Why not horns?

It's 4 pages............... no google -)

I do think this is his products !

DR Earl Geddes : http://www.ai-audio.com./productsesp.html

Hello Duke,

The science can always be manipulated to justify one's direction , the proof is in the tasting.

A speaker shoot out would be interesting !

regards,

Thanks for the info :

Web Site : http://www.acoustichorn.com/tech/conical/

Nice work , he did not list any technical details on the site, did you get anything with your drivers ?

regards,

Macrojack,

I could not find anything on the DCX-50 , only a DCM50 is listed on there Website. Is the DCX dis-continued ?

The DCM50 has quite a bit of cavity resonance and not much response after 10K being a full 5 db down @ 12 K . I guess an eq could help out here.

Are you EQ'ing your system ?

06-21-10: Unsound
Macrojack, are you seriously trying to claim that you've taken the higher road?

Yep .. LOL.... I guess him and godbless are one and the same !

Macrojack:

Could you name the Horn Speakers that you consider to be good sounding ?

regards,

Ok found something !

06-05-10: Macrojack
I use my horns in a two way application with a light, fast 15 inch Italian woofer. The crossover is set at 400 Hz. right now with 24 db LR slopes in both directions.
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WS:
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 ...

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Macrojack

I cut the woofer off at 33 Hz. and let the horn reach for the stars. My compression driver has heat sinks and is designed to play up to about 40 db louder than what I use it for.
I have a conical wooden horn made of solid cherry wood that does not seem to color anything. I'm not sure about the validity of these few comments about disadvantages in horn use but none of it seems to apply to my set up. I've listened carefully over the last few days fo signs of coloration, phase problems, compression, etc. and no symptoms are apparent to me.

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WS:
Interesting , are you saying it does not exist in your system or you do not hear it ? based on what you have expressed so far , it would be baffling to not have a high degree of nasality .
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Macrojack:
Bill Woods, who designed my horns and sold them to me along with aluminum throat adaptor and B&C driver, says that these represent the best midrange he can provide and that he has tested and measured them against QUAD, Manger and Heil, which he says are the best other mid range producers.

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WS:

all 3 drivers you mentioned have a completely different sonic image and acoustic center to your horn speaker!
how is he comparing them , FR, THD ?
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Macrojack:

To be honest, I don't remember if he also mentioned Walsh. We haven't talked in a while.
In any case, I am not a technician and I am not one who believes I possess superior listening skills. What I can say is that I am unable to hear any lag between my woofer and my horn, and that is a tone and body to musical instruments (timbre, I guess) which I never heard equaled by any other speaker.
Perhaps I'm the one who is guilty of lumping everything together. I don't get out much and I haven't heard any other horns in years. Maybe mine are not so representative of the breed as I assumed. Nonetheless, my horns do represent what is possible and I think that a larger company could produce this caliber of work at or below Bill's prices if they could justify the research and tooling. Bill has probably already provided much of the former and the latter can be outsourced reasonably, perhaps even domestically.
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WS:

Is there any data available on your horn setup ....
i would be interested in seeing the impedance magnitude and phase! of each driver ....

Regards

06-03-10: Almarg
Re phase and polarity, I believe the reason for the ambiguity and inconsistent use of the term "phase" is that a delay or phase shift mechanism can be either phase dispersive (affecting the phase of different frequencies differently), or phase non-dispersive (affecting the phase of all frequencies equally).

A polarity inversion is the same thing as a 180 degree non-dispersive phase shift. An arrival time difference caused by multiple drivers whose physical placement is not time-aligned relative to one another would be a dispersive phase shift.
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Hello Al,

All true , but the word Phase describes a relationship it can be applied to anything really.

regards,

05-29-10: Herman
Macro, you are a bit off base on that one. It is one of the common misconceptions in audio. Your description of being physically aligned is correct but your description of phase and polarity isn't.

A difference in phase means a difference in time. A difference in polarity means one signal is going positive while the other goes negative. Phase and polarity are two entirely different things.

It is confusing because if you reverse the wires on one speaker (black to red) in a stereo pair then everybody says the speakers are out of phase. That is technically incorrect. The correct phrase is you have reversed the polarity to one speaker. One will be going in while the other is going out. They still happen at the same time so they are in phase but they move in opposite directions so they have opposite polarities. Unfortunately it is common practice to describe it as the speakers are out of phase, and it is awkward to say that one has its polarity reversed, so we are stuck with a phrase that is technically incorrect.

Same situation with balanced cables. While one line is going positive the other is going negative. Some people incorrectly say they are out of phase but actually one has inverted polarity.

If the speakers aren’t time aligned then there is indeed a phase shift, a difference in time.
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Huh?

Herman,

Phase is an relationship , when you reverse the polarity of one speaker you change the phase , hence they are no longer in phase. This is of course completely different from acoustic phase, as you described , but considered electrical phase....

Regards,

Well they are not my kind of speaker and have not listen to one in quite sometime. I do get the opportunity to do so this weekend and with custom amplification to boot!

Stay tuned!

Personally i would like to hear Earl's stuff , it would be interesting to say the least, put the science to the test so to speak !

Really would like to see them stand up to a real world test..

regards,

Hello Gentlemen,

Every horn system i have ever heard was heavy on the coloration side and that includes the mega buck highly rated ones. Coherency is not another strong suit due to poor integration between drivers. This effect was reduced when listening at distances of 14 ft or better.

Brings me to Now !

A friend of mine who has been heavy into planer speakers (quads, apogee, Maggies and lastly Yankee ribbon)
has obtained a huge custom horn speaker and it's associated amplifiers and x-overs , swears it's the cats meow. Pitched out his Yankee ribbon for it .. we will see !!!!

regards,

You make absolute absurd opinionated statements than get rude and antsy because you are questioned about such. LOL.....

I would suggest you record yourself and play it back a few hundred times instead of putting it on the internet where others might respond !

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

Hello Duke ,

Thanks for the response and i'm sure a polar plot on that 15 inch woofer will prove what we are discussing. The published data including the response curve on both drivers will require eq-ing IMO for that speaker to be listenable, well unless it is being used for Sound reinforcement.

I could not find any data on the horn driver with that Horn type that is being used. The horn is beautifully made and the type of wood being used , from experience offers decent damping off setting the natural ringing of the driver in the 5 K range as confirmed by it's impedance curve.

A pity they never published the phase response , the woofer
also shows appreciable breakup.

All in all actually pretty decent driver Specs on the horn and below such on the woofer. I would work with the horn driver , but get a much better woofer for the application as this one appears better for sound reinforcement and since this is for domestic use the super high power handling is not a concern.......

Macrojack,

Hello to you 2 sir and many happies, get well soon ....

Here's agood replacement driver for you Microjack!

http://www.eighteensound.com/index.aspx?mainMenu=view_product&pid=232

06-14-10: Audiokinesis:

If either of you will be at RMAF, come on by my room if you get the chance.
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RMAF ? R.eally M.ad A.udio F.arts .. -)

What models are you displaying ?

+10 Agree with your assessment ...

High fatigue factor , poor instrument sizing (everything stay's powerful and big) mucho coloration!

regards,

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06-14-10: Prdprez
an admitted naive observation from a bachelor........

Why is it that we need to figure out ways to get the wifes "out of town" whenever we want to have a little audiophile fun? It seems to me that they don't plan on ways to get the men out of town whenever they have their little parties. To the contrary, they plan the party and we pretty much go running! LOL! (Hmmmmm. wait a minute!.........)

Back to the thread.... Why not horns? Well, because they sound like horns. My friend has meticulously set up his Trios with 3 pairs of bass horns in a dedicated and purpose built room with every little trick and room correction you could think of.
Mighty mighty impressive dynamics. Sometimes feels like I can hear the nose hairs moving in the recording. But ultimately only fun for a little while. I always come away feeling as though I have listened to a well constructed parlor trick rather than a live musical event.

Herman ,

That would be bridged for 4 times the power and not necessarily just because it is a monobloc.

What frequency are they rating the bass driver @ 1 K, 100 hz?

As we are discussing audio! I must say there are no winners, no good, better best, one man's euphoria is another anathema !

That said and IMO ,

*8 Watts is not enuff from micro /Macro dynamic reproduction of a recording . I have never heard a system that never benefited from more power. ( all things equal )
using a 250 watt amp is not a demerit in my books..

*High efficiency speakers never ever sound like live music, instruments or convey recordings accurately and have a poor sense of balance.

* Horns are great when used in the environment they were/are intended for PA and sound reinforcement where high db levels and not accuracy is important.

Hence most hi-fi people will not like the sound of horns in their environment.

regards,

Herman,

The complexities of music reproduction always seems to favor power. We could discuss this at length, macro/micro dynamics, resistive load power vs reactive load yady yada, but my typing is poor and I'm lazy !

So i will take the easy way out and say after 40 yrs of fighting this demon , without reservation, big un's sound more like live music than likkle un's ...

( academic about the quality )

Nothing against the 2 or 3 watt crowd , it just does not work for me ..

Mapman:

I will reserve comment for now on the class-d stuff , as I'm still in training on there particular sound , which I'm not in favor of currently, and admit i have not heard what you have recommended regarding such, so my verdict (condemnation or approval) is not yet out ....

In your home environment , i would not be surprised that a conventional speaker would have better results vs a horn speaker.

I have personally participated at 2-3 hi-fi shows and dependent on room location , traffic , floor noise a horn speaker can have an advantage during demonstration vs conventional speakers... It's projection of sound is a big advantage here, not so in quite home settings were it's high coloration, and time domain deficiencies say " hello " here I'am !

From my perspective, the coloration is just too high, size and power of instruments out of proportion irrespective of the venue or recording and a 2 much and unnatural in your face presentation.

Those are my observations and of those from my corner, it apparently works for others and since there is no absolute lock on "it " by any of the current topology of today we should just group hug and recognize it's just another cup of tea ..... No thank's ! ....

Herman what is the efficiency of the Bass driver of which you speak ?

110db/1W/1M @ 100 hz !

Required viewing to understand this madness !!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs1aUws0Lrs

Duke .. LOL....

Duke are you saying those that dislike horns cannot pick them out in a blind test , good Man , you know your market,
Stevie wonder must have a Pr then ? ..........LOL

Dukey maybe you have yet to hear good hi-fi, hence the horns ...)

Seriously i'm sure you can respect it does not work for everyone and with good reason.

Most dealers have had the same bad experience for years, just stick you head into one of their demonstration room's ...

Deaf comes to mind !!!

Dats the problem... a guess !

06-14-10: Prdprez
My take on the blind test was that the listener was noticing all of the same similarities that seperate Stats and Horns from typical dynamic speakers. It doesnt surprise me one bit that he guessed the way he did.

Until you've heard speakers designed or inspired by Earl Geddes,

I would love to hear geddes stuff, but how ? Where?

From past viewing Geddes stuff are not really horns but uses a sort of waveguide , so they would lack the same coloration associated with typical compression drivers IMO.

Duke,

Are you saying the Summas are electrostatic like in there presentation ?

From Geddes :

The waveguide features a state of the art HOMLess Refractive Waveguide PlugTM which minimizes high order modes which cause colorations.

I'm on the side of good sound Dukey !

Earls science is pretty big, hard to match him there , but this is audio, there are fundamental things that i do disagree
with Dr Geddes on and until i do get a taste of his soup i will hold on to such.

regards,

Herman !

Prez said lower distortion for the same sensitivity, with multiple drivers vs 1 , this is correct!

1. Transient Distortion
2. IMD
3. THD

all will be lower vs a single driver !

You then went on to explain it in , well, a simpler term , coming to the same conclusion that you originally denounced.

LOL...

Regards,

I would like to clarify !

I highly doubt the 2 will sound the same, the sonic characteristics are so completely different... that's not to say it would not sound the same to someone else!

Anathema and euphoria thingy again !

Good show Dave ........ LOL and very correct !

06-15-10: Sogood51
I'm glad I gave up my audiophile card long ago, because thats when music became fun again. My Apogee dipole panel speakers are fun to listen to, and so are my horns (Klipsch).

My Bose 901's out in the garage are also fun....and so are my big old ugly VMPS Supertower/R's.

When I was an audiophile, I rarely found music or speakers that were fun, and once the fun was gone......so was I.

After around 5 years I came back for another try, and with a new goal......."Don't worry, be Happy"....and have fun!

Dave

Macrojack ... Horn Nazi ... LOL!!!!!

Macro why do you insist on being rude to those discussing their point of view in a thread started to do just that ?

There are others here in the know, open your mind and listen!

regards,

Mrdecibel,

Every hi-fi system will have that one track where it shines, it's when confronted with differing music types, is where most fails.

I love my non-horns ..........

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06-18-10: Mrdecibel
A cd recording from 1984 on the Denon/Nippon Columbia Japan label : Eddie Gomez : 38C38-7189 - 9 tracks - A recording , inho, where many systems fail.....it is jazz and has it all.....I love my horns !

06-18-10: Mrdecibel said " I truly believe many of you horn haters have not heard a "proper" horn set up" ...

This might be true Mr decibel , heard my first on in 1973 my last one last week , so in 37 yrs nothing , not one good horn setup .. from the home made ones , to others costing tens of thousand ... nothing Hmmm and it's not hate mr D, it's just not my cup of tea objectively or subjectively...

I do believe you non-horn haters have never heard a "proper"
speaker setup ... a shame !

LOL..

Atmashere ,

You leave out one critical part of your thesis, planers radiate sound from both sides , this ability helps to create the required space and time of a recording far more accurately than any monopole transducer.

Horns will always sound like hi-fi, never real , they project sound in a manner where all instruments and voices have the same projection and size. The best you can say is that they sound just like an amplified concert 40 ft away. Unfortunately we listen to recordings of live music and not live music itself , as such Horns do not convey this as accurately IMO.

A good planer setup will do everything for power as a good horn setup will and sound more like real instruments to boot.

Anyone who says a good planer sounds like a horn or vis a vie has never heard a good planer setup ...

Regards,

Mr Decibel , Fair enuff and thanks for responding, it works for you, that's a fact no one can dispute and the lascala has been around long enuff for most to hear, my self included and are relativity easy to acquire...

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/trends/ta10_3.html

From 6 moons:
The La Scalas have their own way of conjuring up the magic of music. They are so un-hifi that you won't bother to look for the pin-point imaging or high resolution layering - and yet nothing is missing from the total sonic tableau. You are listening with your heart rather than with your ears.

Ahhh, I do have 2 friends with the same Klipsh speakers and while i do not mind the sound , i have no heart, pure ears! . -)

PS: The Klipsch are from a by gone era , i do like the nostalgic value of it , along with old altecs and JBL's , i did have an Altec in the 70's , before discovering panel speakers...

I can see and do agree that the Mods you listed would make a huge difference on that speaker. Also agree with your assessments of ML and the quads 63. Never heard an ML that i could take home , OK , But !!!

I did have a 63 with custom subs and upgraded power supply and they were not bad , actually pretty good dynamically but not a super speaker in the dynamic world. I would wager the 63's with the custom subs would walk all over the lascala, ear busting SPl's not withstanding..

Without the Subs and the a for mentioned Mods.. errr worthless IMO ...

Really good panel speakers or Dynamic speakers will give nothing up to horns in the SPL dept, in a conventional home environment IMO.

I do believe if you heard one done and setup correctly you would not go back to Horns! Of course if i ever hear a mega zolt Macumba horn system that blew my mind, I would be the first one here singing there songs of praises.

I do not speak of this lightly, I'm not biased to any topology , only to good sound. Just Last week i had the privilege to listen to a custom horn setup , fully active 3 way (BMS driver, no tubes) and i was very surprised of the clarity in the upper ranges (the top end was actually excellent) the overall sound and presentation was good on soft rock type music, but still found the presentation fatiguing and with poor perspective and tonal quality.

Another was the Acapella Acoustics, La campanella , better than the custom BMS setup IMO and I would have liked to play with them a bit, as these were not bad , but still no cigar..

I'm still waiting , listening and all ears .....

Hello Mr DB,

I'm very familiar with the Jadis Eurythmie and also attended the 96 show ! I also heard the Jadis setup at Lyric. I found that speaker to have a huge tonal balance issue and not to my liking and yes there were those that loved it , i guess if it is your thing , i thought the Audio Note setup was better, But this is Audio , enjoy the journey -)

When any system lacks energy and content(different from pushing high SPL) most tend to increase the volume , kinda drive the music home , in this manner they feel it is "live" not so ...

Music, especially recordings of live music has a lot of energy, micro and macro dynamics, this energy and dynamics is what drive the volume as it swells, the closer any system get's to correctly reproducing this is the more you will understand of what i speak, it is different from playing music " loud" it's the difference of it sounding real!

Mr DB,

I heard the Jadis setup both at the show and at Lyric, never said anything about my ears being better than yours or anyone else, I'm merely commenting on a system's dynamics vs loudness, well that was my attempt anyway .. LOL. nothing about the quality of ears...

regards,

Utter Tosh ... Related to Peter Tosh ?

LOL.. John the Irony !!!
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06-19-10: Johnk
Agree with gawdbless on this making bold all encompassing statements. Sad part of it all is the huge disservice these types due to audio by keeping people with limited experience from trying something new. Since they read the all this is that or that is only for hi-fi not music or all this does that. Just BS anyone with experience can see but those new will just take this as fact. And its not just horns TT CD SET PP SS amps Ribbons Planar STATs cones domes all have detractors. I see this daily in forums all [insert name here] users are deluding themselves only the [insert name here] is capable of accurate music reproduction. Have a open mind for once remember no absolutes, nothings perfect and if you do not like something does this now means that its crap for all? Or maybe you just do not enjoy it ever think of this? Maybe you never owned a recently constructed horn so your listening bias is from casual listens not real hands on experience. I for one know its possible to design very good sounding accurate loudspeakers of most any design and transducer type so why not with horns?

Atmasphere , Suprise comment coming from one of your back ground...

You are comparing a monopole to a dipole , they cannot sound alike or have the same presentation and never will, it is technically impossible.

talk about absurd !



If you cannot get the speaker far enough from the rear wall, the first comment is moot. Duke has built systems that are rear-firing and they seem to work fine...

The second comment is simply absurd! Horns image and present soundstage images as well or as badly as any other speaker technology.

Atmasphere


My comments on Horns and how they image, poor tonal balance, and poor sizing still stands, I'm not sure why you would mention Duke building speakers which are rear firing, as this has nothing to do with my opinion and suggestions, as many have done so before Duke and many will after .

Look i can understand those that have migrated to the sound of horns, they do it for the power !

less be frank the hi end is froth with really , really bad products , i would easily say 90% of the speakers available to the public is just plain crapola. For years dealers et al have marketed and pushed junk in exchange for big bucks and when the bidniz went A/V , it was easy for most to jump as they were never really happy with their 100K garbage systems.

Horns have allowed many to just enjoy the music from a power perspective , gone were the days when the had to listen to that wimpy sound from their 40K speakers ,playing the same 10 songs that worked over and over. You know those guys , you know the ones with 10 cd's !

There is a lot here to say , but my typing is bad and i'm lazy. I was involved in the audio field for 30 yrs, and with all respect for the parties involved , spare me the condescension of telling me about Duke's speakers, been there done that and a ball of wax...

I can prove all that has been stated, funny how when the weak ones are challenged they resort to personal fire !

I will say again .....

The Horn guys have Challenged before , my good associates at Audio note and Jadis did so 15 yrs ago when i was involved, Less just say i proved my point...

Can you ?

Gawdbless,

I know a reprobate when i see one, Get well soon and many Happies ..

Gawdbless,

I know a reprobate when i see one, sorry about your Head injury, get well soon and many Happies ..

Macrojack ,

Really !,,,,

Maybe you should review the personal retorts and shout louder approach by you and your "friends" before labeling me with such i notice none has labeled you absurd when stating this !

With a frequency response of 300 Hz. up to 14 Khz. from a single distortionless driver, Macrojack

Ahhh , such is life !!!!

Hello Duke,

With all do respect , for Ralph to insert distance to back wall would be like me inserting some absurd requirement for listening to a horn,speaker...

We are discussing things and ideas in absolute terms, Ralph knows better than that! I thought this was an discussion about the merits and demerits of Horn speakers , apparently not , i suppose ?

In regards to Dipoles 3.5 is 2 close IMO. My rule of thumb at least the speaker height from the rear wall or 5 feet min and I'm sure you are not comparing your bi-polar speaker polar plot to that of a Di-pole with it's figure 8 pattern ?....

I highly doubt the 2 will sound the same, the sonic characteristics are so completely different...

Regards,