Why not horns?

Herman - I just clicked on the link in your entry above and it took me directly to Bill's homepage.
Are other people having a problem accessing Acoustichorn.com?

Here's agood replacement driver for you Microjack!

http://www.eighteensound.com/index.aspx?mainMenu=view_product&pid=232

Herman wrote: "Macro, you should look into getting a true horn for that compression driver. What you have looks more like a megaphone than a horn. I don't doubt you are pleased with the sound from it but I wonder what it would sound like with what I would call a true horn."

The horns Bill Woods makes are conicals, which are onstant-directivity type. Equalization is essential with a conical (or any other constant-directivity horn); if not equalized properly, it does indeed sound like a megaphone. But once equalized properly, they have a very desirable characteristic. Let me explain:

A compression driver all by itself (no horn) will have a very wide pattern at the lower end of its range and a narrow pattern at the upper end - just like any direct-radiator piston. When this output is forced into a constant angle by a conicial horn, the result is over-emphasis of the lower end of the driver's spectrum (megaphone effect). Without the horn, the response was good on-axis, but poor off-axis; now with the conical horn, it is equally bad both on-axis and off-axis. But this is actually a window of opportunity - when we fix one, we also fix the other! So we equalize in the crossover, and now not only is there no megaphone effect, but the sound is quite uniform across the entire angle that the horn covers. In my opinion this is very desirable and well worth all the trouble we just went through, as now the reverberant energy will have nearly the same spectral balance as the first-arrial sound (a characteristic of live voices and instruments that most speakers fail to emulate).

One very slight downside to a round horn is that the horn's mouth reflection is equidistant from the central axis, which results in an on-axis dip. The location of this dip varies with the diameter of the horn and the listening distance. But the fix is quite simple: Listen from about ten degrees off-axis, and the dip disappears.

Duke

Macrojack I took at look at the spec sheet for the woofer in your speakers, and it's quite impressive. The response curve looks unusually good, and the parameters predict excellent bass power and extension in a suitable large cabinet (which is not always the case with 15" prosound woofers).

Also, sorry about the typo in my last post; "...which are onstant-directivity type" should read "...which are constant-directivity types".

Duke

Duke - Once again you have shown yourself to be gracious, considerate and knowledgeable. So, thank you again.

As I mentioned above, I am not technically inclined and therefore not technically proficient. Awareness of that fact leads me to choose an expert upon whom I feel I can depend. These people are carefully chosen and adopted gradually unless I can determine through research that they are what I hope them to be.

With Bill Woods, I felt no need to approach with caution. He is a well-respected and highly sought expert in the field of loudspeakers and one of the leaders in horn research. Tom Danley, according to Bill, is likely the king of that field today.

Horns are not so simple as many here seem to believe and the level of misunderstanding shown in this thread reveals and reinforces the need for further learning. Bill has worked at this for over 30 years and knows whereof he speaks. I urge all of you to visit his website and read every word he shares.

The Danley Tapped Horns, including the SPUD, demonstrate that new ground is being broken in horn design even now. The tossing around of conventional wisdom about horns and what they should look like reminds me of the yogurt, honey and sprouts era of nutritional wisdom. Lots of people still think that's what it entails.

As I said earlier in this thread, too many people are unable to differentiate between what they actually know and what they have chosen to believe. Most of us know almost nothing about horns as is evidenced by the negative comments some have seen fit to post. Of course, there are drawbacks to horn speakers such as size and cost but both of those issues have been addressed to some degree and, no doubt, will be further improved with time. Every approach has compromises and tradeoffs and not everything is a workable solution for everybody. However, the purpose of this thread is to overcome misinformation and share what we actually know. Whether or not my system represents the best options or I am an expert has no bearing on the topic as a whole.
Personally I think, from the experience I have had with my horns so far, that the upside here is tremendous and that DSP is probably the key. Passive crossovers are destined to join the typewriter and the abacus.