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The specifics of horn design in speakers utilizing compression drivers determines numerous aspects of sound quality. And of course, the ultimate test of any well designed and built speaker is in the listening.
Therefore, I'm hoping that I might be invited to hear speakers using any of these horns. Having these actual listening experiences will best enable me to decide between these horns for building my speakers.
I have my short list of drivers for a two or three way design: Radian 745 or 951neoBe, Yamaha JA6681B, SB Audience 65CDNT, B&C DCM50.
These are my Altec midwoofers. https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news/altec-416-8b-in-100l-sealed
My subs. https://www.rythmikaudio.com/F12.html The Altec and Rythmik sealed cabinets were built by Jim Salk.
https://www.salksound.com/model.php?model=Rythmik+12+Subwoofer
I would only need for your system to include a nice DAC with a USB input. That way I can play via my laptop uncompressed WAV files of CD track rips and what I believe are high quality Youtube files of live concerts.
I'm in New York and can travel a respectable distance by rail within the US.
Thank you.
Follow Ups:
hi there
sadly, there are not a lot of great horn systems. most are compromised. probably, because it takes too much money and time to put together a coherent, balanced horn system ---think 4-20 years and $70,000+. you need to have a healthy dose of don quixote in you to think of a horn system. have you read olsen's book on speaker design?
but if you need a horn system, you need one, have you checked out
"amazing horn system" on youtube. Joe often invites horn lovers to his place. he lives in brooklyn and occasionally posts here. he has great instincts and could help you. also on youtube, there are some good altec horn videos. the modern horn systems tend to be shrieky-shouty but worth hearing (search avanteguard, living voice, cessario). if you have a some money, worth going to munich hi fi show.
if you are willing to come out to NM, you are welcome to hear my horn systems. always a work in progress. but you can hear the potential of horns ... or as one astute commentator ( joe roberts?) famously said 'the promise of horns.
by the way, if you can go slumming with half-horn systems, some of the CAR (classic audio reproduction) speakers are very good and dare i say it, somewhat reasonably priced in the used market. at a lower level, jbl has some ok sensible offerings (eg, 4367, everest, k2) . considering both cost and musicality , the altec model 19 is hard to beat.
cheers
m
I met Joe Bolger at Lynn's thread, circa 2016 https://www.diyaudio.com/community/members/hottattoo.54239/ , who invited me to his Brooklyn home to hear his speakers. The only thing more blessed than Joe's sterling hospitality were his breathtaking DIY skills, blazing through every aspect of his system-plus the extent to which his entire ~12,000 cu ft room was gutted and rebuilt. Please see this complete video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK-9yfvT1ds
Back when I heard Joe's system he may or may not have done those mods on the Cary SLP05 preamp; and I don't recall if it was a Cary or that Modwright Sony CD player. I do recall at the time it was a pair of Cary 300B p-p amps driving the speakers, not those Jack Elliano Electra-Print tube amps. But from what was described in the video the speakers don't appear to have changed much if at all, except that at the time Joe didn't have the subs working and so told me not to expect anything below ~ 55Hz.
I played several CD tracks (Sergio Mendes, Dominic Frontiere, Eric Burdon, Joni Mitchell, et al) and we listened to a few of his CDs. But during those sessions I was shocked to find myself questioning my hearing, even my sanity. Whether it was mine-or Joe's arguably better quality-source material, I was never more than mildly, if at all impressed with what I heard. With one of Joe's choir and/or opera recordings I did notice respectable sound stage depth, and which Joe had cued me to listen for. But overall, the rest of what I heard seemed to sound rather dull, though whether that was due to somewhat over compressed recordings I wouldn't know. But I now wonder if even the SACDs Joe presumably plays on that Modwright/Sony player mentioned in the video would have sounded much better.
Also, Joe had me sitting on this little swivel chair about 12 ft from the speakers, and every time I returned to my seat after changing a CD, he would get behind me to wheel me back precisely between the speakers. Thus, the speakers likely had had less than great off axis response. Smiles throughout the sessions were mostly driven by utter bewilderment, though which relieved me from dismaying Joe, who later took me on a tour of his workshop; then out to dinner where he shared stories about the notables he met and speakers he heard at the numerous shows he attended over the years. Joe mentioned hearing what was probably the largest Sound Lab ESL model, but said he wasn't impressed (??). He then drove me to Jamaica station and I thanked Joe for a truly unforgettable experience.
Due to what may have been serious off axis response, some kind of horn coloration and/or other problems, to my ears, Joes speakers (perhaps the speaker/amp combination??) were an astounding letdown from what I was expecting. However, perhaps due to or despite the apparent performance issues, Joe's speakers, from what I can recall from back then, might be classified as usually presenting a "they are here" soundscape.
Wow, NM! Land of Enchantment. You can't know how much I'd love to accept your invitation, but I couldn't fly from NY to Montreal to hear a friend's speakers, much less a six hour flight to ABQ. I've longed to visit places like Grant County, Mesilla, Los Lunas-or even crowded Rio Rancho, where someone from my town recently moved to. I've never been out west save for that Denver hospital for asthmatics as a kid. But the realities of accelerating climate change on top of the region's natural propensities killed those retirement plans. Instead, I often watch BDs of old Westerns and TV shows like Longmire and Dark Winds, which were filmed in Las Vegas, Eagle's Nest, (I think) around the Ilano Estacado escarpment, around what looked like the lava fields in Grants and many other places. The landscapes in those movies and TV episodes draw me like steel to a magnet, so it's long been a strained attraction.
As I am too lacking in DIY skills and theoretical knowledge on speaker design, that pair of sealed Altec 416s will be used by Troy Crowe to swap out the base horns of this system; Fostex T90A tweeter in low diffraction waveguide/B&C DCM50 midrange. https://josephcrowe.com/collections/finished-speakers-custom-order
Or, somewhat less likely, a pair of JBL 2450 beryllium drivers in a TH4001 horns, above the Altecs built by my friend Pierre, who built this two-way system; see posts 15266, 15276. https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/beyond-the-ariel.100392/page-764
I'm presently seeking guidance from these guys and it will take my best informed wits to avoid any Quixotic leaps in deciding between what build they, Pierre and Troy may suggest.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/looking-at-yuichi-a-290-or-tad-th-4001-clones-makers.375215/page-8
Why not stop by and check us out?
Regards,
Greg
Hola
i have heard Joe's systems a number of times with music i am familiar with and did not hear any strangeness. it is one of the few horn systems that is truly full range. basically, its an Edgar system on steroids. And Edgar was the evangelist for modern DOMESTIC horn systems. very few people have done more work on horns than him. and hardly anyone has improved on his 4-way full horn realization. A pity that he passed away t without putting his knowledge into public domain.
but consider yourself lucky that you did not like Joe's system -- now, you dont have to try and replicate it - i envy you.
yuichi, tad are older designs that had shallow flares and used older compression drivers like tad 4001/jbl 2441. check with crowe and see if his es290 uses a newer steeper flare --if so , you would probably be better off with modern drivers like radian.
by the way, crowe has plans for an onken cabinet for 416. have you looked into that?
rgds
m
I'm hoping to be invited by one of Crowe's customers to hear his system before year's end. https://josephcrowe.com/products/speaker-system-no-2095If I love what I hear with my recordings, the system he would build for me would include all but the bass horns. In place of those would be my Altec 416s, which he reviewed. https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news/altec-416-8b-in-100l-sealed Below those would be three Rythmik F12 subs, built by Jim Salk. https://www.salksound.com/model.php?model=Rythmik+12+Subwoofer
Alternately, a two-way system using the Radian745Be and the forthcoming version of this horn. https://audiohorn.net/next-gen-bi-radial-horn/
Lots of discussion about that horn here. NicoB is the designer. Come join us! https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/looking-at-yuichi-a-290-or-tad-th-4001-clones-makers.375215/page-15
Edits: 10/10/24
hola
just a word of caution. there is almost no market for bespoke horn audio products. be prepared to lose all your money and a lot of energy if you dont like your final product. so i think better to listen to a finished product in a known setting with known music before you put any money down.
i have 2 of crowe's wood horns. good stuff. and he seems like a straight shooter. no complaints with him or his products.
also, this site has a lot of guys who tinker and build their own systems. not that many on this site are going to be plonking 20k on ready made systems. so you might not be getting the advice you need on this site.
i think you should hear a jensen imperial before you try a smaller back loaded horn.
m
Which of Crowe's horns do you have? This one?
https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news/es-450-biradial-no-2143
And might you be using it with any of those drivers?
Or this horn?
https://josephcrowe.com/products/3d-cad-plans-for-es-290-biradial-horn-horn-no-1670
Again, which drivers?
Also, depending on placement and your room acoustics, do either of those horns, perhaps due to its directivity index, exhibit more of a You are There or a They are Here presentation?
I much appreciate those wise words of caution but this is how I plan to proceed:
I've narrowed my choice of horns to three. Two are either of the above from Crowe. The other would be this new version of the TH4001 horn from Nicolas Badey https://audiohorn.net/next-gen-bi-radial-horn/ While his English is not always especially intelligible, if you click on the Audio Sciences tab at his website you can see that Badey is at least Crowe's equal with horn design. Indeed, I am scouring those pages for at long last I may be finally getting an excellent primer in both the goals of horn design and about room acoustics-and without the heavy math! Crowe offers no such assisted learning at his website, and when I asked him for usable learning materials for dummies he referred me only to a well known but math heavy text on acoustics.
When I invited him to this thread, https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/looking-at-yuichi-a-290-or-tad-th-4001-clones-makers.375215/page-15 Badey clearly holds his own when grilled by Docali, who also designed a much more similar looking but apparently quite different version of the 4001 horn. https://sphericalhorns.net/category/radial-horns/
As his last post there, Badey says one of his customers (e.g. X-41 horn https://audiohorn.net/x-shape-horn/ ) from NYC will soon be auditioning the new biradial horn at Badey's home. Presumably, if he loves what he hears the customer will order a pair and install them in his system. Badey then will ask the customer to invite me to hear them with my recordings (uncompressed WAV files of CD track rips). I'm ~ an hour away by train and uber.
And a week or so after the national elections are over, Crowe will arrange to have the owner of this system invite me to hear it. https://josephcrowe.com/products/speaker-system-no-2095 That's a 3.5 hour train trip and an uber to a Washington DC suburb. Note, if I did go
with either of Crowe's ES horns, instead of those bass horns, Crowe would be using my Altec 416 woofers below one of those ES model horns.
https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news/altec-416-8b-in-100l-sealed
OTOH, if I love what I hear from Badey's new biradial horn better than Crowe's, though I haven't asked him yet, I know someone who I'm pretty sure would agree to collect my Altec 416s from Crowe and build that system for me. He's two hour away by car. If not then perhaps that customer
in NYC might build them.
But NO way would I agree to buy any horn without hearing it in a complete and very good system.
For now a question about drivers: Would these work equally well with my Altec 416 woofers
https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news/altec-416-8b-in-100l-sealed and any one of these three horns, with the proper throat adapter?
https://www.usspeaker.com/radian%20745neoBepb-1.htm
https://usspeaker.com/jbl%202450H-1.htm
Or how much better might the JBL driver work because its bigger 2" diaphragm may allow it to cross lower and closer to the Altec 416's best crossover point, and/or for other reasons?
Hi
below message, in these uber senstive times may be out of place. but here goes.
i think you are trying to go diy even though you have no diy-desire, no diy-aptitude, no dyi-skills. furthermore, based on your comments about joe's systems, i dont think you understood the 'pieces' of a horn system.... so you are not really in a position to put a system together on your own. do you really want a high-price system that is unlistenable and un-sellable? also, depending on reviews or other people ears probably wont work --- only you know your own biases and tastes.
i suggest you buy a complete turnkey solution from any of the builders you mention. but remember their rooms are going to be different from your--- so, again, good luck. actually - from a re-sale point of view -- i suggest you stick to 'more' commercial brands --like -- off the top of my head --- jbl, klipsch, car, volti. not sure why you are ignoring these. jbl has (or had) as an m2 setup in manhattan. check it out.
sorry that i could not answer any of your questions the way you wanted.
by the way, i like your enthusiasm. hope you find something that works.
kind regards
m
Last I saw of Jim Salk was a year ago when he retired and closed his shop. I was there on the last day.
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