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In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: Macondo 3.0
Post Subject: Fricken laser beamsPosted by anthony on: 6/24/2023
Romy, sad to hear of your separation. I hope you are ok.
I use one of these to align my horn stacks...
...simple to use, just put it on a camera tripod and wind it up and down to verify the horn pairs are at the same level or the stack is properly aligned longitudinally. Sounds like you could have used one for the shed (ha!). You could use REW (free software) and a relatively inexpensive unit like a Scarlatti 2i2 with a calibrated microphone to align your channels...perhaps easier and more accessible than using Bills Trinnov.
Do you know the sensitivity of the Tannoy Red tweeter? The RAAL Lazy Ribbon is supposed to be 111dB/w/m and it still runs flat out with no attenuation just the losses through a first order filter. A higher order filter requires has more losses and I have to then attenuate the midrange S2 to compensate. The Water Drop at 117dB/w/m? has a whole 6dB more loss to support a higher order filter which is fantastic, but I can't see how the Red tweeter is going to be anywhere near that sensitivity...hopefully I am wrong. That is probably why you are considering the Yamaha amplifiers.
You may have picked up that I am also not 100% happy on the sound of my tweeter. It does sound very good, certainly right up there quality wise, but the room measurements show that I have a minimally delayed reflection in that top octave that I've not spent the time to track down and sort out, as well as needing to fill a shallow but broad droop in the upper frequency response which the biradial horn may help. However, compared to the rest of the horn stack it seems that the highest frequencies are slightly flatter, or slightly slower than midrange and down. That is probably not a useful commentary. Describing physical experiences is often difficult, but perhaps I am starting to understand what you mean about Macondo "not loving you". My fingers are crossed that the biradial horn for the ribbon and the chasing down that early HF reflection will put my mind at ease...but maybe not.
The HF channel brings a LOT to the overall sound, more than I ever would have credited. I listened a long time without it connected (many months) trying to understand the horn stack below those frequencies and I had a very nice sound, but the ribbon brings brought so much more. Adding a DHT second stage to the HF channel for a little more gain has crossed my mind in part because of what the channel actually adds to the sound. My consideration had been to maybe limit it to 2.5V DHT's because much of the wiring etc. is already in place for the tube socket and the YO186 (4V) is going nowhere.
Anyway, those are my thoughts so far. I am sure there were more things I wanted to bring up when watching your video, but alas they are nowhere to be found right now.
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