manisandher wrote:

For the past few months, I’ve been looking for a solution to a problem – how to recreate through speakers the same sound that I get through headphones.

manisandher wrote:

I’m totally bought into the idea that well-implemented horns are the way to go. But therein lies the problem – implementing horns well seems to be a life-long endeavour... one that I just don’t have the time or inclination to pursue.

manisandher wrote:

So, what am I left with? Well... no horns, for now. Remember, we’re talking $30-$50K for each system. So firstly, I need to be convinced that I’d have a good chance of getting the sound I want. And I’m just not sure how to proceed on this front.

If I were in your situation and if I was insisting in horns then I would make a small 2 ways $1000-$2000 configuration. Something very flexible, very inexpensive what I would model as I wish. Let take for instance a ported enclosure with Altec 416 drivers, aka Altec 19, Altec 5/7, RCA LC-9A and alike. The Altec 15” are good driver and they are cheap. This bass enclosure will fill a room with all possible noises, they are very far from perfect but they  are OK and they are well less annoying then the most of the speakers for $30-$50K would do. You can get Altec 19’s bass section for $1000 or less. It not supposes to be Altec 19 – there are zillion home brewed designs around the Altec 416 ported drivers. The key in here is to kill sub 700Hz region with a single hit from a more or less good vintage driver and do not pay for it more than $1000.  Then you can get some kind 250Hz -350Hz horn and would load it with whatever driver you like. Soon or later you will find the one that you appreciate. The MR horn would cost a few hundred dollars, the MF driver would cost more but you will buy it ONLY if you have very own reason to lake them. Eventually if you would like you will be able to expend your playback around what you like in your sound and be able to capitalize on what you feel is importation for you.

You see, my definition of High-End Audio is deferent then most of the people. People feel that High-End Audio is when they go to Bert Doppenberg from BD Design or to Holger Fromme from Avantgarde Acoustics and learn something from their speakers.  To me it sounds ridicules! High-End Audio is when a person goes to BD Design or Avantgarde Acoustics and to educate them how sound shall be and BD Design or Avantgarde Acoustics are trying to fulfill this demand. If they are not structured or not able to do it then I see no use from them in High-End Audio. If I hire a contractor to paint my house to rearrange pluming then who dictate conditions: me or my contractor? The High-End Audio is accustomed to deal with idiots and truly it is not so difficult to please an idiot. So, the bottom of it is that acoustic system is not a CD player or a better capacitor and there are a lot of active dependencies and conditions in there.  If I intend to spend $50K for acoustic system then I would ask myself how important for me that I will be getting for my $50K and how what I will be getting will reflect what I need.

Honesty, I do not feel comfortable to advance one of another direction or topology in speaker in this none-specific case. You might talk with somebody who like you started from scratch. In this site you will see op9, Jessie, me - to name a few who built own sound. Was it worth it? Hard to say – financially and time-wise I would say that probably it was not. You can do it ONLY of you have own interest to do it. If you do not have the interest in the PROCESS and would like to get result then probably it is better to hire help or to go for off-the-shelf solution. The twist in it is that I personally never was able to appreciate or understand Result until I went over the ceremony of conceiving of the result. It is not for everyone. Some people can get “it” buy own talents or whatever. Some people just think or just claim that they “get” it. I am not one of them. It never was easy for me and it looks like I away needed to make my share of mistake and faulty realizations in order to eventually recognize “how it shall be“.  I very much not at the delusion that the results I get or anybody else get are some a kind of “final stage” of realization. But the “final assessment” is absolutely irrelevant to me as I do not compete with anything beside my own interest to play with my own realization

So, in context of above, when you think about your playback then you need to ask yourself:  what is your interest? If you just looking for sound in family room then there zillion opportunities and I do not see why horns, DSETs of any other “PandoraBox-type” of solution needed to be rendered in there. To your son (who will be growing around your playback) will be absolutely irrelevant if it will be 6-way multi-amped horns or a table radio boombox. In fact if it will be boombox then we will have more money for dentist, school lunches, collage, and more time spent with his dad.  If you insist in well-implemented horns then you need to give to yourself a very clear definition of what you are looking and how much you are willing to sacrifice for it. It might be a pain-in-ass journey or a fun ride – it all depends from what are your interests.  Life is what we sell to ourselves….

The Cat

nietzscheflake wrote:

I am also thinking about how to get that headphone sound in my house and am contemplating the horn route…

It ‘s fine but never forget that the imitation of headphones sound is NOT something that need to be targeted by your acoustic systems.

nietzscheflake wrote:

I have researched and think these drivers might be an good starting point for midrange http://professional.celestion.com/pro/products/cdx/detail.asp?ID=9  Of course there might be "more interesting" things out there.

Perhaps, I do not know this driver. Generally pure titanium  might be a bit “hard” sounding driver for home use. What you need to look is how that titanium diaphragm is suspended. JBL in past came up with own “diamond” metal suspension, and they later use solidifyable damper over the titanium diaphragms - I was not a huge fan of it. I like when titanium diaphragm, or any other metal diaphragm by suspended in semi-soft spider:  plastic or polymer for instance. The driver you mentioned uses polyimide suspension. Polyimide is one of the plastics, so it shell somehow subdue the typical titanium nastiness. How good it works all together – who knows… I am sure that the people who design this driver do not really know how it might sound in your application…

el`Ol wrote:

Titanium diaphragm drivers that are completely free of the titanium nastiness (you can believe me, I usually show strong allergic reactions to it) are the Eighteensound drivers with titanium nitride coating. I heard one in the Duevel Sirius.

el`Ol,

again, I think we make a strategic mistake, attributing applying accidental experience as a foundation for some kind of general rules. The Duevel Sirius is VERY different type of speaker where high frequency is being lost a LOT for omni- directivity. Remember in CD horns we need to EQ HF as with conventional drivers juts because the dispersion is unproportionally wide for HF? In case of Duevel Sirius it I not CD directivity but fully omni – it has even more natural HF lost. So, I do feel that for them to use brittle HF driver, or even the drivers with typical titanium resonances at 20K -30K would not be a big deal as they would be severely deferred by HF lost, not to mention that they would dampen but the throat reactance of omni-horn.

I did not use the titanium nitride cones; they might be different from regular titanium domes. From what I have seen I more prefer the titanium domes imbedded into plastic. Saying all of it I would like to note that titanium itself is not a problem. The problems that very seldomly, if ever people design titanium application with respect to sound, they rather design drivers with respect to theories. I am very sure that if people design drivers with respect to sound then no matter what kind materials of diaphragms would be the driver will out the same sound.  It would be different use of the diaphragms but the sound would be the same. We do not have it. We have a driver and we begin to load it with diaphragms of the different materials and we have different sound. So, we attribute that sound to this material. This is wrong as we need to attribute not the material to sound but rather the given application of the material to the sonic results. We do know how for instance identical aluminum and titanium domes behave in the same driver. But we forget to acknowledge that the aluminum can not be unpunishably substituted with titanium in the same driver because if a driver is “made foe sound” then such a change would destroy very fine and very intricate diaphragms/damping/loading balance…

To my ears the Duevel Sirius has some kind of false transparency I also know from The Focal titanium tweeters, so maybe there are metal artefacts, but I didn't find if painful or annoying. Nevertheless, I find this is an unnecessary gimmick, so my next project will have a BMS driver.

Paul S wrote:

Mani, my first thoughts were questions, whether you want to fill the room "like headphones fill your head" or you want to aim the speakers right at your ears and "do the mixing inside your head, like headphones".

Romy the Cat wrote:

The well-implemented horns or well-implemented anything … they are just tools; they are like colors that still need to be used by an artist to become a beautiful painting…..

Romy the Cat wrote:

I mean instead so going for a playback that would do “everything” (it realty it might do nothing) you might start from a cheap playground playback in context of which, you can model what you like and where you might be able to find something upon which you might what to capitalize in your future full-scale, larger playback.