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Horn-Loaded Speakers
Topic: Genlecs on sticks - ouch

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Posted by op.9 on 02-04-2007

Dear Romy and all,

I’ve been lurking here for a few months and - after a sceptical start! - I have found this site an Invaluable Help. Many many thanks to Romy and all involved. My system is now starting to sing and make nice noises for the first time in 15 years… but more about that another time.

My first post is to ask some advice. I’m about to start conversion of my barn here in rural England. Planning permission has been granted and engineers are about to be asked to design the footings (foundations). It’s a good sized room - 23 by 33 feet with a double-height open-vaulted roof.

The question - and I have to decide very soon. Shall I design in an underground bass horn – and if so, what sort. Stereo? Mono? Probably only going up as high as 30-35hz And where should the exits be. I’m assuming that the best positioning for my speakers will be across the short wall - about 3-6 feet into the room. I will have the option of hanging mid bass horns from the roof – time aligned of course. I am thinking of some underground horns that would exit either in the middle of the room or at the sides (slightly more awkward). Or should I forget about bass horns and just have some nice sealed boxed at line-arrays from floor to ceiling beside the big windows.

I’m not a bass freak at all. Actually I couldn’t care less! But this is a once in a lifetime decision and I don’t want to be digging up concrete and underfloor heating in a few years time!

Opinions would be most welcome…

All best wishes

James


Posted by Romy the Cat on 02-04-2007

Actually it is very interesting question and I almost feel you pain for decision you will be making. I do not think that anyone would be able to express any arbitral opinion about the subject, as least an opinion that worth to follow. You see, building such a system is a self-contained creative process and it I will include many wrong decisions that you most likely will be dong. Those wrong decisions are perfectly normal and not one will underused your “mistakes” accept you. Navigation sound in that that type of installation is a process of DOING THE THINGS, then observing the results and REACTING UPON THE RESULTS. I do not believe that there are people who can foresee the results in this type arrangement as you are planning to build. I will pass some of my very general observations but please take them with certain skepticism. First of all I never built those types of installations and second: I do not fell that any generalizations in your case worth consider as a “doctrine”.

Generally I do not believe in bass horns. There two major reasons (there are some minor as well): time alignment and the bothering me “closed bottom”. With time alignment is simple: I just do not know how to delay a full range signals to synchro it with a few milliseconds of delay that happens in a bass horn. The second reason is more complicated. The sealed enclosure I call “opened bottom” enclosures. What I mean is that there are no conceptual limitations in lower response. The limitations in sealed box are tactical: how much power you have, how much your drivers will handle, what is the relation of volume and Fs, how driver damped by amplifier and many others. However, there is no self-restricting boundary in there. With any other LF solutions (horn, open baffles, 4th order, ported and so on) there are always strategic limitations by nature of the design… would it be size of the baffle, size of the mouth or tuning of a port). With sealed box you can always burn some power, use the LF section on transition slope or even EQ (with open bottom only) your bass (works very well). With any other solutions (besides sealed box) those “further actions” are not available. Those are some of my motivations why I do not like the idea of bass horns and prefer the sealed enclosures

Saying it I have to add that the “recommendations” would also vary with the level at witch you target. If you look to get a pressure rising at LF (it is hoe most of the bass horn sound on bad hand) then any bass horn will do. It is very easy to get that “sewer pipe type of bass“ from a bass horns… the question what to do next? No one knows. The Morons are deaf do not recognize that they have that “sewer pipe type of bass“ but even when the do  recognize then who the hell know how to fix it? Not to mention that fixing implies a large cement mixing machine and a wasted half of summer. Sounds like a plan for actions, doesn’t it? Sill, I have to add that if the bass horn and a sealed enclosure are done IDENTICALLY PROPERLY then for the SAME FREQUENCY the bass horn do sound better.

Saying that I do admit that you are absolutely correct saying that it is a lifetime decision. You will never do it twice and therefore here is the rational that I would consider if I were at your place: I can always threw a pair of sealed arrays in my listening room, however I will not be able to add bass horn AFTER I made my barn conversion. So, you might find a reason within yourself to go for bass horns and if the bass horn direction will not deliver to you the results that you would like THEN discard the project, make a good sauna in those horns and put the sealed array into the game. A intestinally do not expires a direction I would go personally if I were you – it will be your call.  However, I will give you some point for both directions.

Sealed array will work ONLY across a long wall. While thinking about the arrays and the drivers think about amplification. The amplification-drivers interaction in high-quality dedicated LF sections sis very much under-looked area. Consider multi-sectioned arrays with one driver per section. This also economical as you might start with less sections and then pile them up as you find it necessary. The arrays must be positioned outside of your MF sections.

In case of the bass horns let visualize what we deal with. If for instance you go for 25Hz horn with 18” throat then (for tractrix profile that you would likely NOT wiling to use) you would need roughly an exit area of 150000 sq cm, which is a circle with 4.3m diameter or it’s square equivalent. The horn will be around 9m, with ~ 9mSec delay (depends of the temperature outside… unless you will thermo-stabilize the horns :-) Further, any serious solution implies use of TWO HORNS. The mouthed of the hone must be outside of your MF sections. You might position the mouths of the horns at the side’s of the barn and by doing it you will minimize the time delays. It is a VERY good solution but having 23 by 33 feet room you have no space to play with it is you do for 25Hz horn. The image below will give you an idea how it might be done:

However, if it delays might be fixed as it shown above then it will set the entire system to operate in far-field setting. You have to consider it and see is you like the far-field arrangements (I do not). Also, the position of mouths of the horns near a middle of the room and near the listening position do resolves the delays problem but at the same time do creates some other troubles.

So, as your see there are a lot of thing to consider. Not the last would be your thoughts about the rest of loudspeakers that will be using and how they will be integrated in context of your ether line-arrays or the bass-horns. I can only promise you what whatever decision you will go for you will be sorry.. :-) Nevertheless, there is a slight mercantile advantage to go for the bass horns. After you finish the project you can make some money by selling admission tickets into your barn to those crazy British audio-freaks demonstrating to them and to their wifes that … “it could be worse”…

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

PS: Oops, I juts realized that there was an error on my drawing. As the idea implies the distance between the MF horns and a listener should not be 14M as it shown but 11.5M

Posted by Paul S on 02-04-2007
As a builder I can pre-warn you that this could be a fairly complex and very expensive proposition if done in cast concrete.  For that matter excavation, per se, is expensive, and municipalities differ about what you can and can't do with any significant quantity of dirt you may want to move around, on or off site.  If you are on any kind of a schedule you will certainly want your audio ducks in a row in order to make sure everything jibes with your plans, permits and ultimate audio aims.  If you consider how many modern concert halls with "computer-aided design" by "top audio/acoustic engineers" sound like crap and/or need re-doing then perhaps the idea of a more flexible means of producing bass becomes more attractive.  It would cost only a fraction of the giant underground horns to design and build into your structure some other features to accomodate and benefit your coming SOTA installation, and I am not certain, based on personal experience, that sealed units need be such a compromise, anyway.  Not that giant cast pipes don't sound very cool, conceptually!

Whatever you decide, please post some pics.

Best regards,
Paul S

Posted by Dominic on 02-05-2007
I'd put your sub horns above your head. There are some big issues with that but you save a lot on concrete engineering, and assuming space remains in future you could apply what you learned from the overhead wood horns to a more refined bass setup. Obviously doing it twice isn't perfect but the opportunity to get it right seems worth it. It might make some sense to try a foreshortened horn approach, ie large throat like John Dreyer's system here: http://aca.gr/pop_dreyer.htm I don't see a good way to avoid the far field listening position with a straight front horn, one can only hope to mitigate the distance a little bit. It'd be much better i think to shorten the horn from the back and lose a bit of loading than modifying the mouth and mangling the wave front. The science of the acoustics of subsonic horns in the context of an audio installation in an eclosed space is essentially undiscovered country. Several people have tried to do it but as far as i know they've all had major complaints, either of their own or by listeners. Either that or they depend on delay circuits; and still have complaints from purists. Everybody up to now has been experimenting. I keep wondering about what the horn faces, the size of the mouth often approaches other dimensions of the space, or is actually very close to the on axis wall/floor/ceiling.

Posted by Romy the Cat on 02-05-2007

 Dominic wrote:
I'd put your sub horns above your head. There are some big issues with that but you save a lot on concrete engineering, and assuming space remains in future you could apply what you learned from the overhead wood horns to a more refined bass setup. Obviously doing it twice isn't perfect but the opportunity to get it right seems worth it. It might make some sense to try a foreshortened horn approach, ie large throat like John Dreyer's system here: http://aca.gr/pop_dreyer.htm I don't see a good way to avoid the far field listening position with a straight front horn, one can only hope to mitigate the distance a little bit. It'd be much better i think to shorten the horn from the back and lose a bit of loading than modifying the mouth and mangling the wave front. The science of the acoustics of subsonic horns in the context of an audio installation in an eclosed space is essentially undiscovered country. Several people have tried to do it but as far as i know they've all had major complaints, either of their own or by listeners. Either that or they depend on delay circuits; and still have complaints from purists. Everybody up to now has been experimenting. I keep wondering about what the horn faces, the size of the mouth often approaches other dimensions of the space, or is actually very close to the on axis wall/floor/ceiling.
I would like to follow up, the Dominic's replay. The idea of making bass-horns during “30 minutes after the launch”,  from molded paper and to hang it above the barn on a nice pink hydrogen zeppelin is certainly attractive idea. However, I would like to stress very confidently that if you go for sub 35Hz horn then it must be a constructions employing cement, stones etc.... With the sub 35Hz we are out of the wood realm and you will need some mass. Otherwise you end up with a horn that makes WRONG VOWELS.

The John Dreyer's solution is definitely very elegant but he went for a large throat to make the horn shorter. It is not a criminal action by itself but the question is: at which frequency this horn stops to act and horn and start to act as a direct radiator? To answer this it would be necessary to see where the horn stops to give 6dB gain… To measure it in context of a room and to filters out the room's mode is VERY complicated. The brilliant part of what John Dreyer did was that even when his horns stops loading the driver then he has a good line-array at the lower frequencies… Still, if I have Dreyer’s design in my room I would be wondering what kind drivers I might put in this horns. Using 5X515G I would have way better horn-bass but using 5X515B I would have way better direct-radiator’s, lover bass… So, go figure….

Rgs,
Romy the caT

Posted by slowmotion on 02-05-2007
Hi James,

Theoretically a straight 33 feet long mono subhorn with the drivers at one end of the room and the mouth exiting the floor at the other end would probably cover from 10Hz to 30Hz with no problem, with the apropriate drivers.
I don't have a clue how that would sound, or how easy it would be to
make that work soundwise with the rest of the system.

Don't know what the rest of your system is, but since you are mentioning
midbasshorns I assume you have or are building an all horn system.
Which in itself is a never ending project. Wink


cheers,

Jan Wink




Posted by Johan Dreyer on 02-05-2007
Romy

Your rules say no direct answers so forgive me this one.

My horn is a true 21Hz horn.If you want to do the calcsSadMore or less) Throat 6264 square cm.Mouth 48312 cmsq.M or Q 0.7 depth 3m.Quarter space loading.It does not quite make 21Hz.-3db is at 24Hz ( -10db at 22Hz i.e falling like a rock).Rest of response is +/- 2db to the 180Hz crossover-except(and here is the biggest problem with basshorns) a hellacious but narrow standing wave at 68Hz(due to the room width -gone at 60 and 80).Before I built the horn I dragged two large subs into the room to check for standing waves and could not find a single one.Bottom line anyone can build a basshorn.Building the room for it is the biggest problem.Unfortunately my room was already there and has been for 80 years. Enter Rives Parc-On its way-hope it works.

515 Gs is for the reason you said.Also they had to comfortably make the crossover at planned 250 Hz(now actually at 180).This high crossover is also the reason the horns are in not in the roof ,floor or side walls.At 180 the ear is very good at localizing sound origin.Also no bends at what is really low mids.You have documented your frustration with midbass horns and a low enough reaching horn and driver.I agree this must be the most difficult bit in designing such a system without adopting the 15-inch-driver-in-a-resonant-box approach.What I need is a compression driver with a 3 inch throat that can do 100 -1000Hz.Forget ALE 126-It craps out at 500.

Delays:My compression drivers sits in the mouth of the bass horn about 2m from the bass drivers i.e 6ms delay.I have tried but honestly cannot hear this.However moving the tweeters 1cm(0.03ms) is clearly audible.

Posted by Romy the Cat on 02-05-2007
Johan, I understand what you are saying. This is kind of James’ barn thread and if you do not mind can you share with him one thing, I think that many others, including me, would be interested to learn the answer to this question: What did you gain going for bass horn in term of Sound? You went for bass horns when you were not able to get bass in your room due to the standing wastes. It is understandable, many of us were there. However, if we pretend that you did not have problems with room modes and your sealed boxes worked as they should then would you feel that you got any advantages from your bass horns? Would you go for them if you do it again and had no room modes limitations?
 Johan Dreyer wrote:
What I need is a compression driver with a 3 inch throat that can do 100 -1000Hz.Forget ALE 126-It craps out at 500.

Can you add a longer phase plug to your ALE1260 to let it go up 1K… I do not know I never played with this driver. Alternately you might go for ALE A7550 but it might be too bright for you… not to say too expansive juts to try… Besides theses I do not think you will find any. When I went to the same direction and was looking for my  driver 100 -1000Hz  (I was looking for 4” throat as I would like to have the horn of no longer then 40”) I realized that there is nothing out there ready to do. So, I realized that there is nothing constitutionally prohibitive if I use a regular drive and make it to act as a compression driver (but without the compression part). The key was to know how it might be down and to find the driver that would be perfect for the application and able to demonstrate the necessary sonic qualities. I found the driver and then John Hasquin from Indiana educated me how to use it properly. It does the 100 -1000Hz at 108dB… but as you understand it is a subject of other thread.....
 Johan Dreyer wrote:
Delays: My compression drivers sits in the mouth of the bass horn about 2m from the bass drivers i.e 6ms delay.I have tried but honestly cannot hear this. However moving the tweeters 1cm(0.03ms) is clearly audible.

I clearly hear the delays problems in Bruise Edgar 35Hz horn. BTW, I have detected that the cylindrical waves coming from line-arrays are less sensitive for time misalignment; perhaps it helps you a little.  When you said that you have trued to time align and cannot hear the difference then what did you do?

The caT

Posted by Johan Dreyer on 02-05-2007
Romy

I think what I gained from the basshorns were 1. "Speed"or lack of momentum.Specifically deep notes on piano.The sensation of that leftmost keys with the initial impact then followed by the resonance from the instrument as separate entities.I hear this in real life but not in big bottomed speakers.The same with fingered double bass Note for note one can follow.I honestly can't say this is due to the horns per se.I do however believe that a single woofer with huge excursion simply cannot stop in time thus causing a boom instead of bom.Multiple arrays in a sufficiently rigid cabinet may however cause the same effect.I simply do not know.

2. I call this the "pulsating room effect" Here there is a sensation of the air in the room actually pulsating to the sound.This is not boom but a sense of sheer energy being transmitted.Unlike music simply being played way too loud and being unpleasant this is simply an awareness of the power of a bass instrument and- more remarkable- the air in the recorded space being excited by the instruments(not only bass instruments).We have all heard how ,on a good mid horn , a brass instrument (especially saxophone or trumpet) can simply leave the horn and gigantically excite a room.Exactly like a live instrument next to you can startle by its sheer energy exciting a space( A Trombonist I know calls it "picking up the room").That is what happens on a basshorn too.Again I hear this effect in real life too.I think it is the horn matching the impedance of the drivers to the room

Effect 1 I think one may obtain with multiple big motored drivers but 2 I have only ever heard in life and these basshorns.

The delay thing is a problem.I hear delays higher up as drivers become audible as individual speakers instead of a whole sound.I do not hear this in bass.I think you may be right about the arrays.They may simply create a whole room full of sound that makes the above effect inaudible.On the other hand they quite clearly image left right and depth too so I do not know.
But how to hear it? In setup I ran a sine wave at crossover freq through the system and watched the mic response(at listening position) on an oscilloscope figuring I should see 2 spikes in the reproduced sine.I saw none. This is probably nonsense but it made me feel better. I would expect to hear wide ranging instruments to "split in two"at the crossover, but I do not hear that either.Instruments not in one "space" i.e lower notes deep in the horn and the higher component out front? I have not heard that either.Never mind the old tap dance efffect of old WE horns.I think that only happens higher up.Bottom line :neither I nor my friends hear it so I stopped worrying about it. Maybe somebody can.Then I 'll worry again.

In early experiments I set up the lowermid/mid horns/tweeters up in my garage and used my Klipschorns as bass. I then moved the midhorns forward and back looking for time differences.That was very obvious from about about 1m movement.There the sound really did split into totally separate entities. It was so obvious I stopped the experiment immediately.
Maybe the 2m? pathway in the folded Khorn plus the additional 1m away.Maybe 3m or 9ms is the cuttoff for audibility at 180Hz?Maybe I am deaf...and stupid?A final thought.Maybe on Edgars subs(and the Khorns) what one heard was panel resonances at way above crossover freq causing a localising effect?Of course in a concrete and brick basshorn weighing many tons none of these resonances occur

Posted by Romy the Cat on 02-05-2007

 Johan Dreyer wrote:
I call this the "pulsating room effect" Here there is a sensation of the air in the room actually pulsating to the sound.This is not boom but a sense of sheer energy being transmitted.Unlike music simply being played way too loud and being unpleasant this is simply an awareness of the power of a bass instrument and- more remarkable- the air in the recorded space being excited by the instruments(not only bass instruments).We have all heard how ,on a good mid horn , a brass instrument (especially saxophone or trumpet) can simply leave the horn and gigantically excite a room.Exactly like a live instrument next to you can startle by its sheer energy exciting a space( A Trombonist I know calls it "picking up the room").That is what happens on a basshorn too. Again I hear this effect in real life too. I think it is the horn matching the impedance of the drivers to the room

I know this effect but if it happen with bass horns then I do not call it “"pulsating room effect" but I rather call it “+1dB effect”. Some bass horns being placed in their rooms increase the density of pressure faster then the density of sound. It is bizarre concept of mine and no one understands it. Let try to explain it. Density and Pressure of tone has purpose and this purpose is described by artistic value of musical peace. With the expressive intentions of a given composition and the given interpretation there are always inner-reasons what density and what capacity of a note should be. In this case density, capacity and potency of a tone are almost the synonymous. However, not the Pressure. Pressure is an absentminded parameter that has relation to objective deviation of one volume over another but it has no relation to musical intentions. So, when you told that your have that “"pulsating room effect" across full MF range then I had no problem with it – it looks you are getting good sound out there. However, what you said that your have the same effect from basshorn I recognize it as a problem (your friend Trombonist with his "picking up the room" is very much irrelevant because he plays MF-HF instrument). The load a room with a dense, phase-perfect MF is wonderfully and we in a way experience it in “live” sound. (I said “in away” because in “live” sound we have also “space” and unlimited dynamics…., but it another subject) However, in “live” sound we never experience dense bass. Of course I’m talking about Sound of classical music, opera or any acoustic music not about the electrons surrogate).

You would argue, in fact you have said that you have heard this effect in real life too. However, who said the in real life we do not experience the problem with standing waves? The 30% of the sits in Boston symphony, partially near the walls and under the balconies have heavy standing waves problems and they crate that “pressurized bass” that I call “room clipping”. Take a string quartet and put it into a mid size rooms. Make then to play some rhythmic work, like Mozart or Hayden, and walk around them. You will see that at many locations cello will be not only louder but “pressurizing” with that “scuba-diver effect”. Sure it will be the “live” experience but will it be corrects? Not really. Those “clippings”, although they are “life” and “natural”, but they will take place NOT because the musical ideas but ONLY because the mechanical room-condition overriding the Sound. It is not good….

So, what from my point of view what be a duty of a properly performing lower basshorn? A basshorn should pressurize the room and create an environment that allows the MF to be “floated” ATOP of basshorn’s pressuranization. Thy basshorn’s out should act like a high density liquid that would permit the low density liquid (MF and HF) do not sink and to fly freely in a room. However, as soon the LF begin to inflict a listener with own ‘"pulsating room effect" then the value of LF should be minimized (at lest for the given listing position). John, try to reduce LF on your system. I know it is difficult to spend so much efforts and do not hear it. Furthermore you for a week or so will be experience some deficiency of LF. However, you will soon get use to and might dustcover that it does makes sense to keep it down, 0.5-1db below the moment when the "pulsating room effect" from basshorn will manifest itself. The only problem is that moving 6 feet away will change the entire setting for the  “+1dB effect”… 

 Johan Dreyer wrote:
The delay thing is a problem.I hear delays higher up as drivers become audible as individual speakers instead of a whole sound.I do not hear this in bass.I think you may be right about the arrays.They may simply create a whole room full of sound that makes the above effect inaudible.On the other hand they quite clearly image left right and depth too so I do not know. But how to hear it? In setup I ran a sine wave at crossover freq through the system and watched the mic response(at listening position) on an oscilloscope figuring I should see 2 spikes in the reproduced sine.I saw none. This is probably nonsense but it made me feel better. I would expect to hear wide ranging instruments to "split in two"at the crossover, but I do not hear that either.Instruments not in one "space" i.e lower notes deep in the horn and the higher component out front? I have not heard that either.Never mind the old tap dance efffect of old WE horns.I think that only happens higher up.Bottom line :neither I nor my friends hear it so I stopped worrying about it. Maybe somebody can.Then I 'll worry again.

I still feel that you shell hear it. You presented a case of time misalignment - when the drivers heard as two deistically different sources. This hardly has to do with time misalignment and has to do with other reasons. The timing misalignment could not be heard this way. The Haas effect and many other things will mask it out. The way to hear the misalignment is to observe imagine and stoppage of decays (Whatever I say in this paragraph is about misalignment in LF, in the HF the misalignment is very simple to spot). What I might suggest you to do is borrowing a digital delay machine. It is dirt-cheep (under $100 and up to 32mSec by 1 mSec) and you can even buy one. Do not expect to get any quality form them but you not need any. All that you need is to delay MF and to observe if the presentation of music will change. I presume it should… at least of was my experience….

Rgs,
The Cat

Posted by Antonio J. on 02-05-2007
I have no experience with bass horns, but I suppose that any sound source into a given size room can excite its modes, hence a big bass horn or a line array of boxed woofers can be equally annoying in that regard. So if the idea of using horns is to increase the sensivity of a transducer, and you can do this by using several bass cones, why going the hassle and previsible trouble of building a huge horn which you won't be able to tune once built? I think it creates more problems for time alignement, modes taming and so on than it solves.

I understand last Romy's post as a feeling I have listening to many systems out there. They use big speakers, into mid-sized rooms, and you really don't hear the fundamentals of a double bass or left-most piano notes, but feel them into your guts, shaking the room in a way I never experience listening to live music. OK, there are some auditoriums and places that you feel the room modes, but they're not as "falsely" shaking as happen to be in those installations I'm referring.

By the way Romy, how do you identify a wrong time alignement in the upper-midrange to treble range? Just want to learn.. maybe I can identify it as "something wrong" that I cannot verbalize yet.

Posted by op.9 on 02-05-2007

wow. So much to digest here.

Further thoughts.

This is where I’m at.

  1. It seems that I don’t have the space for optimum straight horns exiting directly onto the listening position as per Romy’s diagram. And besides, I like nearfield listening too.
  1. The roof space needs to be reserved for the mid bass horns.
  1. Yes. It’s a suck it and see question. I’m willing to go with my hunch, when I know what it is, and take the consequences.
  1. One thing nobody has mentioned is using the room’s corners. Is this a no no? I’ve been trying use McBean to model a horn exiting into the corner – with a middle ‘mouth’ about 1m squared - and using a conical approximation as the room corner – with some nominal (very large) mouth size. Am I right that the corners are basically a conical expansion? But. McBean crashes with these numbers and takes my whole computer down with it. Quite dramatic really. Is this model at all relevant? I can’t see why not.
  1. I’m becoming increasingly tempted to build some MORON horns. With a bit of luck, they might be useful. If not they can always just do the bangs and thumps for some ‘home theatre’ system that I’m unlikely to install. Last summer I pointed some 45hz tractrix horns at the corners and got good response down to at least 30hz. Setting the levels nice and low, I still got a very good ‘feel’ to the music. More ambiance and more space. Everything was moronic in this test so I should discount it. But I can’t help wondering…  
  1. Digital delay. Yes, I know – a big topic. I’ve been listening recently to my UltraCurve 2496 through headphones used just as a delay. Digital in and Digital out. I cannot hear any change in sound at all. I've really tried. Luckily – but sadly – I’ve never owned any LPs in my life, so I’m not worried about an extra a/d-d/a in the chain. So I’m not ruling out digital delay completely . . . .
  1. I’m worried. Romy – You say Line Arrays ONLY work on the long room dimension? Can you elaborate? Intuitively I can’t see why. And this was my Get Out Clause. This is worrying.
  1. And another question. I’ve learned the slow way that funny mouth shapes and bends in horns really screw up things in seemingly unrelated parts of the audio spectrum. Is this still true of low bass?

Many thanks for all your empathy!

James


Posted by Romy the Cat on 02-05-2007

 op.9 wrote:
One thing nobody has mentioned is using the room’s corners. Is this a no no? I’ve been trying use McBean to model a horn exiting into the corner – with a middle ‘mouth’ about 1m squared - and using a conical approximation as the room corner – with some nominal (very large) mouth size. Am I right that the corners are basically a conical expansion? But. McBean crashes with these numbers and takes my whole computer down with it. Quite dramatic really. Is this model at all relevant? I can’t see why not. 

I do not believe in horn prediction programs. They are conditionally useful for MF but for bass they are completely bogus. My experience with various deaf idiots from AA (Bill Fitzmaurice, Wayne Parham and the rest of dirt) suggested that those horn prediction programs are crouch for brainless cretins who have no hearing or awareness to assess results and to act upon own senses. Also, would it possible the no one mention to your corners because with your objective of 20Hz -30Hz horn you are way beyond the dimensions of anything that could be called architecturally “ a corner”?

 op.9 wrote:
I’m becoming increasingly tempted to build some MORON horns. With a bit of luck, they might be useful. If not they can always just do the bangs and thumps for some ‘home theatre’ system that I’m unlikely to install. Last summer I pointed some 45hz tractrix horns at the corners and got good response down to at least 30hz. Setting the levels nice and low, I still got a very good ‘feel’ to the music. More ambiance and more space. Everything was moronic in this test so I should discount it. But I can’t help wondering…
 
Well, a 45-50hz horn if VERY different horn then 20Hz horn. In fact I very strongly encourage your to go for 45-50hz horn – it is THE way to go it you have space. The horn with pretended “open bottom” is VERY different story….
 op.9 wrote:
Digital delay. Yes, I know – a big topic. I’ve been listening recently to my UltraCurve 2496 through headphones used just as a delay. Digital in and Digital out. I cannot hear any change in sound at all. I've really tried. Luckily – but sadly – I’ve never owned any LPs in my life, so I’m not worried about an extra a/d-d/a in the chain. So I’m not ruling out digital delay completely . . . .

Well, if use digital only then why don’t you use two DA converters? This is a perfect problem-free solution. Any civilized electronics specialist should be able to stick into any of your DAC a temporary memory that would delay the stream for a few milliseconds. It will have no even theoretical influence to Sound.
 op.9 wrote:
I’m worried. Romy – You say Line Arrays ONLY work on the long room dimension? Can you elaborate? Intuitively I can’t see why. And this was my Get Out Clause. This is worrying.

Good question. I do not know the answer, I am sure it should be. It juts was my experience of dealing with my LF arrays and listing a quite a number of others. Take RTA and move them across short and long walls. The short wall immediately crates huge response anomalies. It should be some kind of reasons for it. There is a good article at my site by John Murray:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=3013#3013

John, has a public email (in the and)… Try to ask him it should be some kind of explanation for it…. If you leans then please post it…
 op.9 wrote:
And another question. I’ve learned the slow way that funny mouth shapes and bends in horns really screw up things in seemingly unrelated parts of the audio spectrum. Is this still true of low bass?

James, it all depends. The art of horn bending is very bizarre and at LF particularly it is completely not know. I have no experience with it. Evan the people who do…. The LF are so much effected by room, geometry, boundaries and many other sources that it is very hard to extrapolate where the problems come from the bends and where they come from other reasons …

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

Posted by Paul S on 02-05-2007
It is likely that getting any giant LF horn to contribute musically as part of a system will require a number of iterations, so it would be good to allow for this initially, somehow, to be at all realistic or practical.  With respect to wood, I have heard several large wooden LF horns, including corner horns, and all made some low frequencies, but I have never heard this sort of thing successfully integrated into a coherent system, and the combing and other cancellation/augmentation/coloration effects were quite conspicuous, to my ears, to the point of ruining the rest of the system, where that might be a consideration.  Then again, it is probably true that in every case where it was not done well the builder/installer/user was deep enough into the idea itself that it probably did not matter one way or the other if it was really integrated or made a truly musical contribution, anyway.

I don't want to say that giant LF horns can be/are a romantic notion; but I would sure like to hear one of these behemoths done right and integrated correctly in a setting I could relate to before I built one into my home...

OTOH, I encourage you to do it, and then I will have another one to listen to ;>Wink

BTW, the best giant horn I've heard was outdoors...

Best regards,
Paul S

Posted by Bud on 02-09-2007
Hi James,

Just so you know about these folks. go to this site and page down for a bit till you find the horn installation topic.
 http://www.royaldevice.com/custom3.htm

Rather interesting and might be all of the mistakes you can make in one place, or not, I have zero experience.

Bud

Posted by Romy the Cat on 02-10-2007

 Bud wrote:
Just so you know about these folks. go to this site and page down for a bit till you find the horn installation topic.
 http://www.royaldevice.com/custom3.htm

Yes, the Royal Device’s horn is well know horn. Sure the enthusiasm of those guys should be appreciated but let behind the admiring of thier efforts do not turn blind to some “issues” with their horn has.

I see a big problem with this horn. The problem that from my point of view make the Royal Device’s efforts kind of… pointless. Paul asked the correct question: is it about better project or is about better Sound? If “Sound” then how should be perceive a good projects that have some “bad for Sound” solutions?

Anyhow, I disagree with those Royal Device guys. They read apparently a lot of old horn books and paperworks and picked from there a notion of front compression chamber. This is VERY common mistakes for beginners or for people who have cliché mentality instead of listening awareness. Yes, in the past all people who have written theories about horns stressed used of front compression chamber. However, in that past no one meant to use horn for high fidelity sound reproduction in homes and all the people carried was how to get more dB out of those things.  Listen any of the “old horns” and you will head what I mean. Yep, the front compression chamber do increase dB output but it does it via the “sonic boom”, ruining the quietly of sound. Why those Royal Device’s guys decided to make that intentional front compression chamber is beyond me.

The caT

Posted by minim on 02-11-2007
In one idealistic configuration I envisaged for myself, for a situation where cost and practicality no object, the basic room shape was pentagonal, with the facets ot the pentagon curved inwards to eliminate parallel reflecting surfaces and simultaneously create walls for the five horn throats thus formed for the line arrays (or electrostatic elements) at the five corners.

The ultra LF horn would be mono and form the ceiling/roof, comprised of five curving panels and culminating in a driver mounted at the tip of what would appear from the outside to be a steeple, enclosed in a suitable way of course.

Seems to me that with a barn there would be enough vertical height available to accomodate an uncompromised straight horn and if not, the extra length could either protrude through the peak of the roof, forming a steeple-like thing that might come in handy when you establish your audio worshipping cult, or else be folded around in a single bend.

Alternately, being out in the country, you could for a lesser expenditure, if your time is worth anything, buy 8 suitable 15 or 18 inch drivers, 4 to a side, and mount them in the walls in an enclosure vented liberally to the outside, so that they are in effect infinite baffle mounted.

Linearity of response through the driver resonance and crossover itself could be achieved with e Behringer DCX 24/96. If the low pass frequency chosen was 50 Hz or lower, the outside sound would really be negligible except for certain videos (explosions, helicopters) and 1812 Overture equivalents.

I think that the IB configuration must be added to your list of one potentially unlimited sub bass enclosure, Romy, namely the sealed box.

Posted by op.9 on 02-11-2007
I've been thinking abut this question form several angles.

Firstly practical.
I thought I'd better see what low bass sounds like. And to get some idea of placement possibilities.
So I set up my LS3/5as in the (rather cold) un-converted barn. Couldn't be bothered to move my horns at the moment. The Barn is at the presently 8m x 7m. (will eventually be 10m long) and has a very light roof.

I tried the following listening tests.
subs..
stereo Open 'W' baffle with dual JBL2226 15" drivers
same JBLs in 200l rather poor sealed boxes
mono focal 12v in a knocked together TL 12 foot long (folded double)

I left the LS35a unfiltered and connected the subs with DCX2496 and DEQ2496.
I kept the volume generally low and eq'd the subs for maximum flatness down to 20hz

So, what did I learn? I wish I was more scientific about all this -

1. I was very surprised at the quality of bass from most setup positions. Big room makes for good bass. Obvious i suppose
2. no problem with standing waves or big peaks. This could be to do with the flimsy roof though.
3. Corner placement. Excellent. (with all except W baffle - no surprise). Except there were problems with 40-70hz sounding over-bloated. Wouldn't be a problem with my horns and the subs wouldn't go up anywhere near this high.
4. W baffle (placed against the wall) sounds very similar to IB. I didnt hear any serious problems. W baffle under the speakers sounded weak - despite measuring well.
5. TL was horrible - probably my fault. X-over not low enough to use mono sub - image collapsed - and made the LS£'s sound 'phasey'. More research of mono needed - after I build the stereo 50hz horns though
(6. Ls35as are not half bad - if you like music quiet!)

So I've got no worries about finding a really good NON horn bass solution in this room. Phew. This moronic test got quite close to a good result several times. (I'm increasingly tempted to collect more JBL2226 and run 6 or 8 a side in sealed box)

And then - Bud posted the Royal devices link - and the IDEA took over again. It especially interesting to see a small exit to the room and let the room do the rest.
The IDEA is very persuasive in itself.
I remember visiting http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/kapoor/ with a friend. She was convinced that these sculptures had a deep rumbling sound. And I almost agreed with her.. .

I love minim's steeple idea..but probably too many churches in my area already... But I DO have an adjoining barn/workshop and could start the horn/horns in there exiting exactly at the listening position. ..

So. I think the floor and footings will be solid. That's final. Still leaves me plenty of room for IDEAs.

BTW. Did anyone see a snail sub? Opposite of the B&W snail TL speaker.. Could look very sculptural suspended from the ceiling at an artful angle . .and convince us all of much low rumbling. I might not even connect it.

all best to all



Posted by op.9 on 02-18-2007

Dear John,
I hope you don't mind me writing directly to you. I've been posting on Romy the Cat's audio board about the pros and cons of a bass horn in my new Barn Conversion. I'm probably not going to go ahead with it for various reasons. But I was thinking of installing Bass Line arrays below 40hz against the short wall of a 10m by 7m double height room with vaulted cieling. Probably 6 or 8 15" drivers in a sealed box per side. But - at this is the question, Romy seems sure that Line arrays will only work properly when used on the long dimension of the room. Is this correct? Intuitively I can't see why...
Your thoughts on this would be most welcome


Bass horns:

Yes, they do work and can work extremely well.  Probably the best authority on the planet when it comes to bass, period, is Tom Danley.  His first commercial success was a product that had to fit in a Land Rover and call elephants when it was first discovered that the communicated over great distances in the 20 Hz region.  It was the Packiderm 6 and was the predecessor to the Intersonics ServoDrive subwoofers that came out in the late 70's.  (
www.servodrive.com)  Since then, he created the acoustic suspension chamber that created perfect crystals on the space shuttle.  It requires 175 dB SPL.  He has been involved with two sound companies since ServoDrive, Sound Physics Laboratories (SPL) and he currently designs product for Danley Sound Labs (www.danleysoundlabs.com).
At Danley, his mid-high products are the best passive speakers in the professional sound reinforcement industry, in my opinion.  Let alone that he makes the best subs in the industry.  This link will give you an idea of Tom's world:

www.danleysoundlabs.com/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=47&posts=1&start=1
>>

Just Google-search Tom Danley and lab horn and see if you can dig up the article where somebody built-in Tom's lab horn in a rather large-scale (multiple drivers) application in a large room.  It would be 2 -5 years old by now.  It would be very similar to your application.

Bass Line Arrays:>>

More important than what wall they go on is what is the ratio of the room dimensions.  Regular room dimensions, like 10 X 20 X 40 aggravate isolated room modes where the room literally rings at low frequencies (think cathedrals).  There are ratios recommended by acoustical consultants that distribute modes to prevent this.  However, if you are stuck with your dimensions, then narrow-band notch filters can prevent your system from exciting them.  The trick is finding someone that can discern room ring modes from localized standing waves (In England, my friend Peter Mapp comes to mind).  They are not the same and you must look at time vs.. frequency, not frequency vs. dB to find them.  >>
The first mistake most make when doing a bass line array is stacking them together.  In order to act as a line source there are two requirements:>>
1) The array must be sufficiently long to provide the -3 dB/doubling of distance for more level from less cabinets at a given distance.>>To do this in your barn, I would suggest going from wall-to-wall across the short wall.  The reason for the short wall is two-fold: a) They will be aligned with the mid-highs on the same wall without the need for a digital delay to align them.  b) If you go wall-to-wall, then the side walls, if massive enough, will act as extended virtual sources, making the line array virtually infinite.  The more massive the side walls and the one behind the speakers, the better.  >>
2) The array elements must be within 1/2 wavelength of the highest frequency they reproduce.  >>
If you are using 15" woofers, I would crossover into your mid-highs at about 90 - 125 Hz.  At 100 Hz, 1/2 wavelength is 1128/100 = 11.28  11.28/2 = 5.64 ft. = 1.7 meters   So, at 7m, you could put 5 cabinets across the front wall on the floor (a 1/4-space loading for 12 dB more output than in free space) with the first and last in opposite corners.  This is a proper line source at long wavelengths.  If you want more level, use pairs instead of single cabinets.
I
f it were me, I wouldn't bother designing my own cabinets and selecting a driver with the right parameters.  Leave that to the home theater tweaks that convince themselves that expensive AC cords make a difference.  I'd use something like Danley TH-115's for level or TH-112's or DTS-20's for extreme lows (http://www.danleysoundlabs.com/DANLEY_productspagehome.html).  His old company SPL also has a couple of models I'd consider, like the B-Deap32 for level or the Contra Bass for extreme lows (www.servodrive.com/products.html).  >>
Danley Sound Labs mid-highs array together very well too.  But, in my opinion, the best sounding non-arraying high-output mid-high sound-reinforcement speakers in the industry are from a new company called KV2.  They will absolutely smoke products like JBL, EAW, and Meyer at half the price.  They are powered and they are as clean as studio monitors.  I handle them so I've heard them against all comers.  I call them loud Genelec's on a stick.  They are as low in distortion as many good studio monitors are and get stupid loud.  KV2 has a distributor in elace>ngland. lace>See if you can get a listen to them.  For very loud boxes, you will love them. www.kv2audio.com/Products/index.php>>

Hope this helps!

John A. Murray



Your email is fascinating and hugely interesting. Thanks for being so free with your expertise.
And thanks too for introducing me to Danly. The DTS-20 looks quite incredible. Just might solve the problem at a stroke.
I just have one more question. If, as you suggest, I use the short wall in a horizontal array (my side walls are 30 inches thick stone!) How do I deal with stereo? One channel on top of the other? or mono in the middle and 2 either side as stereo in a single array?
Also it seems to me that if I use both corners and the roof 'corner' (the barn will be open to the rafters) below 40hz then that would constitute an array too? And maybe load the room every well? Ok, I'm sorry that's 4 questions.


James,
There is no stereo for subwoofers because we cannot perceive stereo at extremely long wavelengths.  Our ears are 5 - 6 inches apart.  Even from the side the longest wavelength that will have even a 90-degree phase difference (1/4 wavelength) relative to each ear is that of a 564-Hz signal (6 inches = 1/2 ft.  1/2 ft. X 4 = 2 ft. 1128 ft./2 ft. = 564 Hz).  If the phase difference is less that 90 degrees, it becomes more difficult to discern the directional location of the source.  You will say, "But I can localize where my subwoofer is when it's playing, even with my eyes closed."   Not without the short wavelength components of harmonic distortion, you can't.  Try playing a very low distortion sub at a relatively low volume.  Blindfold someone, spin them and see if they can tell where the sub is....


Long answer to a short question, mono-sum your subs.  That's why there's a 1 in 5.1


Concerning including the barn's "roof corner," as an array component, I think you've missed something here.  First, depending on your sub type, use them up to 80 or 125 Hz as the manufacturer recommends.  They are the best component for that frequency range.  Your mid-high box's LF speaker will not do that range better than the subs, especially if it's at a high volume.  Second, a bass line source array would be a straight line of sources on 1.7m centers.  Sticking a sub in the roof would not be part of a line array across the front wall at floor level.  Since it is up high and farther from most listeners, it would also begin to smear the bass in time.  However, you could put subs all over the place to even out ringing room modes, but the bass would loose definition, tightness, impact.  This is a time smearing, distorted impulse response issue.  Just put them across the front wall and, if needed, have a good tech measure and notch out any bothersome room ring modes with 1/6th- to 1/10th-octave filters.


And don't listen to any smoke-and-mirrors shaman that tells you rubbish about narrow-band filters causing phase distortion.  If the signal in the room has a narrow (2-3 Hz wide) ring mode, it has a nasty phase shift that mother nature packs along with it.  The filter dampen the amplitude of the ringing and improve the phase.


That is what proper equalization does as well.  If a speaker has a peaking resonance, equalization removes the amplitude problem and cancels the peak's phase shift with the opposite shift in phase.  All IIR filters, be they transducers or electronic filters, have a minimum-phase component that is the amplitude's partner.  All good speakers are equalized because no transducer, as a fixed-diameter moving piston, has a flat frequency response.  Mother nature says no, despite what any company's marketing department may want you to believe.  In the home high-fi world, they just put the EQ filtering components inside the speaker cabinet on the crossover network board.  That way "he who abhors EQ and all its nasty phase shift" is blissfully ignorant.


As for putting what I'm saying on that message board, go ahead.  I haven't had any hate mail for a while now.......

Cheers!

John A. Murray


Posted by Dominic on 02-18-2007
The rule of thumb is that you can't localise sounds below 80hz. The classic experiment is to use a sub with an adjustable xo point and adjust it untill you can't tell where it's comming from. That doesn't change the fact that seperating the bass into two channels is better. There was a study not long ago at a university that reccomended two channels for subsonics, i'll see if i can find it in the next little while. It still has something to do with dirrectionaliy, and doesn't even address the fact that any source material with LF info on both channels would be best served by not mixing them. FYI  5.1 is .1 because the subwoofer is there for sound effects for movies. um i only mention that incase you didn't already know. I assume you know well enough that the reason anyone can hear their sub is because it's not designed for music, and or it's already crossed too high.

More importantly; what's 'clean and loud' got to do with music?


More directly related to your project;
 What had you in mind for your (for the sake of argument) 'imaging' sections? Do you think you can get interesting results out of contemporary road gear? That seems to be the general dirrection your friend is pointing you. I wouldn't say it can't be done but i also wouldn't necessarily be optimistic. They are designed for large power handling and that has repercussions for moving mass and magnetic gap and of course the amount of material in the crossover, i would assume that you'd not be using any stock crossovers though if you really wanted to bend the products to your will, music, and room. The professionals are wise to the ways of signal correction before the power amp but, but, their main reasons are relate to not having to maintain heavily worked crossover components times 50 cabinets- crossover before your amps with a DSP and you only have to have one DSP, rather than 50 crossovers sealed inside your cabs. Another good reason is that it makes adjustment per venue simpler, they can do their notch filtering etc as the space demands from the mixing desk. And other such pleasantries. What it doesn't mean though is that you will necessarily get musical benefits.

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