A few months John Hasquin sent me a picture of someone’s horns suggesting … actually he did not suggested anything but after I saw the picture I was laughing hard and quite long.  I found that those horns were very symptomatic to the most horns installations where people do something having no sense of actions. No wonder that most of the horn installations do sound very poor….

However, the ignorant design of those horns is not what made me to laugh but rather how those horn look like… It you remember the Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” the Baba Yaga’s Hut was compose as an inspiration on the Hartmann's design for a bronze clock. The Hartmann for his work used very famous Russian folklore tail about  “The Hut on Fowl's Legs”…

The “The Hut on Fowl's Legs” taks a very special place in Russian culture. The Hut is usually located very deep in the woods where any visitor usesly got killed and the visitor bones used as the ornamentations for the Hut’s fence.  The point of the Hut on Fowl's Legs is that it in Slave mythology the Hut is the threshold, the barrier between live and death, between our word and the kingdom of shadows and darkness.  The Hut is sitting on the chicken leg and has an ability of turn itself, facing its door to a visor from any direction. Considering that the entrance in the Hut symbolized the realm of death (the visitors do not necessary know about it) the door-turning ability of the Hut is a symbolization of the freedom of chooses. Ironically, the fact of entering the Hut is not necessarily bringing the death of the visitors. There is a guard in the Hut: the Baba-Yoga, who is a representative of darkness. Nevertheless, the Baba-Yoga is very interesting character. She is bones chewing, blood drinking, children boiling witch. Everyone afraid of her and Salve mothers threaten thier children with Baba-Yoga if the children behave badly.

However, the Baba-Yoga might be converted from death and distractions craving witch into a cooperative and even loving character if the visitor would pass all tests that Baba-Yoga would do with the visitor of the Hut. So, if to dig deeper then the Baba-Yoga’s Hut in Slav mythology is kind of a place of evil but still it the evil give a chance to person in case the strength of person’s convictions and the person’s capacities would “impress” the Baba-Yoga.

Anyhow, why I was laughing so hard when I saw those horns? I was not laughing because the person was completely clueless about what he was doing and not because he juts dumped together “something” and then he ignorantly called it “horn playback”. I was laughing because the poor owner of these horns unknowingly did perhaps the best depicturing of the  “The Hut on Fowl's Legs” that I even seen in the Western word. Compare:

I wonder if those horns could turn by themselves around? If they do then the guy should make the picture of those horn with his mother-in-law staying next to the horns…. :-)

Rgs,
Romy the Ca

I’ve never heard of the “Hut on Fowl’s Leg” before. It is an interesting folklore tale. However, I still laugh when I see these horns. Other than being completely ridiculous in appearance, this guy didn’t even bother to time align any of the drivers. The so called midbass horn has no dampening to speak of either. Although this horn is not a complete loss, you could always point the midbass horn skyward and use it as a trash can.

JLH wrote:

Other than being completely ridiculous in appearance, this guy didn’t even bother to time align any of the drivers.

This exactly what is the most fun in that system! Sometime people do not do the time alignment because it is too complex or sometime even imposable. Then they say: “well it is too hard” and agree to live with time screwed playback. In the case of this Baba-Yoga system, where the short upper-bass horn-appendix is used and a tweeter has a very narrow radiation pattern the time alignment would be very-very simple to accomplish and the only reason why the person did not go for this because presumably his typical idiots-consultants from Audiogon or Audio Asylum suggested him do not worry about it. Well, probably they were correct: driving this thing with PA 500W Crown Class “D” amplifier while playing Deep Purple or the “HP’s Recommended White Noise"…. why the hell you would worry about the time alignment….!?

JLH wrote:

The so called midbass horn has no dampening to speak of either.

I would disagree with you, John. I do not think that this midbass horn requires any further dampening. I do not know who built them but it look like the horn use at 15” driver with a relatively large throat. Look at the size of that back chamber! I do not know how large internally it is but if the cut-off of this thing somewhere around 100Hz then the in order to squeeze the 15-incher to near 100Hx resonance if would need very-very minute back chamber. So, what they did apparently was use a very large input hole (I would estimate 10”-12”). Consequently they did not really use the horns EQ to load their midbass driver. This thing most likely runs down to 170Hz horn loaded and below the driver operates as a mass-driven direct radiator. So, the lower octave of those horns as not horn-coupled and therefore those horns do not really need any extensive dampening. The highest frequencies of the midbass horn do not have much “mass” and therefore the 50-60 pound they have now in that horn’s leaves might be enough.

Yet, the visual beauty of this installation defeats anything I’ve ever seen. I think if the person voluntary and deliberately make the playback to looks this way then he already do not need any phase tuning. And, yes he did! He did, make the ugliness deliberately, as lifting up those horns on the chicken leg he lost ~10dB but his Audiogon’s idiots presumably told him that he needs some spikes in there made from peace of the wood form the Christ Cross…  

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

Chris,

I’m not familiar with PHY-HP cables from France. January the cotton-insulation on the cables is very nice idea but there is a lot more to it then juts the isolation material. Anyhow. If you do not mine then I would like to keep the subject of the posts more or less related to the subject of the initial threads. I do not think that the POD’s Venustas line has anything to do with the ugliness of the given horns.  As much as I do not think that if a person uses the cotton isolated wire then it says anything about anything.

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

When posted the finial post in this thread I was mocking the ugliness of the “Hut on Fowl's Legs” horn. How little I knew!!!

There is a company in Japan: Kubotek. They Manufacture Computers, Robots, Inspection Systems and… some large sound reinforcement monitors. So, it you have $73.000 then you might get yourself this beauty of engineering envision. Hrrrrrr… it feel bad even looking at them…

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