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In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: The 5-ways from Germany.
Post Subject: Some more background on that systemPosted by martinshorn on: 2/5/2018
Hi Romy,
Again, good words (don't want to kiss your ass 
). Though, I get your point and agree, one should not think that this winter picture means Goto sound cold (u never know what one could read out of it) .
What Klaus also highlighted, is the importance to him to unlimit dynamics - in order to achieve the most live-alike sound.
First of all, he noticed that Goto pleases him the most with uncompressed transient attacks more than other drivers.
Of course this means to have horns in all octaves. To also have maximum dynamics in lows.
Same importance to him was not to fold any horn, because folding costs you some dynamics (even if you fold and filter well to prevent coloration), you always loose dynamic in a fold.
Designated amps (Active) are of course non-negotiable to support this further. It took him many mocups and trash to find this final ones.
Then it was important to have all octaves with horns, made in same style. One of his secrets was, to design all channels coherent, meaning having the same character.
All drivers shall have the same flavor. For him, it is better to choose e.g. a tweeter that plays a little less good but matches the rest, rather than taking the best in each channel but not merging into one harmonic total. That's why it was important to choose all drivers Goto, and all preferably from the same series with same diaphragm material. He admits, there was one better tweeter model in the goto-portfolio, but he wouldn't like to disturb the harmony they all have together as one.
Many people make the mistake to pick the best, neglecting the collaboration. My ears could very much confirm consistency in all channels.
He also prefers filter of 4th order, and crosses in the very latest version with 90-300-1600-6600 cycles all in same filter typology.
The time alignment is being precisely "absolute" between super tweeter and tweeter (6600).
The alignment between tweeter and midrange is done "relative" to have the mouth almost aligned (prevent reflections) but still slightly offset. To merge both at the 1600 cycles in one positive non cancelation period of the wave. So the tweeter is only slightly set back, however it improved the phase response a lot.
A similar relative alignment is done between mid-bass-sub channels, where rather the mouth is aligned but you have a smooth continuous increasement of groupdelay downwards.
Considering the phase-shift of 4th order, it very well might be a smooth transition without "stairs" in the groupdelay.
He had an engineer doing the precise final alignment with measurements for timing only.
I must say, I'm trained noticing group delay artefacts of phase problems especially in the lows. And I could not hear any smeared transients. Considering that bad filters often cause 10 times worse effects than such 4 meter offset in the lows, this even sounds logical. I was surprised with this too.
Last but not least, I was very happy to have someone confirming my vague theory, the basshorn pre-chamber very much influences the sound in terms of speed and transient.
Prechamber volumes must be avoided and are not to be overcome with phase plugs. He designed the long bass horn 4 meter long from driver to mouth. Utilizing 2 x 15 inch Gotos. But the horn continues further behind the drivers to infinite small size. So that actually no pre chamber exists, just the drivers have an offset from the point-zero, as much as needed to fit the big drivers onto the horn.
Also adding a slight advantage, one driver plays with front-face in phase, the other 15 incher plays out of phase with the rear-side. This cancels out any remaining assymetric behavior of the bigger heavier non-compression drivers. My ears also confirm the superb lightness and speed and ease of precision in the whole bass. So as the consistency of flavors, this was pointed by me before he even explained the design typology behind to achieve this (!)
These are his first fundamental principles of that setup that came to my mind for now.
I must say, it is nice to see and understand, that a systems quality is not about the individual component but the harmony of combination.
So in a way, I did not listen to "goto". I did listen to Klaus' individual composition.
And people fallen in obsession with a specific brand should very much remember this.
It is what you design out of it, not which component you can afford.
I would not be surprised if Klaus had built similar quality with non-goto drivers, but same understanding of design principles.
cheers
Josh
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