GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

Horn-Loaded Speakers
Topic: Can the bass fool you?

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Posted by Romy the Cat on 08-22-2011

There is a new company out there that makes horn-loaded acoustic system. I know a guy who is involved, I presume he is the owner or one of the owners, but I know very little about the design and the sound of the Sadurni Acoustics. So, let see what Sadurni Acoustics offers:

http://sadurniacoustics.com

What I like:

The time alignment considerations, this is mandatory. Unquestionably the frame is very good idea and to make the harness the support MF horn from air-separated slats is a brilliant idea. I really would like the frame to continue from tweeter in to have one additional channel. If you look at Gallery:

http://sadurniacoustics.com/gallery.html

Then you see that the speaker is begging for one extra channel, even visually. Also, in my mind the frame need to be painted in the same color as the rest of the horns. I like the configurable bass section and might be stuck up with respect to a given room, even thought I have no idea what kind drivers and technology is used to produce bass. I like that they make it multi-amp –ready but in my estimation a commercial company that promote multi-amp horn loaded acoustic system shall offer own multi-channel DSET or own active crossover, otherwise it will be an army of idiots out there who use digital crossovering. I like the idea of line-array organization for bass, it works very well with hors and the low foot print makes is very versatile in the room. However in order to form the proper line-array at lower frequency it must be taller and the frame for bass modules might be revised.

What I do not like:

I hate when people paint different horns of a system in different colors. For sue they did it by customer request but if it was me then I would not even photograph it. I would raise tweeter for 3-6 inch from the MF horn. It would give some visual balance and would set it more “free” from the MF horn reflection.

What is interesting:

The bass modules. I have no idea what it is and I do not know if they are scalable. Sadurni Acoustics promote the adaptability but if the people have large room then would it be possible to have the stack of the bass module of larger diameters? Also, it would be very interesting to have options to set SOME bass modules in the pile to set as lower bass and some as upper bass. This way the specifics of the room acoustic in high might be used more creatively.

In the end, as a first product I think their Staccato model is promising. I have no idea about the drivers and about the Sound of the thing and they diplomatically do not divulge it, well it is their rights I guess...

Rgs, Romy the Cat

Posted by Sadurni Acoustics on 08-24-2011

This is our first offering; we are indeed working on another two higher priced models. One will have an additional channel on top, the other one will be front horn loaded down to 40 hz. Optional finish and colors, both for horns and supports, are available.

Our speakers include an Active Subwoofer Xover for line level; this allows the owner to use any amplifier he wishes, solid state, tube PP or High power SET, for bass. The List price includes two woofers per side, which are enough for small sized rooms and hide nicely behind the Upper bass horns for better WAF. For bigger rooms or more serious audiophiles we recommend 4 woofers per side, but we can, of course, provide any amount requested; a 6 woofer tower will go up close to 2 meters high.

For the Upper Bass, Midrange and tweeter horns, we recommend using only the internal speaker level, active biased xover, when multiamping. For some of our first customers we included a separate Passive Line level High Pass filter at around 80 hz, but realized most of the times they liked their systems better without it! Of course the expert owner can use any Line level Xover of his choice for steeper crossing, and even bypass the internal Xover: but we strongly suggest keeping the internal xovers and crossing points.

We are in talks with exterior providers in order to offer a dedicated amplifier for our systems with interstage crossovers included.

Posted by oxric on 08-27-2011

Hi Jorge,

If $18,600 is the price of your 4-way horn system, even without knowing more about the sound and the choice of drivers, I think it is an amazing bargain by anybody's standards in the current high-end audio landscape. I hope you are inundated with orders and your company gains the success it deserves.

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?spkrfull&1319600488&/4-Way-Horn-Loaded-Speakers-by-

Best regards
Rakesh

Posted by Romy the Cat on 08-27-2011

What I find a very interesting in the design direction of Sadurni Acoustics went is a fist attempt to integrate horn and frame in the same sculpture. I like this idea from very beginning when I “invented” it but I never see anybody went for it. I do not think that Sadurni Acoustics went for it at full extend, they just scratch the service. I do not think that if I do Macondo from scratch then I wools go for it as it is too complex and I do not think I would be able to do it. Perhaps somebody with construction and design expertise like Jessie would be able to do it….

The concept is that the small connectors between the individual horns act the supporters of the horn and as a result the horns stack has no visible frame at all, the horns are free floating in space… To do so the distribution of mass in the horns while they are time-aligned shall be calculated and it is very possible that in some sections of the horns very heavy metal shall be used and somehow integrated with wood/plastic/whatever of the horn profile.

I would not be surprised if someone would come up with horns molded around metal armature that would do a phenomenally sexy sculptured design idea…

THe Cat

Posted by Jorge on 08-28-2011
fiogf49gjkf0d Rackesh, Thanks for your comments!

Posted by Romy the Cat on 03-29-2014

"Sadurni Acoustics' Staccato 4-way hornspeaker exploits MDF horns with up to 3" wall thickness. The 92cm lower midrange horn which loads a cone driver can "achieve 100Hz in-room". The actual 'turbine-horn' midrange driver is a compression sort. "The tweeter was the last ingredient to be mixed in. We tested most of the high-efficiency drivers from silk-dome arrays to huge ribbon tweeters before making our final choice." A line-level subwoofer crossover is included and a 9" wide amp support is built into the base. The crossover is actively biased. The system efficiency is 110dB. Dimensions are 40" deep, 53" tall and 36" wide. The ABW added backwave bass module "comprises a series of concentrically arrayed vertically stacked channels which receive the back wave of the bass driver, augment it and bring it forward to a calculated chamber where the front and rear output of the driver come together through a peripheral ring. An array of three, four or more bass modules per side can be used according to room size and bass appeal."

"The tweeter was the last ingredient to be mixed in. We tested most of the high efficiency drivers available, in most topologies possible; from silk dome arrays to huge Ribbon tweeters from various manufacturers. The tweeter we chose was an immediate decision, as soon as it started playing everything fell into place, the tonal impact and roundness of the system sprung right out, like when you open a bottle of great wine and get the first whiff out of the cork, one immediately knows it will perform perfectly when properly oxygenated."

Posted by Romy the Cat on 05-06-2014

I hear a rumor that Sadurni Acoustics was presented at recent Chicago audio show. Interesting, that Jorge went out of closet and decided to invest in full time career of speaker making. I wish to extend to him a full my full condolences an d my greatest commiserations. Jorge is the person who personally shaken hands with Gabo and I wonder if it is confidence that great Gabriel García Márquez dies at the same time whenJorge wasted himself to become a full time audio speaker (horns) maker.

For sure I do not mean to be harsh on Jorge, he is adult and perfectly within own constitutional rights to do whatever he wants. My sarcasm and cynicism about the trade of professional horn makers is well know, so why not to make fun about Sadurni Acoustics?

On the more serious note it would be interesting to hear from Jorge what made him to invest a lot of money to go to the show and to hear his assessment of the sound he was able to demonstrate in Chicago.

The Cat

Posted by Jorge on 05-06-2014

I would have to say that loosing Gabo is a far bigger tragedy than damaging any sort of reputation I might have.

About making horns I don’t yet see this obsession as a full time career, and if you ask I just as well would not be able to answer what drives a man to do what he does, maybe we are taken by our passions and loose clear sight of what is ahead of us. I can claim I have also fallen to horrid peer pressure put on me by similar maniacs who against any better judgment decide to build amplifiers or spend their life recording jazz tapes or neglect a high paying job to write and rewrite about the most intimate fall backs and minor achievements of a wall socket!

I is extremely funny to watch all those soft tissued audiophiles, loading and double boxing a 3 ton truck with the most expensive, heavy and delicate equipment, then armed with deficient dolly handling capabilities travel long miles for a senseless 3 day love affair inside an acoustically challenged hotel room.

The plot thickens, class D amplifiers no less! Yes we could have blown the whole Westin out of its zip code, but our neighboring Home Theater buffs were anchoring the very foundation of the building with six 2.4 kilowatt one note subwoofers already. Contradictions appear always and I must say that the megawatt amps we used have a particular way of controlling sound, clear transparent, and able to throw a wonderful gradation of dynamic levels without losing tonality. Tunning was a bitch, of course, but If I might say so myself, our biggest success was bass integration this time (I was at RMAF too with other personal challenges and successes).

We received a lot of praise from show goers, high efficiency aficionados would claim our horns are not big enough, with the thumbs up of surprised wives who absolutely loved the looks of our speakers but would not have them in their living rooms, taking the place of old grandma’s quilted rocking chair and the dust covered five buck plaster figurine filled Ikea cabinet on the opposing side.

Everyone we talked to said it was the best sound they heard and clearly Best of show, happily those who hated it didn’t comment it with us. It seems we will get a Gold Award from a known magazine but most importantly, it was a lot of fun.

Posted by Wojtek on 05-07-2014

Actually it was sad to hear potentially nice horn system wasted on mediocre music (at least that's what I heard at three different times
I visited the room so it must have been a norm ) and grey sounding D-amps with "pumping " bass tubas. At least that Fostex tweeter wasn't spitting the honey ALL the time which was a plus. Also, that it didn't project excessive "oversized sound " in so loved technicolor fashion. As to the rest it's hard to say in that noisy room .It was bland with rather cheap sounding midrange horn although maybe amps were to blame. Personally I did not find the design aspect of the speaker to be that great-heavy & avionic vintage in slightly (or more) vulgar way -a must for American audience to appreciate.
For a moment I thought I saw Romy on the show with his jovial , hefty appearance but when he (supposedly ) got up and went to express appreciation
of John de Vore orangutan speakers to designer himself I knew I was mistaken. All and all a waste of time as usual.

Posted by Romy the Cat on 10-07-2014

http://parttimeaudiophile.com/2014/04/29/axpona-2014-preconceived-notions-sadurni-acoustics-and-merrill-audio/

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue74/caf_2014.htm

http://parttimeaudiophile.com/2014/08/01/caf-2014-sadurni-acoustics-and-the-big-red-horn-of-wonder

http://www.audiophilia.com/wp/?p=14276

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/173-2-channel-audio/1619722-capital-audiofest-2014-show-report.html

Posted by Romy the Cat on 03-28-2015
fiogf49gjkf0d http://dagogo.com/sadurni-acoustics-staccato-speakers-review-part-i-setup

Posted by scooter on 03-30-2015

Just for the record, Sadurni uses a Behringer DCX2496 for the low fq. I might speculate the DCX solves more problems in low fq than it causes, but don't know as I have not compared it side-to-side to other solutions. I've found the DCX is not an acceptable "solution" for full-range but it is a fun and useful testing tool. And I found all kinds of uses for it at low frequencies.

On that note, a Canadian guy recently did a creditable job of tearing apart the box for a "weekend project" and dismissing it as fundamentally flawed and unfixable. Shockingly, people are still modding the Behringer and companies are still selling "mods" in the form of power supplies, other parts, and services.

The issue of EQ in the digital domain is another kettle of fish...

The Canadian guy's goals and conclusions follow; I found the thread entertaining:

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/237603-dcx2496-upgrade-board-objectively-tackling-improvement-stock-dcx2496.html

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/237603-dcx2496-upgrade-board-objectively-tackling-improvement-stock-dcx2496-7.html#post3794863

Posted by Jorge on 03-30-2015

Romy,

Thank you for sharing the link!

The second part is better!

Scooter
We only use the Beringher for bass under 100 hz, driven by the main amp.
We tried a lot of different solutions, including analog active xovers, the DCX is clearly better than the Analog Xovers we tried.
There are very few commercial options available that include High pass at 25 hz, variable low pass at 100hz, and most important: phase adjustment.

We include the DCX. Of course the owner can substitute it for whatever he thinks will sound better, I only say compare it head to head.
There is always the possibility of an optional made to order Xover with room correction included for an extra amount of course ;-)

Posted by scooter on 03-30-2015

Hi Jorge,

Thanks for your quick response.

I believe I came off a bit brash and apologize as that was not my intention. I edited my comments above a bit for clarity; I found the DCX quite useful at low frequencies. The DCX is not a perfect unit but I though it worked quite well with subs. I did not test it side-to-side with other low frequency solutions so my preliminary views there are not very useful. You did, however, test several low fq options, and found it was a good solution for your system.

It has the added bonus of being cheap and flexible.

As you know, there are a few other "phase friendly" boxes and computer options that are either a "lot more expensive" (DEQX...) or a "lot more expensive and a lot more complicated" (computer + software + soundcard). I suppose a user could "upgrade" to one of these options but my gut tells me that they would be painful and not make any difference to the listening experience.

I wish you all the best and look forward to hearing your horns soon!

Posted by Romy the Cat on 03-30-2015

Jorge wrote:
We only use the Beringher for bass under 100 hz, driven by the main amp. We tried a lot of different solutions, including analog active xovers, the DCX is clearly better than the Analog Xovers we tried. There are very few commercial options available that include High pass at 25 hz, variable low pass at 100hz, and most important: phase adjustment.

Jorge, might I ask what specifically was better with Beringher compare to analog active xover? Did you try analog passive crossover? Did you make your judgment that the d-crossover was better only in context of your speaker bass section or you tried any other bass sections? The last. I think that it would be much more beneficial for you to instead of supplying Beringher to furnish your system with bass amp that have the low pass filter build in….

Posted by anthony on 03-31-2015

Jorge wrote:
Romy,

Thank you for sharing the link!

The second part is better!

Hi Jorge,

The second part of the review is up and you are right...it is high praise indeed. Congrats!

Cheers,

Anthony

Posted by Jorge on 04-01-2015

It remains hidden better.
Bass only completes the midrange without calling attention to itself.
It adds color and overtones better to the midrange, and when it is called for…
It appears faster, and more drastically than the other xovers.
To be honest I guess the most important part is really the amplifier, which brings us to the other question.
I tried a Top of the line class D Crown amp which has a programmable digital xover, that sports all the whistles I need, unluckily the downloadable program is nowhere to be found, and the amp run by the outboard xover is so disgustingly bad, I had to dump the whole idea.
Bad: ever present bass mudding everything up.

Thanks Anthony for the link!

Posted by Romy the Cat on 04-01-2015

Frankly if it was my product then I would look in a different direction. I do not know what your bass modules are and what kind amplification they need and sound they produce. I for sure know that “top of the line class D” application is not the direction I would be looking – this stuff is for idiots. I however would be very much wiling to add my own amplification to the packed of the whole system. To furnish the system with Beringher and ask user to have own amp is not serious in my view.

I would be looking in the realms of plate amps. Some of them are OK for bass modules and they are dirt cheap. For $150 you might get 100W-200 A/B amps with line level filter. You might fine tine the character of the sound to what you need to get out of your bass section. I would not be too much worry about time alignment as your bass section is more or less physically alienable.

Posted by steverino on 04-06-2015

I don't want to pull the thread way off but the thought occurred to me while reading here that audio bass never fools me into thinking it is real. Even my middling system once in a while can fool me in the midrange and treble for a few seconds or so. But I have not heard bass do that regardless or maybe because of subwoofers, bass amps etc. Even well recorded string basses are more convincing in the upper part of their range. Of course in many cases the rooms are too small or poorly proportioned to permit even one bass note wave to escape room truncation and distortion. But that can't be the entirety of it. Maybe I'm the only one who wants to be fooled as opposed to bludgeoned Smile

Posted by Jorge on 04-07-2015

I agree Steverino, IMHO Bass in the most tricky part of audio!
A couple of things I found out that help. Most importantly, Time Alignment! Not just between the channels crossing right to the next frequencies, but the whole system should be time aligned to the 1/8” if possible. It is funny how even tweeters crossing at 10 khz and up affect the sound of bass!
Also the quality of the bass amp is very important, after trying almost all commercial plate amps available I decided that the famous difficulty for “placing” subwoofers, was due mainly to the amps. Try a better amp and everything will fall into place! There came a point where I couldn’t tell the difference between an Altec 416 woofer playing from 200 hz down, and an eminence alpha 15” in the same frequency, with the same crappy amp! If you tried both woofers, you will know they are ages apart!
Also get your impedances right between preamp and amplifier!
And the last key into fooling you is Infra bass: a dedicated channel from 20hz-25 hz down to as low as you can get your subwoofers to go: 16hz-10hz minus 3 dB whatever helps a LOT. Perfectly time aligned, that is a must again, if not it will mud everything up! But when you get it right, you can´t live without it ever again!

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