TAD 3415 Horn System

RogerD

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Like that? That would be awesome.
Folsom,the 3415 is 45 inches wide and the RH3 is 27w,so if I go 36w,the horn mounting plate would have about 4" on each side. Now if I go the full 45" width the plate would be about 8.5 inches on each side. That's something that me and the cab maker will talk about. Right now I'm undecided.

I have decided to go with the full across look as the bass bin is tapered like a Klipschorn in the back and with the 4 15 inch woofers the full across horn module will be proportional. The module will put the total height at 70 inches.
The horn module will look similar to the TAD speaker below,only with 2 horns and the Fostex.
 

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jeff1225

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IMO the Be diaphragms are well worth it. I've never heard a really good CD without them but I'm not as familiar with the WE, ALE, or Goto drivers. I have heard a demo system from Austin Acoustics at the last RMAF I thought was amazing, not sure what they use exactly, I think the CDs are made for them by ALE.

If you need a tweeter the Fostex T500A MkII is excellent, I'm using them currently.

Dave,
What speaker system are you using the FOSTEX tweeters on?
 

DaveC

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Dave,
What speaker system are you using the FOSTEX tweeters on?

My own... :)

I've been working on it for a long time and hope to complete the final prototypes in the near future. It uses a fairly shallow 330 Hz Le CLeac'h horn that linearizes it's custom 4.5" driver and allows it to cover a very wide range. This and the T500 use a single cap for xo and are intended to be driven with a high quality SET amp. The low end (<400 Hz) is covered with a 15" AE in BR cab using high rez DSP/NCore amps. The wide range covered with the mid horn allows the speaker to be used in smaller spaces and closer listening distances than typical and provides coherent and natural sound like a good single driver speaker without many of it's compromises.
 

jeff1225

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My own... :)

I've been working on it for a long time and hope to complete the final prototypes in the near future. It uses a fairly shallow 330 Hz Le CLeac'h horn that linearizes it's custom 4.5" driver and allows it to cover a very wide range. This and the T500 use a single cap for xo and are intended to be driven with a high quality SET amp. The low end (<400 Hz) is covered with a 15" AE in BR cab using high rez DSP/NCore amps. The wide range covered with the mid horn allows the speaker to be used in smaller spaces and closer listening distances than typical and provides coherent and natural sound like a good single driver speaker without many of it's compromises.

Sounds amazing, can you please post a picture?

One of my favorite systems I've ever heard was a modified Edgar horn with his turned salad bowl mid range horn and FOSTEX T500 operating from 2K up. The secret to this system, on my opinion, is the fact that its physically time aligned.
 

RogerD

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RogerD

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I was listening tonight to my custom DynAudio speakers and given that my horns are designed well and that is involved,what can I expect. I think my current speakers do well,but if my horns can deliver 90 percent of this sound I will be happy. I think these sound stunning,even though I know the recording is part of it. I think great horns can sound magical.ymmv
 

RogerD

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I'm researching electronics and crossovers for this system. Seems like the technology in digital HT is changing so fast,by the time I'm ready this will change.
I came across this piece and this looks pretty good for what I envision.
The Denon 700 AVP 7.1 preamp this unit has many features,but I like the connectivity with the balanced connections which I need with my amplifiers. I can also use my Accuphase C200 with it.
http://denonpro.com/products/overview/dn-700avp

Also looking at a couple of Ashly products to handle system and speaker management. I think 2 4.8 SP Ashly's would work nicely with the Denon and Accuphase

http://ashly.com/products/protea-system-processors

http://ashly.com/products/protea-dsp-matrix-processors

Lot's of interesting products on the market.

I would also add a Oppo 205
 
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DaveC

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Sounds amazing, can you please post a picture?

One of my favorite systems I've ever heard was a modified Edgar horn with his turned salad bowl mid range horn and FOSTEX T500 operating from 2K up. The secret to this system, on my opinion, is the fact that its physically time aligned.

Sorry, I didn't see your post! I will post pics when I get the final prototypes done.

Crossing at 2 kHz is something I'd try to avoid, at this frequency time/phase alignment is very necessary and for horns it may require custom alignment for every installation. The big advantage with my design is the mid horn covering such a wide range, the xo points are well outside critical frequencies so the single mid maintains coherence throughout the frequency range, this also simplifies the design in some ways but makes other aspects more difficult, such as actual design of the mid horn. The result is seamless integration of the woofer and tweeter with the mids, combined with the possibility of much closer listening distances vs a more conventional design. What is given up to achieve this is maximizing gain from horn loading, but this is a double edged sword and is responsible for some of the difficulty others have ran into trying to integrate a direct radiating woofer with horn mids/highs. Truth is this speaker is really a hybrid of horn design and augmented widerange/single driver types.

Roger, I'd look into Danville Signal as well... I recently got their 2/8 DSP unit. The Audioweaver software it uses is impressive as are it's specs.
 

RogerD

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Sorry, I didn't see your post! I will post pics when I get the final prototypes done.

Crossing at 2 kHz is something I'd try to avoid, at this frequency time/phase alignment is very necessary and for horns it may require custom alignment for every installation. The big advantage with my design is the mid horn covering such a wide range, the xo points are well outside critical frequencies so the single mid maintains coherence throughout the frequency range, this also simplifies the design in some ways but makes other aspects more difficult, such as actual design of the mid horn. The result is seamless integration of the woofer and tweeter with the mids, combined with the possibility of much closer listening distances vs a more conventional design. What is given up to achieve this is maximizing gain from horn loading, but this is a double edged sword and is responsible for some of the difficulty others have ran into trying to integrate a direct radiating woofer with horn mids/highs. Truth is this speaker is really a hybrid of horn design and augmented widerange/single driver types.

Roger, I'd look into Danville Signal as well... I recently got their 2/8 DSP unit. The Audioweaver software it uses is impressive as are it's specs.

Dave thanks....I will take a look at the Danville.
 

Folsom

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With horns you can crossover lower generally. The horn shape gives a boost to the low end of any tweeter. You may want to take a measurement before you decide. You can can inexpensive calibrated mics at $100 and $40.
 

RogerD

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With horns you can crossover lower generally. The horn shape gives a boost to the low end of any tweeter. You may want to take a measurement before you decide. You can can inexpensive calibrated mics at $100 and $40.

Thanks Folsom...I need to get the passive network made for the 3415 bass arrays first. Then I can start on the horn module integration.
 

DaveC

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With horns you can crossover lower generally. The horn shape gives a boost to the low end of any tweeter. You may want to take a measurement before you decide. You can can inexpensive calibrated mics at $100 and $40.

It really depends.... this is not true if you're going for a traditional 4-5 way system with maximum acoustic gain, in this case you need to be about an octave above the horn's cutoff frequency. OTOH, if you use the slope created by the horn's acoustic gain as part of the xo then you can cross lower but you also have diffraction around the horn so the horn's mouth termination is more important. It depends on the type of horns and drivers used really, but the generalization you can cross lower is not valid most of the time.
 

Folsom

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I'm not sure I believe that. Any horn with a tiny bit of throat, before the shape, will increase SPL. "low" is a relative term however. I mean for tweeters at least in this case. Tweeters normal range for crossover is around 1.8-3.5khz, for two ways, sometimes up to 5-6khz for three ways. Gain is very typical at and just below that region from any shape, down to 1khz or so.

If the tweeters you are using already have a throat, then, no, probably won't see much gain in that lower region because it is already part of the basic driver.

The gain isn't anything wild, but it allows you to push lower before hitting xmax too early. It's easy to cross the lower you go, as the distance of the wavelength increases so that you don't have to have the drivers as close. For that reason alone, with Rogers new speakers, it is desirable to really push that crossover down so that they different drivers sound like one.
 

RogerD

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Now this new unit from JBL Harmon looks interesting and preliminary reports are that the Intonado 24 has excellent sonics. All for 2900.00
http://www.jbl.com/studio-monitor-c...ntonato 24___color=Blac k#q=intonato&start=1

 

RogerD

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RogerD

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Received my Rey Audio RH3 horns today,big and very nice.
 

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RogerD

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Early next week I will have my amplifiers,20 channels in all 400 watts@8 ohms. Also my 2 TAD TSC 1118 SW subs. I still need to order the Fostex tweeters and the JBL Harmon processor. I will use all Gepco cable and stock power chords w/ a star grounding scheme and see how low I can get the noise floor. It should be another interesting experiment.
 

DaveC

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Nice, sounds like it's coming together! I can probably get you a good deal on the T500s when you're ready, pm me if interested.
 

RogerD

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Nice, sounds like it's coming together! I can probably get you a good deal on the T500s when you're ready, pm me if interested.

PM sent
 

RogerD

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Here is a photo of the TAD TSC-1118SW They weigh 220lbs each. The Jerry Steckling 6 channel amps have a built in 80 hz sub crossover on one channel which I will use. These will go down to 20 hz and the amps can deliver 1200 watts if I bridge ch. 5&6, but I will probably go unbridged @400W

The amplifiers are cinema / studio and are made in Rocklin,Ca...about 90 minutes from me. I talked to Bob about upgrades and he told me they are good to go. I like these as they have output adjustments on the front and can be fully bridged. The six channel sells new for 4200 and two channels for 2500...not bad for class A a/b and the rated power. I paid considerably less. I settled on 4 model 2 and 2 model 6 amplifiers...20 channels @8000 watts. The monitors require 7 channels each,2 for the subs,2 for the center and 2 for the rear. The center will also use my psycho acoustic circuit and the rear could also,but this will require some experimentation.

This all might sound like overkill,but my other system has 98 inches of bass drivers and is very good at low to moderate volume,located in a alcove of my open downstairs room.This system will have 156 inches of bass in the 1300 sqft space. I do expect it to perform well.

A few more TAD Cinema 3415 photos
 

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