Keith_W
Major Contributor
Yup, my experience was the same. I bypassed the passive crossover that came with my horns, went with a digital crossover, and never looked back.
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Horn Speakers - Is it me or.......
- Thread starter March Audio
- Start date
Yup, my experience was the same. I bypassed the passive crossover that came with my horns, went with a digital crossover, and never looked back.
Without DSP, I wouldn't bother with horns, honestly. The digital delay on the mids to time align with the horn is more or less a necessity for smooth response.
Compete with what, other types that use passive crossovers?
It's been my experience over the years that when you've built something yourself, it always sounds better.
Now the measurements may not always agree.
Keith_W
Major Contributor
That may be true, but for quite a few years I struggled with Acourate and kept generating awful sounding filters. Then it occurred to me that I like the sound of my speakers from 1kHz up, so there is no need to apply correction (and it was always the top end that sounded awful after correction anyway). So I stopped correcting above 1kHz, and voila, all the problems went away. These days I have backed away even further and only apply time alignment above Schroder. Everything below Schroder is heavily corrected.
I'll point out that, smack dab in the center of the new Genelec 8381A is a horn. I doubt they put it there because it's pretty 
OH NO! Did they really?I'll point out that, smack dab in the center of the new Genelec 8381A is a horn. I doubt they put it there because it's pretty
Now it's going to sound all shouty, aggressive, and fatiguing.
You forgot honky, and cupped handsOH NO! Did they really?
Now it's going to sound all shouty, aggressive, and fatiguing.
The reverse is true for me now . When I listen to most non waveguided speakers they always sound like a speaker to me. This is because I'm hearing so many of the room reflections corrupting the signal. You're hearing the ambience of the room in the recording and then hearing your room filtering the signal again. Most of the problems with horns go away when the horns get big enough. Once you get directivity control down below the room transition frequency you dont have that jarring drop off where the sound splashes around. I tend to like wider directivity horns above 90 degrees. 60 degree horns below 1500hz can sound a bit shouty to me. One of my biggest realizations going to horns was just how much of the signal is lost to the room. It doesnt matter how good your midranges are if the sound splashes around your untreated room. Even a cheap driver sounds much better when the sound is directed toward your eardrums.
Just ask a headphone guy. LOL
My impression is along similar lines. 90 degree may be close to ideal for my tastes in a room with some liveliness, although I haven't extensively experimented. Especially bad are shortened, exponential horns that are very narrow dispersion at the top of their range, and very wide at the bottom. That might be where a lot of the complaints about shouting horns comes from. With smooth, controlled directivity that's narrow I've gotten horns to sound very laid back compared to direct radiators in the same room.
At the moment I'm running small direct radiators and really liking the sound. Time delay of the first reflections might be a significant factor, and my current setup keeps the bookshelf speakers closer together than a typical 60 degree listening triangle, which means the speakers are a decent distance from the side walls - about 4 feet. I'm sitting 8 feet back so that makes the reflections seem like they have a bit over 4 feet of delay. More would be better I suspect, but this seems to be sufficient to make me happy. According to the composite chart on imaging and spaciousness I'm looking at, these reflections are coming from the right direction for spaciousness and are right close to the edge of where they start to effect imaging. If I could get a little more delay, or get the volume down a little, the chart suggests I'd be in the realm of spaciousness with no effect on imaging. A 90 degree horn might just do the trick by lowering the volume of the reflections.
The key with horns is to match them right. If you compare different types of speaker technologies with the exact same amp it might work - or not. Horn speakers as a rule expose any sort of system noise, and don't need as much power as a "standard" speaker, all other things being equal (a flawed analogy in this case, but hey :-D). Many say that horns and tubes are a match made in heaven, which I can't confirm or dispute.
The problems with topics such as this is that a single exception disproves the universal rule the topic tries to establish, since horn speakers aren't all the same, at all. To me what matters is how it measures, how it sounds, and how practical it is - no technology religion in audio over here.
The problems with topics such as this is that a single exception disproves the universal rule the topic tries to establish, since horn speakers aren't all the same, at all. To me what matters is how it measures, how it sounds, and how practical it is - no technology religion in audio over here.
Keith_W
Major Contributor
It is probably closer to the truth to say that tubes need horns. But whether horns need tubes is a different story.
Yes I used to be annoyed by this added hiss and noise and then I discovered L-Pads! There is an additional bonus as well. You get to increase the signal to noise ratio of your system due to the fact that horns are (usually) much more efficient than you really need for a domestic setting. So you can crank the signal and pad it down and it takes a good bit of distortion out of the signal, virtually for free.
dasdoing
Major Contributor
how does this work?
Basically just removes alot of the hiss and other yuckies out of the signal from some noisy amps. Reducing the volume via L-Pad and then increasing the signal increases the signal relative to the noise floor. Im getting out of my depth here, but I have employed this many times and heard the results. Basically when you hear hiss, most of that can be removed with an L-Pad to where it isnt audible from 8 feet away.
This has been my experience as well. This can also be an advantage of using a passive crossover for a tweeter. A lot of the most audible hiss is below the tweeter crossover. I started using a single cap on my tweeter along with the active crossover. This both protects the tweeter in case of an active crossover malfunction, and it greatly reduces audible hiss.
dasdoing
Major Contributor
this is aplied after the amp?
Yes. So you're wasting power by heating up the L-pad resistors. But at least you can't hear the amplifier hiss. Another possible solution would be higher impedance drivers. That should reduce sensitivity without reducing efficiency.
Factoid: An L-pad puts resistance in series with the loudspeaker, thereby reducing the effective damping factor of the power amplifier, as well as becoming part of a voltage divider with the frequency-dependent impedance of the loudspeaker - meaning that the frequency response of the loudspeaker is changed in a manner related to its impedance curve.
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