teens, and finally getting a bank loan to afford Klipschorns with a center LaScala at 23, as a newlywed with a very understanding wife.So my "American wrongs" came AFTER I had horns, not before. Sine you can add "doing everything backwards" to my Audio Resume!
My list of speakers would be too long. I did stray from horns with Carver Amazing Platinums (Mk I, II, and III) that were the "other end of the spectrum" technology wise with Planar Magnetics.
They had an exaggerated 3-dimensional presentation which I liked, but you can't have dynamics with 82 db/Watt speakers, even with a Kilowatt Amplifier.
Nothing can touch horns done right. PERIOD. My benchmark setup has been Danley SH-50's with TH-50 Subs as "speaker stands" with the ability to do 2.3 and 7.4.3 at the touch of a button. My 22 foot Super Tapped Hown has rear room duties for a perfect bass balance at the sweet spot, down to the low Teens, going on 10 years now. With Edgar Titan II's in the basement until just recently.
Edits: 09/29/24
to share a pic of your environment? The link in your profile is broken.
I confess that I am not generally a fan of horns but of all the designs, I think Tom's would suit me better with my passion for coherency. Most sound to me like a collection of dissimilar parts.
Only when it's a collection of dissimilar parts not set up correctly in a bad room with tube power amps!
have a pic?
Picture of what? My all horn systems?
I had a sarcastic description of something I do not practice. In case the tongue was not far enough into the cheek.
from my first post, I am curious to see such a Danley system in a home environment.
If it's too much trouble, no worries.
No problem. Pictures of "the kids."
Danley SH-50's on top of TH-50 "bassy speaker stands." LOL
77" OLED 4k TV for scale.
7.4.3 (8 Klipsch Heresys, modified and ported, 22 ft. folded Super Tapped Horn of my own design unseen).
For Music it's 2.3 at the touch of a button.
The Center Phantom Image sounds like it emanates from the TV, so I have to prove the Center SH-50 is OFF, much to a listener's disbelief during a DEMO.
The good doctor loved natural sounds and large oils caps in the crossover, etc. But I have always wondered how the Titan II would sound with SOTA DSP crossover/EQ/time alignment, especially when integrated with dual horn subs...
No need to wonder. Mine were dated 2003 in handwritten data.
Dr.Edgar's last and best woofer was the jbl 2220 in the bass horn, which is what I ended up with after the EVM 15L's they came with, and an Eminence Kappa 15C in between.
The salad bowls had jbl 2441's with titanium (from the previous owner) diaphragms, which I replaced with Aluminum ones from Radian.
My bullet tweeter search led me to Ciare ct440 since his original tweeters were no longer made. Add the Seismic Sub with it's own mono amp/xover.
I aligned all the voice coils with a first order passive network.
Now the new owner has 6 channels of class D amps with FIR filtering and another full horn sub (Tomservo's bt-7 full horn).
Let there be MUSIC!
He wasn't all that keen on MF and HF horn directivity either, placing diffraction horns on their horizontal axis. I might have gotten Roy's job, but when Paul offered me a position I wasn't about to settle in Arkansas, and he wasn't going to move the plant to New Hampshire. No matter, I would never have gotten along with the post PWK management.
If you choose carefully, there is no fatigue with horn listening, nor is there any "honk".I use horns and have also owned Quads that were also very nice. Both offer exceptional imaging and general sound quality, although the Quads lacked a bit in terms of bass compared with my horns. I had Avantgarde Unos and Quad 2905s (2912 modded) at the same time and preferred the AGs by a whisker sound wise, but barn doors are not what I want in my home as they spoil the views unacceptably.
Edits: 09/22/24
A big advantage of horn speakers is that it's easy to make them high efficiency.
High efficiency speakers tend to have better dynamic freedom, clarity and detail - when compared to low efficiency speakers.
My speculation is that part of the reason for that is the moving mass for the electromotive force on offer.
As well as the better coupling of the transducer to the air (already covered well in this thread with the oar analogy).
The biggest con of high efficiency speakers is getting high efficiency in the bass. This is easiest done by going large to huge. Hoffman's Iron Law.
Another con of horns is the manufacturing costs compared to low efficiency.
But when you're buying used / going DIY the price you pay can bear little correlation to the manufacturing cost.
I think that a nice little challenge is to get speakers that sound better overall than Avantgarde Duo XD's whilst spending less than $2000 per stereo pair.
I just added a second, 22 cubic foot Tapped Horn (Danley TH-50) to go underneath my SH-50 Synergy Horn speakers.
They are "speaker stands" that make some scary bass with a $199 behringer A800 amplifier. They have 97 db sensitivity will move furniture at 120 decibel levels down to the teens.
I also have a Super Tapped Horn (21.2 ft long) in a 6 foot tall cabinet that gets down to 10 Hz. in my small living room.
All speakers need subwoofers and great bass is not cheap. Most people don't even know what they are missing.
> The biggest con of high efficiency speakers is getting high efficiency in the bass. This is easiest done by going large to huge.
Hence the "common sense" alternative of a non-horn bass section that is self-powered. Although Avantgarde's top speakers (Mezzo and Trio) pay lip service to horn loading (perhaps a bit unkind in the Spacehorn), the sensitivity is still so much lower than the mid and top that huge amps are needed to match the bass frequency output levels to the rest.
> I think that a nice little challenge is to get speakers that sound better overall than Avantgarde Duo XD's whilst spending less than $2000 per stereo pair.
Tell us more! I am absolutely sure you couldn't build a Duo XD for that sort of money. The drivers alone would exceed that (4 x 12" plus 2 mids and 2 tweeters) and similarly the amps with their DSP for the bass enclosure another 2500 most likely. If you look at the bass enclosures,, there's a huge amount of joinery in these and the horns couldn't be DIY'd. You'd need to mould hundreds for the cost to reach a sensible level. And there's a lot more to consider to add to your DIY build, such as their bespoke feet and spikes. I have modified the horn tube support method for my Duo XDs and before that my earlier Duos and I appreciate the cost of these speakers. But good luck with your project if you are really up for it! Best maybe to buy a used pair and forget the DIY idea!
I've owned and/or heard almost all the brand name Horn speakers on the Market.
I bought my Danley SH-50's, SOUND UNHEARD, like I did the Hypex NC-400 Kits to drive them, replacing some fine class A from Nelson Pass.
Except for my soon to be, experimental Klipsch derived "Super Jubilees" that easily simulate to 27 Hz. with PEQ's (Thee 12" drivers per horn and Corner loading helps), Nothing has EVER sounded as good as my Danley SH-50's with room EQ that uses FIR methods in a broad band, with 7 drivers working as ONE.
It's still the King of the Hill after 10 years!!
Tapped Horn subs are easy to build with all Rip Cuts. 5 sheets of plywood, two 15" Chinese car subwoofers, you too can have a pair, front and rear center of room, for less than $1,500 US with amplifiers.
I have hesitated to reply as this is a big subject.
Number one, a horn is a band limited device, more so than an average direct radiator.
It normally has a "non-flat" frequency response raw, because it has both directivty and gain both of which are horn size and shape and driver.
That being the case, the on axis sensitivity reflects BOTH the directivity and efficiency.
The are mostly a "minimum phase" device so making the response flat also corrects the phase response.
HF Horns with curved walls generally need less eq to be flat on axis, that is because as the frequency climbs, the radiation pattern gets narrower and narrower. IF your listening only on axis, some horns are even flat without eq. These can be very narrow at the top end.
Horns that have straight walls tend to be closer to "constant directivity" where the radiation angle is a fixed number over a wide bandwidth.
For multiple seats, this is an advantage because for some angle off axis, the frequency response stays the same instead of the hf progressively rolling off off axis. This EQ is often called "CD" compensation to compensate for the drivers falling acoustic power and no narrowing.
If you ever heard an altec A-7 in a living room, one can observe that outside the pattern in the room, the sound is dark, no hf.. That dark spectrum is the acoustic power radiated while on axis, its sound right because the hf gets very narrow vertically to off set the falling power.
A typical 1 inch compression driver's acoustic power rolls off starting about 1-3Khz depending.
IF one had a truly constant directivity source (like an omni), then the room sound spectrum is nearly the same as sitting in the sweet spot. IF these were far enough away from side walls (and you were closer), these can give a very good stereo image.
We also hear aspects of how sound is radiated and here is where a multi-way horn systems have issues, you have to be father away before they are not obviously separate sources.
At the opposite end of being able to localize the speaker as the source, here is where a single small full range driver used properly, makes a jaw dropping stereo image.
Here is a way to make one that does this.
IF your a diy'r like my background, try this and report back.
Obtain 2 of these amazing little drivers, don't substitute;
https://faitalpro.com/en/products/LF_Loudspeakers/product_details/index.php?id=401000100
Make a flat baffle, about 18 inches to 2 feet square with a hole in the middle to mount the rear of the driver through. This insures there is no discontinuity and re-radiation within a good distance and blocks energy going to the rear above about 300Hz at 18 inches.
Cover the baffle with 1/2 inch of foam padding and make a hole in it at the center.
Mount the driver from the front through the foam which makes a nice radius at the driver edge. make a small back volume for the driver,, if your game, take the T&S parameters and figure out a vented box with a nice low response shape.
This full range driver is small enough to radiate as a simple point source up to pretty high and so, it has very little spatial identity and can disappear making a stunning stereo / phantom image .
If you listen at a reasonable distance, you will be impressed, the only thing they don't do is low bass and they do narrow some up high.
Tom Danley
Hello !
This looks like a neat thing to try.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by packing foam though. Polyethylene? Styro? Spray-on?
Thanks!
Are Tapped Sub Horns loaded better with the mouth in a corner or wall? Looking at the sub bass side of things here.
Hi Claude
Well one can make an argument for putting any bass speaker close to a wall.
If you measure a speaker what is off the ground with a mic off the ground, you see a big notch in the bass response because there are two paths to the microphone, that are different lengths.When that difference is equal to 180 degrees, you get a cancellation notch.
The same is true for a bass speaker near a rear wall except now when the speaker is 1/4 wavelength from the wall, the reflection returns 180 degrees behind and now is partially canceling the front radiation.For a bass speaker a safe thumb rule for no cancellation would be put it 1/8 wavelength or less from the wall (s) at the highest frequency in question.
The Tapped horns are no different in that regard, just low pass and eq them flat in room.Hey i got to hear 12 X DTS10 tapped horns this last week and weekend and with a large "live band" which was pretty cool.
In fact they are taking them on tour. Jason from the shop was in the mix booth and took a video, if you have headphones or good speakers you can hear the very low bass.
https://www.facebook.com/506698600/videos/1221056768929926/
Tom
Edits: 09/11/24 09/11/24
There must be some kind of subharmonic or synthesizer keyboard used to generate bass at LIVE concerts from 12-50 Hz., I'm guessing, for the DTS-10's, eh?
Even a 5 string bass (b1). A Warwick Dark Lord or Kalium Quake perhaps? The only things I can think of that do justice to DTS-10's. (I had one in front and one in rear in my Home Theater for almost 2 years, (Indianapolis Klipsch Land) and they would shake a door in my room down the Hall with sine testing. Unreal stuff for the "Low end freaks." LOL.
Even the Servo Drive bt-7 in my living room can get to A0 (27 Hz)!!
My super tapped horn (21 feet long) can get to 10 Hz. with room gain.
Even my twin TH-50's will scare people without the Super TH.
To quote you Tom, I like to "scare strangers" in my small living room with these monster subs! Too much FUN.
Edits: 09/11/24 09/11/24 09/11/24 09/13/24
You are Tom Danley. So I went back and read your post more carefully to learn something :)
and as a result, many recordings can sound a bit different from intended via horns. For example, many compression drivers measure with peaking response in their lower range, and unfortunately, that means elevated response in the critical ranges including 1-3kHz range, which is exactly where many engineers dial in a bit extra "presence" for the general audience who are listening via phone speakers, computer speakers, etc.
Mastering by professional powered monitors also has consequences in bass. A recording that has the right amount of bass tightness and damping via powered studio monitors can sound underdamped if played back via truly horn-loaded bass.
...and a more accurate representation of a live performance.
Recordings are not made with horns and never had been - they are made with musical instruments.The sound is picked up by microphone and recoded on tape or digitally. After that, the studio engineer will do his best to iron out the wrinkly bits and any other nasties he finds on the recordings and mixes the tracks to create master recordings that are sent to pressing and streaming houses. The engineer uses his ears but the speakers will be flat, whether horns or not.
In fact this flatness is the reason studio monitors often sound pretty unsatisfactory in the home. As one engineer rather tongue-in-cheek remarked "studio speakers are designed to sound bad, whereas domestic speakers are designed to sound good". By this he meant that studio speakers need to highlight all the warts and all that the engineer has to sort out in the editing.
Edits: 09/06/24
For decades the standard high end studio monitor was the Altec A-7, so yes, many recordings were made using horns. Not that it matters, flat response is flat response, no matter the source.
.
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Altec A7 were used widely as studio monitors starting in 50's, which explains why so many of the records of that period sound AWESOME via my horn speakers!!
I'm not doubting used in studios in playback, but mixing that seems out of scope for a Theater focused design.
I would think most real mixing would e done with hybrid cone / horn like a 605 or 605a.
Distance needed to use an standard A7 for that purpose might be difficult for most studio layouts of that period.
Distance didn't cause a problem. You're probably thinking about modern mixing techniques with multichannel boards and nearfield monitors. Neither existed until the 1960s.
Simple google search of photos and recording history sites, there were mixing consoles and near field setups in the 50 s and one of the vanguards had a 1947 date.
Multiple web sites focused on the recording equipment and the pioneers identify the development of that equipment with examples photos and in rare cases the actual equipment, with significant achievements in the late 40's through 50's and into the 60 s
I find no such photos or references of A7 used in that era for mastering, I find many that had A7 in the large orchestra recording rooms for playback.
I see 605,604 and even a Tannoy ( not certain a 50 s picture though )
Got any sources for A7 used in mastering in the 50/60 s?
FWIW, a late 40s Western Electric monitor at a radio stationLots more pics and info about this subject at worldradiohistory.com
Edits: 09/18/24 09/18/24
I used to own Western Electric Westrex 2326A Studio monitors.The massive tweeter was horn loaded but not the 15" bass driver. OK, but no match for a modern horn speaker.
Edits: 09/18/24
Nice set up!Those look like JBL manufactured drivers to Westrex UK spec (?). If so, I've heard a set up using those drivers and to my ears, they have a different flavor compared to the WE753C I linked earlier and the WE757A monitor + drivers discussed in the link below.
Edits: 09/18/24
The photos I attached were not my own speakers, but the same model - 2326A.
Yes, UK supplied. In fact, one of the tweeter voice coils was faulty when I bought these big speakers (for 20 GDP), but luckily the Westrex works was a few miles from where I worked, so getting it replaced was a painless job. I wonder what those drivers would be worth now.
This includes Led Zeppelin's first record in 1969.
If only flat response was the only thing that mattered since it isn't. There's so much more and I wouldn't even give it 1st place.
Direct radiator speakers can also have very narrow sweet spots in a heavily acoustically treated room, though the people running the room at the usual hi fi shows don't usually have the time and means to do this in a typical hotel room. Some years ago a friend took me out to hear the latest Magico speakers which went for around $30,000 a pair at a local hi fi salon. The speakers were placed on the long wall of a rectangular room (while us horn guys would have used the short wall to benefit from the corner loading). The walls were heavily treated with non-reflective panels, as was the floor. I listened from several seats and was finally able to get the one center "sweet spot". The localization of the various instruments in the orchestral piece playing was very good, however the whole thing fell apart if you moved one seat either way out of the sweet spot! My friend was very impressed, but I said "Have you ever heard a symphony orchestra where half the orchestra disappeared if you moved one seat over?". My friend had a confused look on his face, like I was being too picky. He is an operatic tenor who has attended many concerts from both the orchestra and the audience. Some time later he wanted to go back and hear the Magicos again, but I declined as I did'nt care for them, and I said "The time would be better spent listening to music at home". By this I meant my mid-fi 5 channel home theater with Pioneer CS 88 (12" 3 ways) as the R/L mains. It seemed like the whole "soundstage" thing established by Absolute Sound and Stereophile magazines would fade away with the popularity of the home theater scene and big HD TV's and 5.1 sound, but two speaker "one seat wonder" stereo speaker pairs are still getting a lot of attention in the magazines. Awhile ago Magico came out with their Ultima horn speakers which were going for close to one million a pair. I pointed the Ultimas out to my friend and I told him from the pictures that I thought they were "..over built, over priced, and under-engineered". My friend seemed to think I had a lot of nerve to say this by his reaction, so I took a picture of the Ultimas, did some cut and paste, and touched it up with oil crayons. I showed this to him and said "This is how these speakers should be made". I don't think I convinced him with my cheap craftsy collage compared with the Ultima asking price.
Paul
Pros - it's the best speaker topogy ever conceived
Cons - it mostly attracts the worse most infantile spectrum of audio guns
> Pros - it's the best speaker topogy ever conceivedNot true in my view. The room acoustics and design are the most important factors when choosing a speaker type. In my room, omnis should be best, though I stick with horns as their imaging is so much better. ELS speakers don't suit my room because there is no wall behind them, but they will suit other rooms as well or better than horns.
> Cons - it mostly attracts the worse most infantile spectrum of audio guns
Certainly there are a lot of horn haters, but they have probably never encountered a well designed system that is properly set up. I had always passed by horn demo rooms at audio shows because of the ugly (JBL, Klipsch, etc) or zany (Avantgarde, hORNS, etc) looks, but I was convinced to try Avantgarde speakers following the 2000 Uno review in Stereophile. This excellent and thorough review described EXACTLY what I was looking for in a loudspeaker.
Anyone unaware of the lifelike sounds that high quality horn speakers can deliver should read this review - or just skip to Conclusions on Page 5. And of course their speakers are much improved wince then - I'm on my 3rd pair.
Edits: 08/26/24 08/26/24
You just undermined one of your horn speaker strengths...directionality doesn't interact with the room as much...therefore, the room design is less critical and would generally favor a horn speaker.
Good to see you around, Brad! Those Odeons have developed a fairly nice rig around them. I have the system listed in my profile if you're interested.
No - I said that horn speakers are less adversely affected by room features than any other type of speaker.
Their directional projection of sound means less reflected sounds from walls, ceiling, etc. They are less likely to benefit from DSP than other types in poorly treated rooms - for the same fundamental reason. I hope this clarifies my earlier post.
Line sources are less affected by the room than any other type of speaker, as the restricted vertical directivity reduces early reflections off the floor and ceiling, while horizontal dispersion is unaffected. Line sources may be either direct radiating or horn loaded. As for the directional projection of horns, that may be configured narrower than a direct radiator, but it doesn't have to be narrower than a direct radiator. CD horns, for example.
In reality, the least room involvement is from the greatest directivity and a large horn can have a much greater "front to back" ratio than a large array.
A large bass line array in fact can radiate as much to the rear as the front, a curved array can radiate more to the sides than forward in spite of the mythology.
The issue in large scale sound has been how to make a large enough horn and full range.
Yes. You have "been there, done that," Tom.s. Anyone who ever hears your products is convinced in about 3 seconds flat. The rest are mostly bovine sediment.
Well, for one thing horns aren't necessarily directional, that depends on the horn. I used horns with horizontal patters as narrow as 60 degrees and as wide as 120 degrees.
True. In most cases where it's said that a horn is directional that comes from someone listening with their eyes. A horn resembles a nozzle, sort of, so they assume it's directional. It's no different than the erroneous assumption that there is a characteristic horn sound.
I have to take issue with you here. Almost by definition horn speakers are exceptionally sensitive, typically 100+ dB. Why is this? Largely as the sound is projected in a narrow beam, via a "horn". The clue is in the name!
As with megaphones, sound is directional and deliberately so. As for "listening with their eyes", I'm somewhat confused. If I close my eyes while sitting in the sweet spot of my horns (provided they are well set up), I can point towards each instrument or singer unambiguously - far more so than ever is the case with most other types - eyes are not needed.
Another advantage of horn's directional nature is that the proximity of side and rear walls is largely ignored by these speakers,
Horns may be configured to project a tight polar pattern, but they don't have to project a tight polar pattern. As for their high sensitivity, it's because a horn is an impedance transformer. Moving coil loudspeaker drivers have an inherent flaw, in that they're high impedance devices operating into a low impedance load, that load being air. 8 ohms doesn't sound like it's high impedance, but it's huge compared to the impedance of air. When a high impedance device operates into a low impedance load the power conversion efficiency is low. Direct radiator speaker efficiency is very low, around 2% on average. A horn provides a driver with a higher impedance load, so the speaker works with far greater efficiency. Horns run with an average efficiency of 50%. That efficiency is at the heart of why horns are more sensitive. It's not directivity. Logically it would seem that directivity is a major part of the equation, but as is so often the case with audio in this case logic is incorrect.
Look at it this way. You're in a rowboat using a pair of pool cues for oars. You'll get where you're going eventually, but those pool cues can't grab enough water to do the job effectively, no matter how fast you row. That's a direct radiator. Switch to a good pair of oars and you go a lot faster, while doing less work, because they grab the water so much better. That's a horn.
On the subject of listening with your eyes:
View YouTube Video
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Whether done for fun, as in the clip, or by necessity for those with hearing impairments.
"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing, if you can fake that you've got it made." Groucho
That's a well known phenomenon in the acoustical engineering community. It happens because our primary sense is vision, so when the brain processes input from multiple senses it gives priority to what we see over what we hear. When you watch that video and he's saying 'faa' close your eyes and you'll clearly hear it as 'baa'.
" When you watch that video and he's saying 'faa' close your eyes and you'll clearly hear it as 'baa'. "
Yes, that is the point. If we listen with our "eyes open" (allow outside things to influence our judgment) then our conclusions are invalid.
It is not just vision that can severely cloud our judgment but looks, size, cost, a read review, something your friend said about the product, etc.
Tre'
Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
Just one thought. Dynamic line sources have excellent control of dispersion also like you're describing for horns.
The do have some directivity but an array of sources (individual drivers) produce an interference pattern that changes with frequency not a single lobe like a horn. Two or more sources can only combine into a single new source if they are less than 1/4 wavelength apart at the highest frequency, at 1/2 wl and beyond, they are completely seperate sources..
This is why one normally only see's smoothed predictions and not measurements for those where as there are Klipple measurements for other non array speakers.
From listening to good line sources it's not a huge problem though you are correct it's there. But everything is a trade off and horns have strong plusses(many I admire) but they do have other problems such as getting deep horn bass with a manageable size so the sound Quality doesn't change from non horn bass(to get useable size) to horn mids.
Arrays of direct radiating woofers can do fine matched with horns. When I had Altec A5s I used a pair of JBL 4648 bassbins to augment them below 100hz. With wall placement and 6db of boost at 30hz they were flat to 25hz , still very sensitive and more importantly they tracked the dynamics of the Altecs. Yeah, I know you're not supposed to EQ vented boxes below F3 but the 2226 woofers, 4 of them, took it in stride with no distortion or untoward behavior.
Cool! Totally Cool!!
My horn loaded sub measures 11 cubic feet. IMO that's not overly large, especially as it does double duty as a table. And yes, the quality of horn loaded bass is superior to direct radiators, not only in terms of much higher sensitivity but also much lower THD.
Avantgarde's approach for their "sensibly-sized" systems is not to attempt to horn load the bass, but to effectively use a subwoofer to deliver ample bass that extends well down. They include twin 10" or 12" high quality drivers with no horn - so similar to a sub.
Their "daft-sized" systems do use horn loading for bass, but most people's rooms can't accommodate these monsters!
I do find it interesting that folks who find horns to be "unlistenable" because of (insert your choice of stereotypical "horn sound" complaint here) can go to a movie theater or concert and never notice that they are listening to horns. Oh, they may complain about the sound quality for various reasons, but never do their comments include those same "horn sound" complaints. So I guess there must be something about horn loudspeakers not being visible to the listener that negates all of the "horn sound" maladies.
I think too many people still think of horns as:
Edits: 08/22/24
True. If you look at a speaker and think it will sound bad it will.
Hi
I think i can offer some insight on the ups and down sides of horns.
Stereo, the stereo image is a deliberate illusion that if perfect,, makes you think there is a different space between the two speakers than is in your room. Perfection is making a voice sound so real that there has to be a person standing there.
Regardless of the source and environment, there is a finite relationship between the speakers and listener where this illusion can take place. For example, not just the angle between the speaker to listener but that they are equal distances. The best place to hear what any speakers do, where they image the best is outdoors where there are no room effects. Here, the sound that reaches your ears is nearly entirely direct from the speaker with no reflections other than the ground. Yes you will not be happy with bass, but i explain why below.
It is also the clues that speakers add, that rooms add that allows one estimate the speakers distance when ones eyes are closed or reflections (Haas kickers, deliberate reflections as Don Davis called them in the 80's) that can make the sound much larger than the between two speakers space.
An up side of horns is they have directivity and can reduce the sound radiated sideways and rearward, this makes the sound at the listening position more "near field" or more of the direct sound and less of the reflected sound arriving later in time. This is consistent with the old "hopkins Stryker" thumb rule for intelligibility.
For home stereo, horns are problematic, they suffer from what multi-way driver speakers usually do but more so.
When you have a tweeter, mid and woofer lest say, there is a listening distance one must be before those sources "knit" into one source. For separate horns, these are physically / acoustically much larger and so this distance is much larger being farther apart.
This matters less at large distances and where a phantom image isn't part of it but in the home or larger space where stereo image IS desired like theaters and listening rooms, the separate source nature still lets your brain triangulate the approximate distances to the source (close your eyes). That spatial identity detracts from the stereo image, in a perfect case, one isn't aware of the speakers as sources and NOT standing out as part of the image..
This is where simple or single sources sound different and can make a stronger image, they can have fewer spatial clues that conflict with the illusion.
Response in a room. Floyd Toole's and others work shows that there is a preferred response curve, an average from many listeners and this curve is a smooth rising response as the frequency falls but NOT FLAT. A curious thing is the best response anechoic is flat and when that speaker that's flat is in a room, one finds the room increasingly contains the sound as the frequency falls resulting in the desired slope with increasing low end.
The ATC50 was mentioned, keep in mind at least the floor standing version (we have a pair at work) are NOT flat, they have a significant dip in the mid which makes the tweeter sparkle and airy.
Speakers don't have to be flat, but that imposes a "sound" of their own.
In reality, if one could make 3 different pairs of speakers that were signal perfect, they would be indistinguishable at the same level on axis (ignoring all other properties).
Tom
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