oxric wrote:

My mistake. I should not use the term Lecleach on this site.

There is absolutely nothing prohibitive in Lecleach profile, it works very nice for HF but the La profile shall not be used in cases where vertical clearance is critical. Guess what? Anyone who do not stick a single Fostex in a horn and call it an acoustic system but instead go multi-channel, any single person have vertical challenge. Even if you have 50 feet ceiling then you still would want to keep your stuck of horns lower and closer to each other.

oxric wrote:

In any case, I wanted to say Fundamental Channel and not Injection channel.

OK, if does make more sense. Your mentioning of horn loaded Injection channel that you “desisted” before having the playback up did sound a bit foolish.

oxric wrote:

And yes I'm perfectly aware of the vertical problems of having Lecleach profiles with a multi-way system and none of the horns I have ordered are LeCleach - they are all tractrix. I did some comparisons with the S2 in a Lecleach horn whilst a friend was here a few months ago. It was not a'kosher' comparison' but I personally preferred the LeCleach even though admittedly the horns from someone in Australia were not how I would have built them. It would be fair to say that my friend who likes the LeCleach felt the 400Hz tractrix combined better with his Fane in a Stereolab 140Hz upperbass horn. But all of this is really not pertinent to the subject of my post really as I doubt I will be able to accomodate Lecleach profiles and would only like to do these comparisons much later on for the sake of my own education.

When you say that your preferred the LeCleach over tractrix then can you elaborate what specifically your preference were based upon?

oxric wrote:

There are only two points that you make here. Since I don't know what configuration I will end up with, I should not worry and waste my energies designing and building a frame for now. I do not agree. The frame is as you say part and parcel of the final system and given that it is multi-way, one needs to at least be able to set up and position three channels relative to each other in the vertical and horizontal plane. Your method of simply fixing the MF atop the upperbass horn which is what I would have to do would make it close to impossible for me to change the spacing between these two channels other than in a very rough and ready fashion. A flexible frame even if I should eventually replace it with a better fixed one (I do not see any compelling reason why I should do this even if my 'flexible' frame is not the optimum solution) is better than no frame at all.

Ok, I would not disagree and do not insist in anything. I just bring my own example- if I design my frame today then it would be slightly different then what I have done in 2006.

oxric wrote:

clinches this argument for me is that I need to find the correct location for these horns in a fairly large room (it is 6mx7m albeit with ceiling height of 2.35m and with a beam going across). I can try to locate the horns across four walls. There is no way that I will be able to easily try these different solutions without an easy means of moving these bulky/heavy horns. What better way than having a frame on wheels?

I was under impression that you do know where you will be positioning your horns. Did you have a playback, any playback, in your listening room before? If yeas then you shell know your room sonically.

oxric wrote:

My question was a fairly generic one regarding the location of especially the Upperbass and MF channels with respect to each other. I mentioned this question here as someone may have had a thought or two based on personal experience which might have been a good starting point for locating the supporting rods in the main mast. I fully intend to work it out for myself so maybe the question was redundant anyway.

There is no definitive answers to it. I use visual clearance from listening position. As long as I can see from my listening position the bottom edge of the MF horn I consider that the clearance is set. How different would it be if it was not “just clearance” but 4.75cm of clearance I do not know.

oxric wrote:

I do not know Romy. I do not know where I will go after living with the Upperbass/MF/LF solution for a year or longer. Maybe just add a tweeter and enjoy my music collection or go to more concerts with my family as the children grow up. That could just be good enough for me. Whatever it is, and I do not think I know any more than I do, it will not be just 'variable' I hope.

Romy the Cat wrote:

oxric wrote: And yes I'm perfectly aware of the vertical problems of having Lecleach profiles with a multi-way system and none of the horns I have ordered are LeCleach - they are all tractrix. I did some comparisons with the S2 in a Lecleach horn whilst a friend was here a few months ago. It was not a'kosher' comparison' but I personally preferred the LeCleach even though admittedly the horns from someone in Australia were not how I would have built them. It would be fair to say that my friend who likes the LeCleach felt the 400Hz tractrix combined better with his Fane in a Stereolab 140Hz upperbass horn. But all of this is really not pertinent to the subject of my post really as I doubt I will be able to accomodate Lecleach profiles and would only like to do these comparisons much later on for the sake of my own education. When you say that your preferred the LeCleach over tractrix then can you elaborate what specifically your preference were based upon?

The first time I listened to the S2 I was shocked by how bad they sounded, and could not be sure which I hated more, the nasal sound of the S2 or the honkiness which at the time I thought derived from the horns they were in. After this, I listened to them when I got to try them on the 400Hz Azura horn LeCleach and the Stereolab tractrix quite a few months ago and the rest of the system was such a mishmash of unlikely partners that I am not too sure my comments are worth taking too seriously at all. The amp was the Almarro 318A or 318B. We had 6-7 S2s here, some of them clearly had problems and were unlistenable but one or two of these gave us what I would now call the idiosyncratic S2 sound. Although the S2 crossed at 500Hz sounded good lower down, I would say what appealed most to me was its lack of distortion, transient speed and detail above. It was something that I thought only electrostatic speakers could achieve but the S2 put the life back into the proceedings and I did not know at the time whether to characterise it as some form of coloration or just having more tone than anything that I had heard until then. It could be for any number of reasons, but the LeCleach Azurahorn crossed high with a 3uF capacitor sounded more natural, with maybe less of the nasal character which I still could detect  underneath it all as some aftertaste of cheese that stays in your mouth long after you have had it . What is even more confusing is that I have now been told by Mike of Vitavox that some of my diaphragms were clearly not original Vitavox issue. Later on, I had a chance to listen to the S2 with plastic surrounds diaphragms in a single 400Hz Stereolab tractrix with the Fane 8Ms in a 140Hz Stereolab Uperbass horn. It is this memory that has convinced me most of the potential of the S2s but on that occasion we did not have the Azurahorn to hand. With regard to the construction of the Azurahorns, there are several reasons why I do not think they are ideal in terms of their construction. They ring quite badly, they are very light and they have a very glossy finish...My Musique Concrete 322Hz Lecleach by Marco Henri are considerably more promising... My horns once they are ready will be delivered to my place in France. I would like to take the Musique Concrete there and listen to these alongside the new tractrix horns, once I manage to buy, borrow or steal some suitable amps. I have over the course of the past two years sold all my amplifiers(other than some old Sony V-fet amps) including my battery powered Audio Consulting only two weeks ago...

With regard to the new listening room in France, I have of course never used it for listening to music as I have only moved there two months ago and most of my equipment is still here in the UK. The children’s toys, my wife’s clothes and some items of furniture had to take precedence when we moved believe it or not.

Best regards
Rakesh