GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: Good midbass is complicated, if not unobtainable.

Post Subject: More THPosted by skushino on: 10/6/2013

Had a wonderful visit with my Japanese friend. But now she's flying West over the Pacific, and I wanted to add my experience to the TH discussion.

The main benefit of the TH is the relatively small mouth compared with a traditional horn.

That's all. Nothing more. THs aren't magic. They need similar volume as alternative bass topologies for a given frequency range. They aren't louder. They don't play deeper. All they do better is have a smaller mouth. This allows a more convenient form factor than a traditional horn, usually a tall slender tube or a large flat box. This allows some placement flexibility. Given real estate limits that most of us cope with, the TH can be a useful tool in some applications.

If I had unlimited real estate and placement options, I would NOT use a TH. The reason being the narrow BW and 'spikey' response above the design BW.

I thought about Romy's triptych idea a couple years ago. The form factor is potentially very attractive. But it's not for me. Given the sole TH benefit is form factor and packaging, then it makes sense to leverage this advantage in an application with the most potential to benefit - this is ULF. Any ULF device needs to be physically large. The TH simply presents an attractive packaging option.

I never came up with a satisfactory reason to use a TH above the bottom ULF channel. A folded midbass horn and straight front horn UBH solution, executed well, have less compromises compared with a TH, in a similar volume. Disclaimer - I never built a small TH for mid and upper bass frequencies. But why would I? I have no interest in testing this concept.

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