I have Heresy IIIs - a fairly cheap speaker as horns go - and they image better than some 2-way monitors I've had in house. They only require a bit more distance to do so.
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I do think both are useful and fun, but we should be careful about being sure when we join one to the other. Best, E |
Duke has made some great comments addressing the topic, answering it to its fullest. If you don't get the nerdy part of it, it translates as: "A well designed horn images as well as any other speaker". Having made a good number of my own recordings, I can attest to that fact, by using those same recordings. Its not just theory- horns have been some of the most musical and involving speakers I've heard (Duke's amongst them, and his are unusually good deals on top of that), including their ability to image and play depth. |
@phusis wrote (in a reply to me): "my main gripe comes with questioning the usefulness, in some instances at least, of knowing about minutiae design "tech details" and how these are convertible into or relate to actual perceived sound. The designer/developer him- or herself should have a closer bearing perhaps, but oftentimes I feel such knowledge presented to the end user, illuminating it may be as a field and entity in itself, has a tendency to produce disciples almost or followers of a brand/principle rather than critical, informed individuals that would seek not to equate too easily." Erik’s thread is entitled, "Why don’t horns image well?", and the entire text of his opening post is, "Anyone have a theory?". In asking for theories, it seemed like Erik was inviting "tech details" as well as how they "relate to actual perceived sound". My mistake. I don’t wish to impose anything unwelcome on you or on anyone else. Duke |
^ I suspect the reason the design philosophy has not caught on with many other manufacturers is that they’re not up to the challenge. It’s a lot easier to ignore the time element than to execute it correctly. Intetestingly, both companies have been amongst the most successful high end US manufacturers. |
To give an example of this, there's time coincident speakers like old Thiel and current Vandersteen. Despite the technical claims made for them, the overall design has not overwhelmed the speaker industry. Lots of fun to talk about, and an interesting engineering challenge, but the final result has mixed reviews. This one concept does not seem to have convinced the market. Best, E |
I guess my main gripe comes with questioning the usefulness, in some instances at least, of knowing about minutiae design "tech details" and how these are convertible into or relate to actual perceived sound. The designer/developer him- or herself should have a closer bearing perhaps, but oftentimes I feel such knowledge presented to the end user, illuminating it may be as a field and entity in itself, has a tendency to produce disciples almost or followers of a brand/principle rather than@phusis Very well put. There’s a chasm between theory and measurements vs. perception and desirability. Some companies, like JBL, Bose and Harman, make perception and desirability a hallmark of their research in addition to the speaker physics they are so well known for. I also agree, a lot of this is a lot of fun to talk about, but perception may be a whole other story. The late Linkwitz was one of many experienced engineers and audiophiles who also promoted this view. My recommendation for every audiophile: Build at least 1 pair of loudspeakers in your hobby career. You’ll be a much better informed consumer than everyone who has not. Best, E |
@audiokinesis --
My aim with your earlier quoted statement wasn’t specific, but obviously that can be problematic in itself - sorry for not being more clear. I appreciate your info on the OSWG’s - I remember reading Mr. Geddes "White Paper" (i.e.: thesis or whatever) on this matter, and it was an interesting read. It seems to truly benefit from this design and minimize internal reflections within the horn as proposed a foam plug of some specific type is needed, but he may have patented this solution. I guess my main gripe comes with questioning the usefulness, in some instances at least, of knowing about minutiae design "tech details" and how these are convertible into or relate to actual perceived sound. The designer/developer him- or herself should have a closer bearing perhaps, but oftentimes I feel such knowledge presented to the end user, illuminating it may be as a field and entity in itself, has a tendency to produce disciples almost or followers of a brand/principle rather than critical, informed individuals that would seek not to equate too easily. Perhaps I come off setting the bar too low here; I don’t mean to imply the worst of people, but pragmatically speaking I believe this is what marketing does in many cases. That wasn’t what I got away with reading your posts above. As an endeavor I also have very high respect for Mr. Weiss’ OMA speakers, and look forward to hearing them at some appropriate point in the future. They’re a revival or testament of sorts to speakers as they really should be: large (as physics dictate), highly sensitive (to be used in conjunction with the topologically most simply tube amps), and made with natural, high quality materials where design follows function (and not the other way round); speakers that takes place in one’s home environment as uninhibited and beautifully imposing sound (re)producers. As much though as OMA is a celebration almost of old-school horn/-hybrid speakers, that overall vibe is tempered somehow by the insistence on the use and prowess of the conical horn profile as the best of the bunch, and at the same time shooting into the corner the rest as sub-standard material that can’t rise to the level of something (equally?) good. It’s arrogant, I find, and unfortunate/uninformed really. Like saying: horn speakers are great, as long as they’re mine. That may not be what Mr. Weiss truly feels about the matter, but it comes off that way. I guess that was my specific aim.. |
I was in the room next to Volti for several years at RMAF, where Greg was showing the Vittoras. Magnificent speakers. Being a competitor I really wanted to hear "something wrong": with them, and utterly failed. Kudos to Greg Roberts for his speaker designs, and for making his expertise available to people with Klipschorns and Klipsch Belles. Duke |
Oz, How much does the Volti Crossovers Improve the sound of the originals? Mine has the AK3 installed. I've already bought the Volti Mid range throat, and am going to try the original mid range cone to hear what they sound like with a 2" throat, if not very good then will try and save the pennies for the BMS mid range and crossover and........ Sorry Eric for sort of hijacking your post. |
@phusis wrote: " but in any event I find singling out particular horn geometries as "the best" to be more of a marketing ploy to boost business than a marker of the diversity of great sounding horns out there." My statement about the Oblate Spheroid profile was based on my understanding that it is the mathematical optimum for minimizing detrimental internal reflections within the horn. There are other profiles optimized for other things - minimum phase, wavefront preservation, etc. Duke |
Perhaps some horns don’t image well but the Avantgarde Trio’s I heard some 20 years ago imaged spookily well off an old vinyl playing a Jazz combo. The only other speaker that came close for sheer imagery alone was an old Quad 57 channeling some male opera voice. The tightness of the image was uncanny. I bought them, and they were just average on Springsteen. They needed space and I didn’t have any. Is it fair to say that (as well as a suitable recording) plenty of space behind the speaker is essential for good imagery? |
Horns: Why don’t they image well? Horns can image very well, I find - certainly going by my own all-horn speakers. Perhaps there’s an aspect of horn speakers imaging differently compared to direct radiating speakers due to their dispersion characteristics of directivity, and hereby limiting to an extend early reflections and room interaction as a whole (i.e.: a relatively bigger share of direct sound than reflected ditto), but as perceived sound I find it makes less sense with such a distinction. Whether horn speakers in general (and they span a variety of iterations be that from mostly hybrids to the more rare all-horns and everything in between that, frankly, makes broad statement to claim one or the other seem somewhat befuddling) are to be found to image badly should fall back on one’s (perhaps lack of) experience with horn speakers or be a matter of mere preference due to "something other" about the way they image, that may even have one believe they don’t image at all. Another aspect comes to mind, and that’s the typically more pronounced sensation of solidity or density and presence in the sound of quite a few horn speakers, that can be perceived as less airy and more as a quality (to some at least) as music happening in-the-room kind of way, that deters from a more a laid-back, "thinner," behind-the-plane-of-the-speakers and at-arms-length sound that may "stimulate" the sensation of imaging. I find the latter quality beguiling, but ultimately prefer the former as the more uninhibited and natural/live presentation. Many ways to skin your cat, really. JMLC horns can sound wonderful, OSWG’s I’ve owned (and yes, they image very well), and currently, for the last almost three years I’ve used horn speakers with Tractrix mids and tweeter horns (and folded bass horn) which throw a very convincing stage in front of me (they’re present sounding; not in-your-face). Never heard conical horns the likes of OMA, but in any event I find singling out particular horn geometries as "the best" to be more of a marketing ploy to boost business than a marker of the diversity of great sounding horns out there. |
@gawdbless and @d2girls, you might also want to check out Room 542, where Peter Noerbaek (of PBN) will be showing his M2!5’s... same horn and compression driver as the JBL M2, but TWO of the M2’s woofers, if I understand correctly. My guess is that speaker will do a LOT of things very well. Assuming I get a chance to sneak away at some point, probably Sunday morning, THAT’s the room I’m heading for. Also I plan to hit the Classic Audio Reproductions room, a perennial favorite of mine, another big and actually beautiful horn speaker with amazing field-coil drivers. D2girls, you’ve got JBL 4367’s, right? So you are done with speaker shopping. But if you don’t mind, I’d love to get your brutally honest opinion of how my system compares. And in my comments above where I was talking about reflections in horns, I forgot about this latest generation of JBL horns. I think their unusual internal geometry is specifically aimed at making sure internal reflections are directed away from the listener, and I bet they do an excellent job of it. Duke |
@d2girls asked: "what horns will be in room 3002?" One of mine, a new model making its debut. It’s called the Azel Stand Mount, and it’s not up on my website yet. 12" midwoofer, 1" throat Beryllium-diaphragm compression driver on a 15" SEOS waveguide-style horn. Rear-firing tweeter compensates for a radiation pattern mis-match between midwoofer and horn by fixing the spectral balance of the reverberant field. Crossover is kinda neat in a kinda nerdy way... starts out first-order and then accelerates to fourth-order. Two pluggable ports to work with different boundary reinforcement situations, and user-adjustable treble-tilt via a high-quality external resistor. @gawdbless asked: "hey Duke can you please confirm what speaker/s you will have in the 3002?" The entire system also includes the new "SuperStands" (so named because there just isn’t enough hyperbole in high-end audio these days). The SuperStands incorporate a built-in subwoofer and an adjustable coaxial driver dedicated to the reverberant field, the latter being an application of the "Late Ceiling Splash" and/or "Space Generator" concepts I’ve shown with a few times. The SuperStands will theoretically work with most stand-mount speakers. Finally we’ll have two (optional) outboard subs positioned somewhere in the room, so that we’ll have four distributed subwoofer modules in total. Placement flexibility is not quite as good as with the Swarm because two of the subs are stuck doing double-duty as speaker stands, but we still expect to get pretty good modal smoothing. "I hope to pop in, nay WILL pop in......." SWEET!! Looking forward to it. Didn’t you show a killer system with Mangers in a rounded upper cabinet once upon a time? Duke |
Oh Erik!I am really disappointed in you...and I'm not saying that tongue in cheek either! First, let me say that I have deliberately not read any of the other responses before writing my own. Let me just say that I have owned some vert fine speakers , known for good imaging such as Proac, Nestorovic, Dahlquist Focus Audio and many others. My Klipsch Epic CF-4 speakers image as well as any of them, and larger than most of them. I know that you're a smart guy, and much more knowledgeable than myself, so I will only say that if you truly believe that horns don't image well, you must not have listened to the right ones yet. If you're ever in the Phoenix area, please drop in! |
Love the topic! Thank you Eric!! Most horns are designed with acoustic amplification as the top priority. A few are designed with low coloration as the top priority, Some of those have the potential of imaging well. I’ve been working with horns and waveguides for many years now, and during this time I’ve had the privilege of working with Earl Geddes, whose waveguide-based designs (a waveguide being a particular type of horn in this context) image extremely well and totally disappear as the apparent sound source. Okay time to get nerdy: The ear/brain system gets its localization cues from the first approximately .68 milliseconds of sound. In that time, sound travels about 9 inches (corresponding to the distance around the head from one ear to the other). A poorly designed horn has lots of opportunities to screw things up within this time window. Reflections and diffractions within the horn will happen during that first .68 milliseconds. Diffraction (from sharp edges and discontinuities) is worse than reflections. Reflections within the horn are inevitable, but some geometries generate more internal reflections than others, and/or direct more of these internal reflections towards the listener than others. My understanding is that the best horn geometry from the standpoint of internal reflections is the Oblate Spheroid (what Earl uses). I use a Super-Elliptical Oblate Spheroid which comes very close, and which may have a couple of advantages in other areas. So to sum it up, proper horn geometry is absolutely crucial if imaging matters. Most horns screw up that first .68 milliseconds of sound, but a few are benign in this respect. Those are the ones that have the potential to image well. Here is a link to a show report that comments on the imaging of one of my systems. My room is covered starting about 1/4 of the way down from the top of this page, and the writers are Tyson and Pez (Jason) from AudioCircle.com, who for several years (before they burned out) were arguably doing the most precise show reports of anybody because they pre-selected their rooms, listened to the same few short revealing tracks in each room, wrote quickly, and then moved quickly to the next room on their list: https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=120504.msg1267150#msg1267150 In his subsequent "Best Of" report, Pez had us tied with several rooms for second place. For some reason I can’t post the link. Anyway, he wrote: "This room had the most locked in soundstage and imaging I have ever heard bar none with dynamics to match. The sweetspot is just an incredible experience and really musical top to bottom." Did you catch that? A HORN system had "the most locked in soundstage and imaging I have ever heard bar none". Tyson had us tied with one other room for first place and wrote: "Basically did everything as well or better than any other speaker at the entire show... And, amazingly, they did it with zero room treatments." (We have good radiation pattern control and we aim those patterns intelligently, so we can get away without room treatments if we want to.) If anybody is going to be at RMAF 2018 next weekend, you are invited to Room 3002 to find out firsthand whether or not "horns done right" can image well, and/or otherwise compete on the basis of freedom from coloration, natural timbre, disappearing as the apparent sound source, precision, and whatever else horns traditionally are presumed to not do well. Duke got dogs in this fight! |
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It presents a different perspective than dynamic speakers. I was a very long time electrostat listener (started with old Quads in 1973). I switched to horns (Avantgarde Duo) and SET (Lamm ML2) in around 2006-7. A much more 'in the room' presentation, very dynamic, biggest drawback has nothing to do with image, but continuity with bass. Frankly, many of the audiophile attributes go out the window for better or worse-- that 'performers in the room' quality is something that gives me a very good sense of the stage if there is one on the recording. (Sometimes it is simply a concoction of multi-tracking). In an appropriately sized room, the overall presentation is sizable and depending on source material, very dimensional. Much of the dimensional quality I attribute to the upstream components. For example, changes in phono stage made a considerable difference in the very specific placement of instruments. All that said, this does not sound like a good dynamic speaker system, something I can also enjoy if it is well assembled and set up in the room. I've had pretty good sounding rooms for these systems over the years and that also plays a big part. There is magic in horns + SET if it grabs you the right way. And I've heard my own speakers sound pretty terrible with the wrong amp. |
@ozzy62, I have the possible option of taking down a wall and therefore gaining another 17' or so. although the width would remain at 13'. I just have to bend a certain ear that I am listening to close as horns need to be blasted, not to mention they have no precision and I could loan them to the Broncos if they need a PA system.......... |
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Need big enough room, and enough space from the horns for the waves to disperse proper. Bit late now, I already have them.lol. Of course they can go ear bleeding loud if one desires, of which I do not do. My level is always (mostly) a sedate listening level, after all don't want the kitties to do 'a runner' do we? How large a room would you say is adequate for the Klipschorns? Anyone else think my room is not large enough? |
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No idea. I’m only dropping in because, although I’ve heard horn designs here and there over the years, I wish I had more experience with them. (My room set up has never favored horns, though). Just for clarity: what exactly do you consider to constitute a horn design? Is it any speaker that uses some form of wave guide? I felt the jbl Everest speakers were the best (or at least my favourite) at the last audio show I attended. Beautiful timbral reproduction of an orchestra, great dynamics, and I don’t seem to remember thinking the imaging sucked. But then again I’m not sure how much I was paying attention to that. |
