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In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: Canadian Speaker Proposal

Post Subject: Canadian Speaker ProposalPosted by de charlus on: 6/21/2013

Dear All,

I wish to commence gathering the components and finding the craftsmen necessary for my DIY speaker project, but wished to bring my proposal before this forum in order to establish whether it's intrinsically worthy, and whether any simple improvements could be made in principle before I begin. I propose to have 5 drivers per speaker - four of which will be spherical horns - arrayed vertically in a superstructure yet to be determined, time aligned, with custom, external crossovers and DSET for each driver. What distinguishes my project from most is that I wish to incorporate the Acapella TW1S plasma tweeter into my array, believing that the failure of Acapella's own efforts has more to do with design flaws, poor integration with inferior dynamic drivers and the lack of time alignment, rather than any intrinsic impossibility of integrating the plasma tweeter with other topologies. I believe that with the highest quality driver units possible, time-alignment, custom crossover and custom DSETs, the potential is there to combine the topologies successfully. I propose to array the drivers, and horns, as laid out beneath, from top to bottom;

Ale Acoustics 160Super (15hZ-1000hZ, 110db/w)15hZ - 150hZ Lower bass

Vitavox AK 151 (50HZ-8kHZ, 100db/w)              150hZ - 350hZ Upper bass

Vitavox S2 (200hZ-16kHZ, 110db/w)                 350hZ - 1500hZ Lower mid

Ale Acoustics 45Super (500hZ-20kHZ, 115db/w) 1500hZ - 6kHZ Upper mid

Acapella TW1S (5kHZ-50kHZ, 110db/w)             6kHZ - 50kHZ+ Tweeter

Now, I really love this tweeter, and believe that with the quality of drivers above - together with their very limited frequency ranges relative to their capacities; there is a theory out there that such limited excursions could lend themselves to better integration with a tweeter commonly regarded as "speedier" than the relatively humdrum drivers to which it is customarily matched: I'd like to at least explore this possibility - and the other expedients I have mentioned, that this could be a very good speaker.

I also have a specific question; this will be quite a tall speaker - is there any tangible benefit to be gained from perhaps angling the upper two drivers slightly downward towards the listening position, as some designers do (Cessaro, Goto), or should all drivers be horizontal as is more customary?

Additionally, has anyone fashioned horns from Canadian Rock Maple? This strikes me as being a potentially good material, particularly as i reside in Canada presently.

Regards
de Charlus

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