tuga wrote:

As for the "Grande Castine", I think that the MF section is in fact the MF/LF section and the frame is indeed curved.

Marc HENRY wrote:

hi all, thanks for your interest ! yes the frame is curved, HF and MF are // yes there is a phase plug in the bass horn. This cover 80-300Hz. there is a separate infra-bass section, covering 20-80Hz. images of the bass phase plug and the infra-bass section are not available yet... crossover is full passive, firt order. all driver are time aligned for a listening position at a distance of 3 meters and over. much more details comming soon on our website... Best regards, Marco --- http://musique-concrete.com/MC/Galerie.html#17

Marc HENRY wrote:

hi all, thanks for your interest ! yes the frame is curved, HF and MF are // yes there is a phase plug in the bass horn. This cover 80-300Hz. there is a separate infra-bass section, covering 20-80Hz. images of the bass phase plug and the infra-bass section are not available yet... crossover is full passive, firt order. all driver are time aligned for a listening position at a distance of 3 meters and over. much more details comming soon on our website... Best regards, Marco --- http://musique-concrete.com/MC/Galerie.html#17

Well, Marc, what you said addressed all my concerns. The HF and MF are parallel, the upperbass is not. I think it might be OK in this case as your upperbass is dipole that would greatly mask out any phase anomalies. The upperbass is very narrow banded with 80-300Hz. That is a good range foe this topology of horn. I presume it it has a resonance somewhere around 80Hz and with a proper selection of driver it might work very well. The presence of the separate sub 80Hz section imidetaly brings this system from the state of stupid wishful thinking into a realm of very lucid design, my congratulations.

Looking at what you have done I think that the only “slippery” moment in this speaker is the high knee of the upperbass and lover knee of MF. If your MF driver goes down to 300Hz then it is very “pushy” I would say. That would require a good 120Hz -140Hz horn but your MF horn strike me as 170Hz-200Hz horn. I do not know you but let presume that since you did not make other mistakes then you know what you do and what you hear. Then you would not load into a 200Hz Le Cléac’h horn 300Hz compression driver with first order. Well, you might go for it if you need it and it you upperbass cannot go up enough but in your case, having the shallow upperbass horn and a phase plug in the upperbass, you have no necessity to kill the upperbass at 300Hz.  So, if to presuming that you know what you hear and that your speaker sounds good then most likely here is what happen in them. You most likely do not let the MF god all the way down to 300Hz. You might highpass the upperbass at 300Hz electrically with your “crossover is full passive, first order” but in reality a single coil would not stop those drivers. At 300Hz the inductance of those midbass woofers become co-measurable with the inductance of the filter coil, so you crossover point slips all the way up. I might presume that the actual -3dB from upperbass you have at 700-1000Hz that would mask out your lower knee of your MF channel.  So, the octave where your MF and upperbass work together you use as a virtual Macondo’s “Fundamental Channel”. This is might take how your speaker work if it sounds balanced.

Ok, to conclude the things. It looks like from what it presented now the speaker is done with no mistakes and even I can’t find a rational to bitch about them. I nominate this “La Grande Castine” as the second “The most promising ‘best’ commercial horn speaker” right after the Cessaro Gamma. So, how the La Grande Castine sounds? Since there are no strategic mistakes in the design then the speaker will sound as good as the drivers are able to.  I have no idea what drivers La Grande Castine use and it looks as then went into extend to hide the drivers identity. If the drivers are very good then the Castine might sound very promising.

When the information about the bass section become available then, please, post a note.

KLegind wrote:

Hello Marc Henry, I am curious as to why you picked the 4540 driver for HF.

be wrote:

"This topology was invented by Steen Duelund" Ah-hm, ring radiators where not invented or even re-invented by the Steen Duelund dude, just copied. JBL used the priciple 40 years prior to that in: 2402-2403-2404-2405  and Fostex have been using them also: T90 T825 T925 T500. The BMS is indeed a ring radiator. Cheers

Marc HENRY wrote:

La Grande Castine will not be as expensive as Cessaro Gamma. i am sorry but i cannot answer to all questions, for several reasons you can understand. we have tested many drivers since the early prototype of La Grande Castine. BMS were the very first. i am a bit surprised that anybody here recognize the brand name of the bass horn speakers :-) As Romy mentionned, the electric cutoff of the MF is close to the acoustical cutoff of the horn. this is not so audible around 300Hz. i never do such a thing in the 600-3000Hz area ! even if the crossover is 6db everywhere, i confirm that the effective cutoff of the bass horn is really 300Hz. there is no MF pollution comming out of this horn. I am proud of this phase plug :-D

Marco, price is not a mach of a subject at this site. If read around then you will see that quite a few horns systems or ideas were passing thought my attention but very few met any more or less favoriteable acceptance.

As now, there are 2 things that I would mention in context of your speakers.

First: do not be afraid to run your upperbass higher then 600Hz. I do not know how about the 3000Hz but the higher out of upperbass is not a pollution, even though your upperbass has angled axis with all time-alignment consequences. Even if your MF compression driver can handle confidently 300Hz and to produce interesting sonic result while doing it (that I doubt) then it does not mean that your upperbass mast stop at 600Hz. Let presume that you use woofers with copper caps that would control the inductance change (to a degree), even then there is no need to keep the 600Hz firm. (BTW, I do have an idea how you control low pass since you are proud of this phase plug – my compliments and I will go there for the reasons you proposed to understand.) Still, you might feel that in your situation the low-pass of your upperbass sound fine but it might be very much not the case in a slightly different room. An ability of the MF and upperbass to work an octave of a half octave together is a very good tool to control the weight of fundamentals. It would depend from the room and the listening distance. So, if I were you I would tap the coil that roll of your upperbass with 3-6 taps. Letting uses to set electric crossover point at let say 600Hz, 800Hz or 1000Hz. In your specific case (dipole and axis) you shall not worry about the timing problem that would arrive in other cases.

Second: As I understand you are moving from DIY environment to making a Hi-Fi commercial speaker. Respecting the time and money you have devoted to the venture I would like to give you a world of advice. The DIY and High-End commercial trades are very different animals. In DIY you mostly face extremely ignorant, low demand, cronyism driver audio-lumpenproletariat that would kiss you in ass during your diarrhea. The business  “success” in DIY environment is about to be mutually friendly, promise internal loyalty and telling to each idiot you face that s/he is “special”. The High-End commercial trade is very different. As in DIY trade the sound of your speaker is irrelevant. What is relevant would be the amount and the quality of personal you sight up to promote your products. Under the “quality of personal” I mean that you need to built a network of the dirtiest scams around the word, to collect the creatures who would fuck own mother for 3 easy payments of $19.95. Like it or not but those people, not you and not your speaker, will be something that assures the success of your business venture. I wish you sign-on to your projects the dirtiest and the most audio-retarded inhabitants of audio. Then your new acoustic system might get some momentum in this “hobby”

I wish you good luck with your new project. Please, when you finish uploading to your site all public information about the “La Grande Castine” then past a note at my site.

The 6moons put up some pastures and some details. Interesting that Marc refused to comment about the specifics of the driver and this use but the 6moons has published all information.

http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/grandecastine/1.html

As an update of his former article

http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/grandecastine/1.html

Srajan Ebayn of the 6moomsposted the second part:

http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/grandecastine/2.html

It looks like the Marco new revision of his speaks features new drivers, some kind of Titanium midrange and Cyrille Audio 15” cone woofers. I do not know – perhaps it is some kind of mental disorder in my head but I truly did not get what Srajan Ebayn was saying. It was some kind of cacophony of familiar buzz was but they do not form sentences in my head.  To me Srajan more and more sounds like Sarah Palin….

Anyhow, I need to let he Srajan Ebayn go – there is not need to trauma traumatized. Whoever are interested about Marco new revision of loudspeaker might reads the link above. I wish Ebayn would not talk himself but juts quote what was told to him – it would be I am sure less idiocy. I do not have an opinion about the Marco’s new design but there is something the I already very much do not like. Wherever Srajan Ebayn posts, of published elsewhere was signed off by manufacturer.  So, Marco and whoever works with him have seen the picture of Hugues Borsarello - “the concert violinist and electrical designer par excellence” sating with his erected violin next to the speaker.  I understand the Srajan’s motivations: the massaging cheap kitsch and cheese visual superficiality is his destiny. However, when the French guys inspected the article and signed it off for posting then didn’t they see that Hugues’ depicting with a  violin and the speaker is too tasteless?