High Efficiency Speaker Asylum

Posted by Steve Schell (M) on August 23, 2007 at 20:47:20

In Reply to: RE: so those tar-filled Altec horns, they are just for show? posted by LousyTourist on August 23, 2007 at 13:52:50

The perfect horn would function simply as a immovable boundary for the air column, neither adding nor subtracting energy. The tar filled multicellulars were an ambitious, expensive assault on that goal, no snake oil in sight :^) . They really do work well.

Cast aluminum can do the job if it is thick and heavy enough to resist being set into motion by the pressures in the horn. RCA-fan's excellent AH! horns are probably the best current example. The original circa 1953 Altec H-811 was not too bad- it was actually heavier than the tar filled horn it replaced. Later ones got progressively thinner and more ringy though.