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In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: Jessie Dazzle Project

Post Subject: Balancing amplitude between drivers/hornsPosted by jessie.dazzle on: 1/9/2010

A little update :

Reading some recent comments in the "Configuration from Italy" thread:
http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=12605#12605
prompted me to share what I've recently done. Yes its an obvious thing to do, but it took me a year before finally getting off my butt to try it. I'm now very much appreciating the results.

As previously mentioned, and as per Romy's recommendation, I added L-Pad attenuators to the lower-mid channels. Having the ability to roll off the output from these channels was definitely a good thing, and lead me to the following experiment.

The situation I wanted to address:
The upper-bass channels in my system (16R Fane Studio 8M into 115Hz Tractrix) have less output than all other channels, and, though the system is bi-amped, the second pair of amps is used only to drive the extreme lower-bass channels; everything else is driven from a single pair of amps. As these amps are not DSET, up to this point I had been balancing the amplitude between channels as well as possible, by driving them from different taps, and in the case of the lower-mid, by adjusting the above-mentioned attenuators.

So, I decided to try adding attenuators to all channels, with the exception of the upper-base. Below are my objectives:

1) Possibility to individually balance (with precision) the amplitude between all upper-range channels, while driving them from the taps that sound best.

2) Possibility to bring the amplitude of the upper-range channels as a group, down to match that of the upper-bass horns.

The extreme lower-bass channels have always been adjustable for amplitude, meaning that now the output of all channels can be brought down to match that of the weakest channels, which as mentioned, in my case is the upper-bass.

The most obvious result is that the upper-bass horns are now contributing a lot more; all I can say is that this contribution is very welcome. The other big thing is a very finely adjustable upper range.

Since then, I've really been enjoying the system, and am more impatient than ever to get the large mid-bass horns done (I've had to put them on hold in order to keep my day job with what's left of the automotive industry... Where's that guy who once accused us of being out of touch because we didn't have to toil like real people who all have day jobs!).

Once the large mid-bass horns are done, I will likely add an additional pair of attenuators to either these new horns, or to the upper-bass horns; those with the strongest output will get the attenuators, once again bringing everything in line with the least sensitive of the channels; reminds me of what I have to do to myself every time I leave the house.

What I don't like: I don't like the idea of burning excess sensitivity; the alternative to this is of course DSET.

jd*

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