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August 12, 2009 - 9:21am
#1
Trying to find some horn speaker info...
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I'm trying to come up with a good reason to do this ...
Nope, I can't think of one.
However, if you just must pursue this, investigate KEF's research on their Uni-Q driver.
Well, it seems there are some things to find.
Yorkville's "Unity" speakers used 5 inch drivers in an array around a smaller high frequency driver that is centered in the horn.
In the pic, the 5 inch drivers can be seen arrayed around throat of the horn. Trying for a more 'point source-like' sound.
Renkus Heinz does a similar thing...
Looks like trying to get the drivers closer together is more of an early (pre-flare) thing, so far.
An old Altec 1005 attempt...
Still looking for how closely anyone has approximated or overlapped the actual horns.
I'm not speaking for Buddha but wouldn't overlapping he horns create a point source. It potentially create other issues but that might be why he's asking.
Hi, Mrlowry!
Yup, wondering about driver integration, timing, and seeing how or if there could be a better 'point source' approach to horns.
It seems the throat is the place to be, but there is a surprising lack of info about alot of this stuff.
I hadn't even considered putting multiple drivers facing into the throat of a horn, but that might be a fun thing, too. Seems very complex, though!
I'm also trying to figure out what would happen if you cut a wedge out of a horn speaker, like a piece of pie, and what that would do to the performance of the horn.
If, say, you could cut away 10% of a horn's flare and not lose performance, you could then mount another driver and its horn in that space and maybe sneak a tweeter closer to a lower frequency driver.
I can't find anything about changing horn performance vs. lose of some portion of the 360 degrees of horn.
I don't claim to be anything approaching a horn expert but I think that cutting a slice out of a horn would destroy it's performance. You may already know some of what I'm about to type so bear with me. A horn acts as an acoustic impedance matching device. This is simplifying things a bit but in effect the effective size of the driver is about the size of the opening of the horn (which increases efficiency) while the driver's frequency response continues to be related to the size of the driver. Cutting a slice out of the horn would have a dramatically negative effect on how the driver would be coupled to the air.
The other concern that I would have is that the high-frequency driver would be in front of the midrange or midrange/bass driver. So, while the speaker would be a point source it wouldn't be physically time-coherent. Maybe an active crossover could be used to delay the signal that went to the midrange or midrange/bass driver but at that point the design is getting very complex and is pretty far past most people's abilities as far as a DIY project goes.
As I look around, there seem to be some 'partially horn loaded' drivers that have their 'flares' run into each other in order to get a tweeter and midrange in closer approximation.
I agree that the idea of taking a slice out of a horn seems like a bad idea, but was curious to see if there is an amount of discontinuity that might be able to sneak around the issue.
Would a 1 degree slice ruin performance? I have no idea.
I once looked into 'scored' horns, like B&W scores the ports on their speakers, but this actualy did, by the numbers people used to 'saplin it to me, negatively impact how a horn speaker would perform.
Also, I keep thinking about round/oval horns, but maybe a 'rectangular' horn, a la Klipsch shape would still function with part of the shallower top flare missing...I'm mostly just trying to think of something to play with on a lathe, so the square horn stuff isn't that much on my mind.
Those multiple drivers pouring into the same horn don't 'look' right.
I'll have to find them in real life and have a listen!
I mean this topic more for fun and my trying to learn, I have not fomented a full fledged notion!
I know that a lot of Goto Unit owners do crazy horn w/in horn installations, like in these photos here:
http://www18.ocn.ne.jp/~tnk/page009.html
As for slicing off flares, how about this?
I don't know how complex your design will be Buddha, but seems like the most headache-free way of dealing w/ time alignment & level matching in cases such as these is by using DEQX?
http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/vt.mpl?f=hug&m=143460
Avantgarde solo...but concentric instead of asymmetrical overlap,,..
http://www.luzesom.pt/img_avantgarde/avantgarde_01.jpg
I have yet to find info on 'discontinuous' horns.
Would a 'clover' shaped horn work with gaps?
What about a horn with side flares, but no top flares? Or, vice versa?
I know a cool guy who designed a horn speaker where the falres are aligned vertically and almost meet, with the sound coming out to the listener 'sideways'....so much to try and so little data.
(I tried this with my Klipsch La Scalas and Ferguson Hill FH001's and it seems to kill the treble, but the mids and bass do interesting stuff. Guess I need two pairs of each to really give it a go. Budgets suck...
...)
Guess I gotta buy something and start aligning and dissecting!