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Bass horns vs. box woofers

156.153.255.202
Posted on April 4, 2000 at 14:04:40
Kurt Strain


 
I was thinking there may be a way to get a woofer (or subwoofer) to be a horn loaded unit that covers 50 Hz - 200 Hz in place of the SUB225 in the Avantgarde Duos, as a DIY effort. Wouldn't this help pick the speed of this range of frequencies instead of the sealed box speakers used? And is there any way to build one that can fit somehow in the space where the SUB225 goes. Dimensions need to be about 12" wide by 28" high by 36" deep. And it can't be a corner horn. Efficiency wouldn't matter too much, it can be powered by high powered SS for this range, but it should be able to reach 110 dB at least. The idea is to increase 0-100 dB speed, not efficiency, and make that bass horn slam. Any ideas how to do it? I never built a horn in my life.


Kurt

 

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Re: Bass horns vs. box woofers, posted on April 4, 2000 at 14:53:07
Mike Bates


 
I recommend calling Bruce Edgar. He can build just about any horn you want pretty reasonably, but don't expect it to be done for a least a few weeks if not a few months.

Dr. Edgar 310-782-8076

Another idea would be to get a TAD 15" woofer like the 1601a or 1602 and build a vented cabinet with a side firing woofer. I'm working on a woofer box right now with 2 1601a's, one front firing and one side firing. The bandwith covered will be from 50 to 180 cycles. These woofers are really FAST and detailed. Lot's of slam and air being moved : )

Mike Bates

 

Re: Bass horns vs. box woofers, posted on April 4, 2000 at 17:57:12
Kurt Strain


 
What are the dimensions of this woofer box of yours? I'm kind of wondering how big this gets. Seems like a pretty close match for my midrange horn right there.

Kurt

 

Re: Bass horns vs. box woofers, posted on April 4, 2000 at 22:53:12
Mike Bates


 
The current boxes are experimental and only contain one woofer per cabinet. They were 5 cubic foot but with the additional bracing, dynamat and drywall on the inside of the cabinets they are down to around 4.35 tuned to 38 cycles. The new boxes are almost done and will contain 2 woofers, one front firing and one side firing. The new box is starting out at 11.75 cubic feet but will probably end up at around 10.5 with additional dampening and braces, and tuned to 30 hz.

TAD recommends a 4-8 cu ft box per driver. The single woofer is really good. I got a deal on 4 and figured using two a side in parallel driven with my VTL PP amps should be quite breathtaking. I have been driving the single boxes with SE 300b's and they seemed to really drive them well, better than my 200 wpc Aragon 4004's.

Your dimensions seem to large enough to build a box big enough, it seems they will have to be side firing though. I understand the Jadis Eurythmie speakers have 2 15's in isobaric firing at the floor and crossed over at 180 hz. It seems to work with their large horns, a side firing TAD with your speakers should be fantastic.

Mike Bates

 

That's the " Show Horn ", posted on April 5, 2000 at 04:44:25
mikeo


 
Dr. Bruce already has this unit in his stable. It's about the size that Kurt is looking for. It was designed around the EV 12L driver, cuttoff around 50 hz 110db, initial design around 1988? There was a construction article in Speaker Builder about it. He came up with this unit to mate with the 300 hz midhorn. So, it would be worth a call to Bruce if you have the time and $$$. Or DIY

 

Re: That's the " Show Horn ", posted on April 5, 2000 at 07:33:05
Mike Bates


 
Building a horn to fit in that narrow space and still having response down to 50 cycles would be tricky.

The following link has what I have found to be the most information on the internet to construct your own bass horns (as well as DIY links).

Does anyone know of any other DIY horn links??

TIA

 

Re: Bass horns vs. box woofers, posted on April 5, 2000 at 08:26:14
Tom Brennan


 
Kurt--That's a tall order to get 50 cycles out of a basshorn that size. There is Edgar's Showhorn, as has been mentioned, but I think he's kind'a written that off, from an interview I read it seems he really wasn't that pleased with it. In a 24" cube you can do a copy of the Klipsch LaScala basshorn, that's a real good horn in terms of impact and slam but it doesn't go very deep, 50-60 cycles or so. Basshorns are a bitch, unless you go REAL big or into a corner you have to resign yourself to missing the real low stuff. But they're so clean and dynamic it's worth it (most of the time).

 

Re: That's the " Show Horn ", posted on April 5, 2000 at 08:42:34
Kurt Strain


 
After looking at these informative pages about bass horns it seems that maybe what I have is pretty good already. The SUB225 for the DUO has 100 dB efficiency as it is, a nice feedback control system, flat response, and so forth. I'm not certain a TAD bass reflex would be better, and a horn looks too big to fit. I see why Avantgarde did what they did more clearly now. Too bad I don't have the space for a nice big bass horn. Oh well. Thanks for the informative links. It's been a good education.


Kurt

 

Re: That's the " Show Horn ", posted on April 5, 2000 at 09:37:18
Mike Bates


 
I think you're right. The manufacture probably has some "prototype" bass horns that they built for their reference with their mid and tweeter horns. It's probably HUGE, certainly if it's not folded and intended to be used out in the room. It would be interesting to see if they ever built one.

I still recommend calling Dr. Edgar, he has great knowledge and hand's and ear's on experiance. I ordered a 100 hz tractrix horn from him for my TAD 12's.. hope to get them... some day.

Mike Bates

 

Re: That's the " Show Horn ", posted on April 5, 2000 at 15:01:35
Jim Smith


 
Kurt,

You and Mike are right. There is a HUGE horn woofer protoype design at Avantgarde, but it'd be impractical for most folks. When you look at the TRIO, you see that to go lower, you've gotta get bigger. Or perhaps introduce a folded horn (still not small). There may be other interesting high quality alternatives, such as an Edgarhorn design, but in general, size matters when it comes to low bass and horns...

 

Re: That's the " Show Horn ", posted on April 5, 2000 at 15:44:45
Kurt Strain


 
Hi Jim,

For spherical horns, if you want just 50 Hz bass, I calculate you need a mouth that's 1.414 times larger than the largest horn on the TRIO. That would be about 52 inches in diameter (4.4 feet, or 1.3 meters). For 25 Hz bass, it gets pretty ridiculous at 74 inches in diameter (6.2 feet, 1.9 meters).

Kurt

 

Yup. Anybody remember Dick Burwen's system in AUDIO, with the walk-in horns? (nt), posted on April 5, 2000 at 20:53:51
Bill Leebens


 
nt

 

Re: Yup. Anybody remember Dick Burwen's system in AUDIO, with the walk-in horns? (nt), posted on April 6, 2000 at 01:28:13
Tom Brennan


 
Oh yeah; dedicated building, 5 concrete horns, JBL and CV drivers, who could forget?

 

Like about this size?, posted on April 6, 2000 at 07:33:14
Edp


 
Very clean, and no doubt dynamic.

 

ARCHITECTURAL Asylum!!/DEdicated listening BUILDINGS, posted on April 6, 2000 at 08:55:16
1Joe2Many


 
Speaking of dedicated listening buildings,it seems to me that if you're going to expend such an effort,would it not make sense to build a geodesic dome?(No WAF there either,not to mention the NAF,neighborhood acceptance factor.Oh well,they'll never understand inna 1000 years!)Then you can throw all worries about standing waves,golden ratios,LEDE,etc.out the window!Comments and ridicule welcome!

Joe Robertson

 

Re: ARCHITECTURAL Asylum!!/DEdicated listening BUILDINGS, posted on April 6, 2000 at 10:11:02
Tom Brennan


 
Joe---Sounds good to me. Burwen's listening room even had a wavy ceiling to break things up. It had 3 cocrete basshorns ,about 13" long as I recall, across the front. I forget what drove the basshorns, maybe CVs. Nestled inside the horns down near the throat were JBL 2440s on radials and CV horn tweeters. 2 more horns were inside the side walls and wrapped around and fired in to the rear of the room, was was very large. The mouths of the basshorns were like 12'x12' or something, really big. The rear channels were for ambience. Would make a 1st rate DD rig, no?

 

geodesics, posted on April 8, 2000 at 07:18:50
Bill Leebens


 
Bucky Fuller lived(in a dome) by my piano teacher when I was a kid in Carbondale, Illinois.

I heard his roof leaked!

Cheers, Bill(builder of many virtual domes)

 

Re: ARCHITECTURAL Asylum!!/DEdicated listening BUILDINGS, posted on April 15, 2000 at 00:15:44
djk


 
The mids were dual 2440's on a 2329 throat on a 2350 horn.Anybody want a pair?I just happen to have a complete set.And I have some of the tweeters too,though not enough for nine per channel like Burwen used.You're on your own for the four Empire 16" woofers per channel.

 

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