GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: A Moscow setup with Horns/Lowther

Post Subject: Missed opportunities (or maybe not).Posted by oxric on: 2/28/2011

This gentleman's set-up makes me think very much of the one I have in mind for my new room in due course.

Whilst as Romy points out, the room might well be on the small side, it has a very high ceiling (say 4.5 m) that in my mind always presents fabulous opportunities. I remember many years ago when my listening room had such a high ceiling. It did have the most breathtaking view over Tynemouth cliffs and further out to the open expanse of the British channel, and why one would want to ruin the view with speakers might be inscrutable to some...but that's neither here nor there.

If I were in the fortunate situation of this Russian gentleman, I would move the present bass horns to the side to take care of 60-100 Hz and add an upper bass horn on the floor, that would go to 500Hz where presumably the Rullit drivers might take over up to 8KHz. This would also allow him to try the 'd'Appolito' arrangement with another pair of upper bass horns. This is what I would myself very much like to try if I had the ceiling height that he has...

As for the lower frequencies, the high ceilings give him an infinite number of possibilities, but he might try a tapped horn in the alcove in the far left corner of the room where he has applied some room treatment, or very simply two or three 18" drivers.

It looks to me as if this gentleman has only started out and is in the early stages of experimenting with his set-up but is already playing with some fairly advanced ideas, and is willing to think out of the box. Provided he has the ability to understand his system and its shortcomings, and the humility to see where it needs to be worked on (and I would hasard nothing suggests this is not the case), he may well be on his way to achieving a very nice well-balanced system. I do not like the idea of the dual Goto drivers but that seems to be the overwhelming advice coming out of of that predatory company and its dealers so the Russian fellow cannot be completely blamed for this.

If you do not mind, can someone explain the use of large tracts of foam in this set-up? I imagine it must be in order to avoid reflections on the floor and that may be quite important here given the 2m long or so distance where the bass horns 'couple' with the floor. Again I think that could have been used to good effect differently, for instance if the horns were literally lifted off the floor to ceiling height, which would also enable a much less curved section behind the horn. In this situation, it might well be the flat part of the horn becomes an asset as it enables the horns to couple to the ceiling? It would also free a large amount of floor space. That's definitely what I WOULD DO.

Regards
Rakesh

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