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In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: Pham Thanh Cuong's playback from Vietnam.

Post Subject: Pham's wild yearsPosted by jessie.dazzle on: 12/22/2010

Though he seems to like running several TTs in parallel, I do not interpret Pham's page to show that he is running more than just one horn system; what I see is an evolution of a system. It looks like, in its latest iteration (under the heading "System Update 9/29/10"), Pham has abandoned the Westrex/Lancing drivers as well as the wooden horns, both large and small, in favor of the Goto/ALE hardware. So to be clear, it seems he moved from Westrex/Lancing toward Goto/ALE.

In fact, what is left with regard to speakers and horns is really quite sparse; Look at it (latest photos); you end up talking about MF. Ok, no real criticism here; the smaller horn is doing most of the work, which is fine, and the larger horn works over a very narrow bandwidth and is a sort of Fundamentals channel; it is borderline too small if being asked to produce 500Hz but it might work. These are the system's only real horns. I see it as a one-and-a-half-horn-system backed up by the JBL boxes and a tweeter, so a kind of 3-way system. The large central bass driver might contribute, but I'd bet the JBL boxes can go lower with higher SPLs, though probably not as cleanly. Other than the move from Westrex/Lansing to Goto/ALE, is there anything here that might warrant discussion?

It might be interesting to note what has remained in the system from day one:

- Low bass: Semi-Horn-loaded Fostex FW800N (31.5")
- Mid bass: JBL 1500AL driver in JBL 4344 enclosure
- Treble: Fostex T500Mk2
- Tweeter: Mewon Ribbon TS01

Haralanov wrote:
"...Even if he has his channels time aligned at digital domain, the fact that they are arranged in the horizontal plane, especially with the tweeters placed on the outer side in context of the other channels, makes his system absolutely worthless, no matter what kind of drivers he uses..."

So, what was Pham thinking? Consider that with all his apparent material wealth, he is still stuck with a room that is narrow relative to its length and relative to the listening distance. When forced to set up in a narrow space, one might be tempted to try placing the HF sources on the outside as Pham has done (I'm not saying its right); this, in the interest of greater perceived channel separation, as humans localize/locate HF more readily than LF.

Pham's original system (see earliest images) was vertically aligned, with only the HF driver off to the side. It looks like he went sideways with the MF horns when he started drinking the Goto Kool-Aid. I'd be willing to bet that future evolutions will have him adding more Goto hardware.

Goto drivers might sound excellent, but I sense that for some, Goto represents more than sound. In these cases, Goto is also filling a prescription and a crack in a foundation. I know such a phenomenon exists with other high-end/luxury products, and this is fine, unless we are talking about art or products that verge on art; here is where I might cringe.

jd*

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