Horn Speakers - Is it me or.......

[Audionaut]

The majority of audio enthusiasts will never install acoustic treatments

Yes, of course they do, but usually without intending to. A large wool rug or curtains and drapes work wonders.

I've often wondered about people who've renovated and made everything pretty clean designed and wondered why it suddenly sounds so bad - when nothing has been changed to the equipment.

What I always ask myself in this thread, although it rarely deals with the actual topic, is whether full-range horns are meant, or those that use conventional woofer in the bass and horns in the treble and midrange.
A big difference.

 

[HiMu]

Thanks for the measurement data. I think it confirms that some of the claims are exaggerated. His real goal seems to be at all costs to avoid having a crossover in the vocal range of 250-2000 Hz. But the resultant response and beam width control in that range is somewhat ragged and could probably be surpassed with an elegant crossover-based design. Personally I think that this idea, that desperately avoiding a crossover in the main vocal region is bound to improve sound quality, is an audiophile myth and leads to certain designs being overrated.

cheers

The revised version has crossover points: 120Hz & 1.2kHz.
In the first video he speaks about the issues of that design and plans on trying different drivers in the future iterations etc. I'm not picking up any of the audiophile myths that you refer to, I think he is just the opposite. He has quite a bit of blog posts on the designs if you're interested https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news

And no, I'm not a fanboy or owner of any of his designs, way out of my price bracket.

 

[Arindal]

large wool rug or curtains and drapes work wonders.

Negative wonders in case of horn speakers in many cases. All sorts of thick fabric commonly found in living rooms tend to overdampen treble and leave (lower) midrange untouched. Many non-constant directivity horn speakers have a similar problem with narrowing radiation pattern towards higher frequencies and very directional treble. The two phenomena add up, leading to some kind of midrange-heavy, muddled reverb, like everything comes through a, well, horn (the brass instrument).

His real goal seems to be at all costs to avoid having a crossover in the vocal range of 250-2000 Hz.

I don´t see any dogmatic choice of crossover frequencies at play at the prototype. Surely, an ´avoid vocal range rule´ would be nonsense, but with such a combination of horns and drivers there can be numerous reasons to choose a higher x-over frequency. The final concept, as @HiMu has remarked, crosses at 1.2K which is kind of in the middle of that vocal/formant region.

 

[Bjorn]

That's another dicussion point from Toole's book. Unlike he says, felt and a carpet doesn't absorb well. It doesn't absorp particular even or well in the higher frequencies and doesn't go low enough.

I'm a big fan of low crossover. Even with an active design, the difference is easy to hear. Also when there's no lobing. Driver interference is real and audible IMO.

 

[Arindal]

I'm a big fan of low crossover. Even with an active design, the difference is easy to hear.

Easy to hear as you alter the directivity and frequency range of lobing?

Would say, it very much depends on the drivers in question and how they perform around potential crossover freq. I would personally leave some reserve and adjust the crossover according to polar plots and listening test results.

 

[Bjorn]

Easy to hear as you alter the directivity and frequency range of lobing?

Would say, it very much depends on the drivers in question and how they perform around potential crossover freq. I would personally leave some reserve and adjust the crossover according to polar plots and listening test results.

Easy to hear when directivity doesn't change either, and there's no lobing as I already mentioned.

 

[Newman]

Thanks for the measurement data. I think it confirms that some of the claims are exaggerated. His real goal seems to be at all costs to avoid having a crossover in the vocal range of 250-2000 Hz. But the resultant response and beam width control in that range is somewhat ragged and could probably be surpassed with an elegant crossover-based design. Personally I think that this idea, that desperately avoiding a crossover in the main vocal region is bound to improve sound quality, is an audiophile myth and leads to certain designs being overrated.

cheers

The revised version has crossover points: 120Hz & 1.2kHz.
In the first video he speaks about the issues of that design and plans on trying different drivers in the future iterations etc. I'm not picking up any of the audiophile myths that you refer to, I think he is just the opposite.

I was picking up on the linked video with measurements, where he says at 11:44 "...we're trying to get maximum bandwidth through that critical midrange, that vocal range where we want everything to be done by the same driver, and so what I am trying to achieve here is 200/300 Hz starting point covered all the way up to 5 kHz with one driver solution..."

cheers

 

[Bjorn]

A crossover at 5 KHz isn't better IMO at one around 1.5-2.5 KHz.

When we get above 10 KHz we're a lot more sensitive but in this region it's very difficult to avoid some nasty lobing.

 

[babadono]

What I always ask myself in this thread, although it rarely deals with the actual topic, is whether full-range horns are meant, or those that use conventional woofer in the bass and horns in the treble and midrange.
A big difference.

Yes Sir...horn loaded bass is sublime. The dynamics and relative freedom from IM distortion. And effortless realistic SPL. Ain't no going back for me.

 

[dped90]

Imagine asking a group of people who’ve only eaten fast food their entire lives to rate different meals. If you gave them a choice between a gourmet, carefully prepared dish with subtle flavors and a greasy fast-food burger packed with salt, sugar, and fat, most of them would probably prefer the burger.


But that doesn’t mean the burger is a more "accurate" or "better" meal from a culinary standpoint. It just means people tend to prefer what they're accustomed to. Their taste buds are conditioned for strong, immediate flavors, not balance and nuance.

Again, I'm no expert but where I side with Newman is that with constant directivity horns-as opposed to exponential horns where dispersion narrow towards the the higher frequencies-while they may cause more late (sidewall) reflections this can (subjectively) enhance the sound by creating (however in artificially) spaciousness. And yes, if the listener finds that those reflections become excessive-with most of his music collection, then-and perhaps only then-should he be inclined to acoustically treat the room, and which I would think in most cases will hardly require tearing into sheet rock, much less "floating" the room-assuming they don't have a square or other badly shaped room of a given size.

As one who has designed both wide and narrow uniform directivity speakers, and have done AB comparisons many times in different rooms and with different acoustic treatment I find the Tool research on this not to be trusted much.

It's highly dependent on the dimension of the room, acoustic treatment, type of music material, time of span you listen to, and probably also the listener preference or mood of the day.

When did for example one of these researcher take proper diffusion into account? The Harman room for instance removes rear reflections, which is first of quite psychoacoustic detrimental (according to other and earlier studies), and will highly effect the result.

I think we need to stop looking at minor studies with mostly short listening tests conducted in a certain room with certain treatment (or no treatment) and try to make objective and general conclusions.

I fully agree, particularly given the fact that most of accessible absorbers are not showing an even absorption grade over different frequency bands, so in many cases contributing to even more colourated reverb.

But even if this is true why do most home users, whether they use REW or other room mode measuring software to acoustically treat the room and/or then use "convolving" (?)
software (e.g DIRAC Live) to fine tune the room/system, nearly always report greatly improved sound? And how likely would they say that sound improved as if they were now listening to a pair of highly directional JMLC horns more so than the spacious sound they were seeking? https://horns-diy.pl/horns/jmlc/jmlc-350/

Thus, with constant directivity horns, the user may or may not end up having to substantially tweak the acoustics of his room more so than with horns like these, at least for a two-way speaker system. https://josephcrowe.com/products/es-600-bi-radial-horn-3d-cad-file

3D CAD plans for ES-290 Biradial Horn -- Horn No.1670

By purchasing these plans you'll automatically receive the 3D CAD files for the ES-290 Biradial Horn No.1670 via email. Zipped Folder Includes: .STL files for 3D Printing (Assembly and part files) .STEP, .iges, & .x_t files for CNC Machine CAM programming Does not include CNC programming...

josephcrowe.com

However, in fairness it's evident from the sonograms of those horns that Troy Crowe seems to have intended to offer somewhat of a balance of direct sound with spacious sound.

 

[Flaesh]

Troy Crowe

Thank you. I thought Cowe's name was Joseph

 

[Da cynics]

This is also interesting


Danley Receives Provisional Patent For New Cohearix Lens Technology

Danley Receives Provisional Patent For New Cohearix Lens Technology

Danley Sound Labs announces the receipt of a provisional patent on a new acoustic lens technology. | Danley Sound Labs announces the receipt of a provisional patent on a new acoustic lens technology. Dubbed Cohearix Lens Technology, the technology will be used in development of new Danley...

www.livedesignonline.com

Discussion Thread.
Looks like some people are on the production side.

Danley Cohearix

Looks like it's That Time Again, where I make a semi-educated guess about a new Danley invention. Been at this for a while, here are my previous threads: 1) This one didn't get a lot of attention, but my thread on the Genesis horns provided a TON of information on the Jericho Horns, the...

www.diyaudio.com

 

[Sal1950]

New interesting $295 speaker from HSU Research, the MFL-6 with Don Keele-designed constant directivity horn.
It will be interesting to see some measurements of these since Dr Hsu's speakers seem to always measure decent and punch way
above there $/weight class.
I've owned a number of his products going back to his first subwoofer in 1990. Good solid reliable builds.
Amir measured one of his last small speakers of which I still have a 5 in the closet if anyones interested.

HSU HB-1 MK2 Review (Horn Speaker)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the HSU HB-1 MK 2 bookshelf speaker. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $169 each as of this writing (normal price $199). I can't say I am a fan of the industrial looking horn but otherwise, the HB-1 looks fine: As you see, it uses a...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[dped90]

Earl's paper on directivity is an excellent one. The issue with most "horns" are that they are poorly designed, as Earl's paper points out. I.e. uneven directivity over frequency and narrowing at high frequencies to a pencil beam width. Most horns vertical directivity is much narrower than horizontal directivity with typical patterns like 90 degrees wide and 40 or 50 degrees vertical.

However, modern waveguides like what is used in the JBL M2 with it's "constant directivity" waveguide with a pattern of 110 x 100 does not have narrowing at high frequencies or any "horn honk" whatsoever. Have a look at the "spinorama" to see what I mean. If you can find a pair (or other JBL's with the image control waveguide) to listen to, you will hear it first hand. Earl's waveguides are also constant directivity using an oblate spheroid and if you look at Earl's whitepaper, you can also see a Polar Map of his waveguide, which is pretty dang good. Note that constant directivity waveguides also require a special type of eq compensation.

There has been a lot of trickle down tech from the pro field into consumer loudspeakers and you will notice that D&D 8c and even the Revel Salon 2 have their tweeters mounted in a "waveguide" for more of a constant directivity control as their polar plots and spinoramas reveal. Both these products have excellent, constant off-axis frequency response at the mid and high frequencies. Almost all pro monitors also have the tweeter loaded in a waveguide...

Unfortunately, the Avant Garde system mention above, along with the pic of the "Smith" horn and bullet tweeter are not constant directivity devices (aside from mismatching directivity between devices). Having heard both in the past, they are not a good representation of what a properly designed constant directivity system should sound like. In fact, the whole idea is that the off-axis response is as good as on the on axis response. My JBL 4722's use a constant directvity waveguide and I get an even mid to high frequency response across my 3 seat, 6 foot couch. No beaming here, but it is an older design compared to the M2. The math is really tricky to design a proper constant directivity horn/waveguide with excellent on and off axis response. But there is some good software at this thread that does it right: https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/338806-acoustic-horn-design-easy-ath4.html

Thanks very much for this treatment, Mitch. Given my limited technical knowledge and math skills, I've been working in what I hope is not a too roundabout way in my by now desperate search for a ho.... waveguide, as both my builder Troy Crowe and I very much want to get these speakers finished. You might find of interest my chats from 10/2/25 https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...w-distortion-with-a-2-way.334757/post-8119471 to date with Camplo and Weltersys.

If these are clones are they just as good as the JBL originals? https://reconingspeakers.com/product/jbl-m2-horn-lens-5025594/

JBL 2384 Horn/Waveguide, 365359-001 - The Speaker Exchange

Brand New Genuine JBL 365359-001 Horn/Waveguide model 2384 for JBL Cinema 3732, 4722N Speaker System & more. 1.5″ throat.

reconingspeakers.com

You mentioned these https://at-horns.eu/index.html I've seen the amazingly good x & y polar charts on those waveguides there. Too bad they're not readily available commercially.

1.) Which of the above or other waveguides would likely work best with my midwoofers? https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news/altec-416-8b-in-100l-sealed

And

2.) Best waveguide to faithfully reproduce imaging pattern in the recording?

3.) Of that kind of waveguide, which specific size and/or x & y coverage angles for my south (11 ft wall emptying into open hallway and kitchen) east (23 ft wall towards north wall) corner?

4.) While best achieving accurate imaging, what aspects of this waveguide may cause errors in the sound? For example, if the waveguide narrows too much towards the HF band, resulting in a very limited horizontal and/or vertical sweet spot even when listening within the critical distance. Of course, while I am looking for constant directivity, thus absolutely NOT looking for any kind of omnidirectional sound, I would hope to be able to stand and without moving beyond a ~ 4 ft radius not lose any appreciable x & y coverage.

5.) Or if sharp edges inside the waveguide or around the mouth cause resonances or diffraction effects, respectively, how to fix them?

6.) Again, listening space: South (11 ft wall emptying into open hallway and kitchen) east (23 ft wall towards north wall) corner

Note that constant directivity waveguides also require a special type of eq compensation.[/URL]

Please don't tell me that if I want to go with the best waveguide for my situation that I must also use active crossovers to apply that eq accurately enough to avoid audible problems. I'd love to enjoy all the sound quality improvements that active crossovers certainly offer, but I can't get past this however much irrational (?) fear that these >>97db SPL drivers-through component failure, software glitch or user error-might get their dedicated amplifier's full power fed to them and permanently damage my hearing. There's no telling how long after these trials it will take before an affordable, insurable procedure arrives. https://www.rinri-therapeutics.com/our-clinical-research/#rincell So, I truly am afraid of this. Please advise.

 

[babadono]

Of course anything is possible........but I have never had a full power blast come out of one of my drivers because of the active crossover. I did have to add power sequencing so the power amps come up after the muting circuit in the crossover de asserts. And conversely power down the amps before the crossover before the mute asserts.

 

[olegtern]

So, I truly am afraid of this. Please advise.

You can use an L-pad or autotransformer (or both) to reduce sensitivity to a level that does not cause you anxiety.

 

[dped90]

Of course anything is possible........but I have never had a full power blast come out of one of my drivers because of the active crossover. I did have to add power sequencing so the power amps come up after the muting circuit in the crossover de asserts. And conversely power down the amps before the crossover before the mute asserts.

The driver (s) above the midwoofer-which is apparently 98db https://soundbox.co.jp/GPA/Classic-Series-416-8B-Spec-Sheet.pdf -will likely at least 10db more sensitive. So, to reduce my fears, it's obviously absurd looking for some 0.5 wpc amp to drive the compression driver (s).

 

[dped90]

You can use an L-pad or autotransformer (or both) to reduce sensitivity to a level that does not cause you anxiety.

Why would you want to use them together?

Which one would least alter the impedance seen by the amplifier and driver?

Is the best solution to use an "autoformer" for this situation?

intact audio

Or do they add distortion? https://josephcrowe.com/blogs/news/autoformer-characteristics

 

[kemmler3D]

I can't get past this however much irrational (?) fear that these >>97db SPL drivers-through component failure, software glitch or user error-might get their dedicated amplifier's full power fed to them and permanently damage my hearing.

A valid fear, but damage to hearing depends on time, not just intensity.

If you put (say) 300w into a 97dB driver you get 124dB at 1m. Definitely dangerous, and insanely loud.

However, you won't get permanent damage instantly -

Presumably if you're listening to something unpleasantly loud you'll turn it off really quickly, quickly enough to avoid real damage. If the gain goes to 100% and you accidentally hit "play" and get hit with ~124dB... I assume you're going to hit "pause" in less than a second. Just don't do it every week.

 

[dped90]

If you put (say) 300w into a 97dB driver you get 124dB at 1m. Definitely dangerous, and insanely loud.

Some ~ 25 wpc Class AB amp for the midwoofer.

I assume you're going to hit "pause" in less than a second.

I need to ask JRiver for another trial; tried it ~ 5 years ago. If it's like VLC player than it's the spacebar for pause.

I'm not sure if that's what Kal Rubinson uses on his Logitech keyboard with this 8 channel DAC that I believe he still uses. https://www.stereophile.com/content/merging-hapi-mkii-multichannel-digital-processor

But I don't think he uses active crossovers.