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In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: Big mama 1.5" horns....
Post Subject: More on the 160Hz horns....Posted by cv on: 9/9/2006
Allo fellas,
Regarding pricing, best if you check with Martin; I know what I'm paying but I had to commission them specially - I know a hell of a lot of work went into making the mould, jigs to support the mould, etc etc. Actually the 340s were my commission too, so nice to hear that there are others in use in the UK :-)
To address some of the other points:
1) Cutting
Martin thinks he can cut them and mould a flange on to each part such that the join will be perfect, or at least, of the same order as eg textured paint. I'm therefore not too worried about any detrimental sonic effects.
Obviously it makes shipping and transportation a pain. Uncut implies sea transit which will take a few months. Martin mentioned that he almost didn't manage to get them out of his estate car, which would have resulted in the coolest car stereo ever.... To be honest, despite what I said earlier, I'm more worried about being able to get them in and out of the flat than the shipping expense.
2) Different throat sizes
Martin can mould on any throat size desired. I have S2s and RCAs which are also 1.5" so decided to keep it simple, though Hasquin's approach is obviously great for flexibility and much more applicable to wooden horns such as his... the idea for the horns was more motivated by use with the RCAs, which Steve Schell reckons are very happy at 300Hz 1st order or 250Hz 2nd order. But I am as interested in hearing what the S2 can do down low, c 450Hz, on such a horn.
3) Damping
Had *exactly* the same idea as you Neil re Sonotube. Was thinking of a layer of plaster of paris or sand/resin around the horn, then filling up the remainder of the tube with expanding foam.
My guess would be that reflections off the sonotube are probably less damaging than from the backs of the unmounted horn, and it would be easy to have an absorbing layer around the tube, but I hear you about the driver spacing issue. More "ways", as with Romy's latest setup, are clearly a plus from this standpoint.
4) The sad part of the story...
They were commissioned a while ago, before my plans involved moving to NYC with work... I'm not sure if the horns will fit the NY apartment... going to attempt a mock up and discuss with the girlfriend. She thinks they look terrific (can't disagree) so we shall see, but they may have to stay in the UK, in which case I will get to play with them on London visits, weekends and school holidays. It's a shame because the (studio) in the UK is 25x25ft and would be the perfect size for a balls-out system to challenge the Cat's.
So at the moment, the most likely delivery point is the UK. Are you guys able to email me from the site?
Cheers
Chris
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