MEH / Synergy Horns vs. direct radiators - deep dive w/ measurements

[Patrick Bateman]

Bill Waslo's had that aim. Did you have a chance to listen to his? Well documented too.

Mark

Listened?

I bought them

 

[mwmkravchenko]

Listened?

I bought them

I thought so. But you also sold them John.

You are one of the few people that has listened to a variety of these. I still have not.

I have a lot of horn and waveguide experience, both designing and listening. But MEH is something that I have not tackled yet.

As the OP mentioned there were distortion products in the measurements of the midrange drivers in the horn that were not present when you measured them at the same SPL out of the horn.

This leads me to a few connected dots. Cavity resonance possible. Cone resonance most likely because the pressure differential in the horn loading. That is not to difficult to test for Stoneeh. Designing a driver for normal acoustic loading and for a bandpass loading is a very different animal. You want a cone that can take the pressure and still not misbehave.

Mark

 

[Bwaslo]

Bill Waslo's had that aim. Did you have a chance to listen to his? Well documented too.

Mark

Well, hey, nice to see that those are still remembered. I'm assuming this is referring to the 'Cosynes' that Patrick later owned (I wonder who has them now?).

I'm not listening to synergy horns anymore (hate the term "MEH"!), no room for anything like that in my current listening situation, they are just too wide. I just got some ASciLab C6B which so far seem to serve the same function but much smoothly and much easier to place in small spaces. How do they get directivity down to 1kHz with a 7" waveguide?

I wonder if some of the impressiveness, to me at least, of the Cosynes could have been partly psychological -- the mostly point source nature in contrast to the huge size. For me, it was difficult to convince the brain that the sound was actually coming from those horns, even knowing that it was, and even when moving up closer to them. A nice trick.

With the later smaller synergy type speakers I made there wasn't the major disconnect of those big elephants-in-the-room not being sonically locate-able. The smaller ones weren't any less locate-able, but then they aren't the size of refrigerators! Ditto for the much smaller C6Bs, not obvious where sound is coming from, but then they don't look like they must have to be source. Does that maybe make any sense? (Of course, this is all subjective and operating from memory, so far from scientific).

[BTW, I still have the "SmallSyns" and the larger 3D printed waveguide speakers sitting down in the garage if anyone is interested.]

 

[gnarly]

Part of the reason I keep posting in my 'square pegs' thread is because I *really* want wide horizontal directivity and narrow vertical directivity.

Hi John, what vertical pattern are you hoping for? And of course, down to what frequency?

 

[FunkyC]

Hey everyone,

I have been enjoying reading this thread! I have been curious about the SH-50s for a while because of their design. I'll adit I don't know much about MEH speakers. In fact i saw Meh... yadayada SH-50 in the search summary, and though 'well that doesn't sound very favorable!' Lol. So there, I confessed my ignorance, but reading this has been educational for sure.

I have access to a pair of SH-50s at a venue I engineer at. I would be intrested in taking some measurements at this point, and would be happy to post them here. Partly because I feel like there are certain oddities that make them hard to mix on. By the same token, there are things they do very well that make working with them pretty sweet!

At what distace should I measure these? Would it be advantageous to post a measurment of the room? I ask because, they are flown, and staying where they are at, and I am wondering how much the room might affect the measurement. Especially considering the measurement is taken some distance from the mouth of the horn (right?). So I would post room response for context in that case. It may take just a bit to get it all done due to time constraints, and I'll bach it in with some other work I need to on the system. Anyways, a little guidance on MEH measurement would be appreciated!
Thanks!

 

[voodooless]

There are already measurements of the SH50 from Erin:

Danley Sound Labs SH-50 Professional Audio Speaker Review

Danley Sound Labs SH-50 Speaker Review

www.erinsaudiocorner.com

I don’t think you’ll be able to do them better given that a Kippel was used.

 

[Audio Science Pal]

I have access to a pair of SH-50s at a venue I engineer at. I would be interested in taking some measurements at this point, and would be happy to post them here.

At what distace should I measure these?

I am curious about their measured performance at the middle of the room. Then I can compare with the existing Klippel data. Thanks

 

[FunkyC]

"better" is not really an imporant goal for me. His mic placement was brought into question based on his experience at the time. Also, looking for clarity on a couple of odd looking frequencies. The idea would be to offer another set of measurements to confirm whether or not it was an issue with that particular speaker at around 1k... All these things where part of the discussion, so I am not looking to pop in as a random one upper, with "better" measurements. Multiple sets of test data is all. This is Audio 'Science' Review after all.
Not trying to be snarky with you, just want to be clear about my intent here.

 

[FunkyC]

I am curious about their measured performance at the middle of the room. Then I can compare with the existing Klippel data. Thanks

I'll get it done!

 

[sphykik]

Well, hey, nice to see that those are still remembered. I'm assuming this is referring to the 'Cosynes' that Patrick later owned (I wonder who has them now?).

I'm not listening to synergy horns anymore (hate the term "MEH"!), no room for anything like that in my current listening situation, they are just too wide. I just got some ASciLab C6B which so far seem to serve the same function but much smoothly and much easier to place in small spaces. How do they get directivity down to 1kHz with a 7" waveguide?

I wonder if some of the impressiveness, to me at least, of the Cosynes could have been partly psychological -- the mostly point source nature in contrast to the huge size. For me, it was difficult to convince the brain that the sound was actually coming from those horns, even knowing that it was, and even when moving up closer to them. A nice trick.

With the later smaller synergy type speakers I made there wasn't the major disconnect of those big elephants-in-the-room not being sonically locate-able. The smaller ones weren't any less locate-able, but then they aren't the size of refrigerators! Ditto for the much smaller C6Bs, not obvious where sound is coming from, but then they don't look like they must have to be source. Does that maybe make any sense? (Of course, this is all subjective and operating from memory, so far from scientific).

[BTW, I still have the "SmallSyns" and the larger 3D printed waveguide speakers sitting down in the garage if anyone is interested.]

Hi Bill, hope you are well. Just wanted to chime in to say I am still enjoying the SmallSyns. Thank you for the great design and generous advice you gave me throughout the build all those years ago

The living room has seen some improvements since this photo was taken, but here are the Syns with a MicroWrecker and some cheapo JBL surrounds I got used on ebay.

 

[HiMu]

Partly because I feel like there are certain oddities that make them hard to mix on. By the same token, there are things they do very well that make working with them pretty sweet!

I'm interested on hearing more about the pros/cons you've noticed, what type of material you mix on them etc.

For me this synergy/meh is about as good as a home entertainment loudspeaker can get. Haven't heard any other model than the Hinson's meh I built, and most likely these aren't the best example of what this speaker concept is capable of delivering.

 

[stoneeh]

I have access to a pair of SH-50s at a venue I engineer at. I would be intrested in taking some measurements at this point, and would be happy to post them here.

More data never hurts, so please do.

At what distace should I measure these? Would it be advantageous to post a measurment of the room? I ask because, they are flown, and staying where they are at, and I am wondering how much the room might affect the measurement. Especially considering the measurement is taken some distance from the mouth of the horn (right?). So I would post room response for context in that case.

I'd post pictures of the venue so we can give you some clearer advice. What should already be obvious is that only one should be playing and the other should be muted, or the measurement will suffer from interference.

It will also be preferrable to upload the raw measurement files, so we can do gating etc. on our own and just generally work with the data according to our needs.

 

[Head_Unit]

incoming WAF collision

oh that is the funny phrase of the day!

 

[Multiway]

Only just found this thread..
Thought I'd share my Synergy MEH journey.

No WAF collision as have dedicated listening room

My deep dive was to make a pair of SH-50 alikes, as I call them.
Started 2024 and into 2025.
Basically using pics from the expired patents and info available to gleen from DIYaudio.

Played around getting pretty nice 1m measurements 50Hz to 18KHz.
By use of zero order XOs (strategically used PEQs and time aligning the drivers relative to each other), I got a pretty flat phase plot.
Chris, Mark100 and Weltersys were a huge help refining them.

Great fun project.
I was impressed by their sound properties.

Ultimately the SH50s were too controlled a pattern for my room hifi wise so I made some SH-60 alikes.

These are my favourite speakers I've built / heard so far.
I tried a few different compression drivers before I got the sound I wanted.

I'm still refining the DSP setup and an currently trialling / using the CoLinear DSP-8C (this has been mentioned here).

The BMS4550 that Danley uses are great for PA but lacked refinement near field.
For HF I now use either Peerless DFM-2535 1" or 1.5" Vitavox S2 HF drivers.
The MF are 2 or 4 X Celestion 5" sealed back drivers.
The LF are 2 X Eminence Kappa 12A drivers.

4 amps to drive.

The SH-50 alikes were used for a daughter's wedding last summer and they performed brilliantly in a huge Marquee. Really so much better than typical PA stuff you could hire.

I've used a Wiim Pro streamer I borrowed, and now a Primare NP5 with both Qobuz and Spotify as a source.

I don't bother with vinyl these days. I like the pretty much unlimited catalogue of Streaming.

Here's a measurement plot of my SH60 alikes at 1m.

Pic close up

Below them I have a pair of these Danley inspired (Volvotreter plans) tapped horns - I made back in 2011 (I think it was). Longest standing units in my system - love what they do.

(15" Eminence Kappa Pro LFII drivers) Low pass crossed at 50Hz, LR 36dB/Oct.
Cover ~100Hz down to 20Hz no problem.
Sofa vibrating bass if you want it

However the system can be as delicate and detailed as you like, then with the right source material room gripping and powerful.

I'm going to dabble with FIR in some shape or form next.