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In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: The 5-ways from Germany.
Post Subject: Interesting, educational but in many aspects debatable in my viewPosted by Romy the Cat on: 2/5/2018
 martinshorn wrote:
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. 
I do not know if I agree with it. There is no doubts about dynamics, here is your Klaus is correct and you are pitching to a converted. The “maximum dynamics in lows” is a complicated subject but I would not debate it. Where I disagree is that “folding costs you some dynamics” and “you always loose dynamic in a fold. Folding introduce a bunch of resonating chambers and cost audio coloration in most of the cases that do MASK OUT the transient dynamics but folding itself should not have an impact to dynamics itself.
 martinshorn wrote:
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 octaves with horns, made in same style? I am sorry, it is nonsense in my view. The lower you get in frequency the slower horn opening should be, I will stick with this rule. There is absolutely nothing that demands all change to be the same opening rate. For sure when the horns in the same style it does serves great optical benefit. You Klaus looks like did made the horns of the same style. Good for him and I am glad it works for him. However, there is absolutely no need to declare it as some kind of mandatory rule.
 martinshorn wrote:
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. 
Again, I do not agree with it. It is good that you do not use word synergy and the audio reviewers love to use. The section of the best driver in each individual channel does include the assurance that the drivers will be working together and should be evaluated together. Furthermore if proper evaluation is made then the selection of the “best drivers” should ONLY woks as complimentary pairs. There is absolutely no reason why the best drivers would be from a same barrel. 
 martinshorn wrote:
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. 
Good for him but in my books this is the biggest flow in his system. The problem is that he use very fragile drivers that fry like crazy, ask any Goto distributor and they will let you know that true statistics how many tweeter and MD drivers they replace diaphragms. Goto has very light and thin voice coils and they are spectacular. They are also unfortunately very fragile for current handling. This is where the “preferable” 4th order come from. In my view 4th order has too much damage, particularly with speaker level filtration.
 martinshorn wrote:
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.  
Well, I am glad that he does not present it as a mandatory requirement :-). With the size of his horns and with the way how the system is organized for sure the time alignment is very hard to of ever possible. It is what it is, we all were there. It is very much debatable if the 4th order helps the smooth transition in LF. The dreadful “stairs” are afraid but they are the amplitude problem and in my view we do not hear amplitude but phase.  With first order in LF we are much more involve room into play and we smear phase anomalies over speakers and room response. I am not insisting that I am right, I saying that it is debatable.
 martinshorn wrote:
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. 
Possible. Would you be so kind to share what subjective methodology/principle you use to recognize “noticing group delay artefacts of phase problems” in LF.
 martinshorn wrote:
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. 
Sorry, I did not get this. Did you mean the back chamber? No one use phase plugs for 15 inch drivers. If he use 2 x 15 inch drivers and no front chamber then he has a huge throat size and his horns do not use his Goto as compression drivers but have direct radiators blowing into a pipe. I am not saying that it is bad but then he has very low horns equalization and he very much might not need to use the horns but just direct radiators.
 martinshorn wrote:
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 (!) 
Yes, the sandwich woofer is known topology and it with many mini monitors make bass to be “large”. I do not have an experience to use in horns, it does sound very interesting. Also, it make more sense about him using  2 x 15 inch drivers, so it would effectively use one 15 inch driver (thank God that he has no 30 sq inch throat!!!) and another 15 inch driver acts as active back chamber wall. Very sexy but I would not predict the result until I try. Some open baffle people use the techniques to virtually extend the baffle size, putting the drivers at 90 degree to baffle and with small space between them. They however use the drivers in-phase, if you know what I mean…
 martinshorn wrote:
I did listen to Klaus' individual composition. And people fallen in obsession with a specific brand should very much remember this. 
Yes, this is a very valid and very useful comment.

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