Horns 2017

spiritofmusic

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Mani, do you think I ought to give the Animas a reappraisal?
I truly struggled w them at the dealer on the end of Modwright SS.
And despite liking them a lot more at Munich in 2016 on the end of those monster Traformatics, I still found them, ahem, challenging.
 

manisandher

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It's a bit difficult to say really, Marc. It's taken me a while to get them sounding the way I want - mainly down to running in (beating them around with a powerful SS amp for the last 6 months) and positioning, of course. To my ears, they're really very pleasant-sounding now with my SET monos. But this is so subjective...

Probably a bit of a trek for you, but you're welcome to come and take a listen anytime.

Mani.
 

spiritofmusic

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Norfolk to you is not too bad. There’s never a shortage of a good pub in the UK to make a journey go smoother.
I would like to hear them of their best. Let me PM you and we can think about a date in 2018. Have always liked Thoress, so this will be an added bonus. Thanks for the offer.
 
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Tango

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Could you please highlight what kinds of things you did to finally get an excellent sound from the Gammas? I had only a bit of positioning to do with my Odeons (admittedly a MUCH smaller horn system) to get great sound.

Dear Morricab,

1. Main towers placement. Tower is >600kgs each. Think heavy. I had Sonja 1.3....230kgs...slim. That was a piece of cake by comparison. My room is L-shape with all glass wall on the right. I moved Sonja more than twenty times to get Ella not standing skew a little to the left. My room is not normal walk in the park environment. I moved my Cessaro even more.
2. Bass horns placement. Bass horn is>250kgs each. Only one inch closer to front wall bring about obvious difference in bass. The main towers sound best toed in. Should the Bass horns be toed in too or not. Do they sound better further apart or closer to each other.
3. Time alignment. Think of setting up Wilson XLF. Same concept. First time Ralph had only two days to setup. He left and it didnt sound good. I had acoustician came in two times to do measurements, adjust time alignment using graph. The equipments he brought in to measure were so damn sophisicated. End up using ears and experience is best. Graph is just a guideline. Did I do it myself? Of coursenot. I DONT HAVE A CLUE how to do. Ralph had to come again and finish the job. I just listened and gave comments. When we concur, we are done.
4. Phase adjustment. 4, 5, 6 are adjustable in the rear panel. You have to find the right point that they all sync.
5. Main towers/Bass horns crossover point. 5Hz lower the strings sound so right but vocal has less body. How to get the best of both?
6. Gain adjustment on amps of Bass horns. I could increase the gain up to 8 db but wasnt really enough. I had to move to 7.
7. Matching main amps, preamp to the speakers. I am fortunate to have Gerhard available when I needed. Modding amp, preamp output gain. My pre output is one in rca for main amps. Another xlr for bass horn amps. Rca and xlr have different gains. The bass horn werent voicing enough I said. Ralph and Gerhard collaborated. Gerhard came and did his things. Dont ask me what he did. I didnt bother ask. I was checking my sales report and signing approvals when he was modding preamp and amp. My listening room is at my work office.
8. Adjusting speaker position, time alignment again when I alter my room acoustic. Best speaker position in my room blocked 3/4 of my room entrance/door. So I needed to compromise. Move them back closer to front wall to not block my room entry. Doing so I lost depth so I put big diffuser in the middle. I get much better depth and layer. But somehow lost image focus, I had to adjust position of maintowers and bass horns again to get best of all worlds.

All these took times. Cessaro is made of composit material not glued plywood light board. It is extremely heavy. Very tiresome to set up.

Kind regards,
Tang
 

spiritofmusic

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Tang, congrats on wrangling a good sound. My Zus only weigh 170lb each, but the thought of moving them gives me a cold sweat .
Luckily I got it right first time here in the new room, my disc injury days of heaving hefty audio gear are behind me (my neighbour and his son volunteer to shift my 200lb Stacores for me).
 
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kodomo

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Apr 26, 2017
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Those are the main things to do! It took me a lot of time to do these same things.

Matching amps is a thing like you noticed, I use xlr on both horn towers set monoblock amps and bass boxes monoblock solid states. My custom made passive preamp can adjust the level of them individually and its outputs matches the different impedances of these amps 1 to 1.

Time alignment is a big thing with these large multi channel horns. The best way to do it is via impulse response. One thing however I do not like is the angling of the horns. I saw Ralph uses this approach. if you have large enough space and sit far enough angling is not necessary and causes more problems than they solve. Maybe one day, you give this a chance, as this is easy to do with a Gamma!

I also wonder how you time aligned the bass horns to the rest of the system. They have a long path as they are folded. Are they closer to you physically. If so then they would obstruct the main towers... How did you solve this? As someone who relies on physical time alignment with passive filters, I had to go with direct radiating bass between 40hz-120hz so as to align them.

My horns are not glued layers of plywood as well, they are composite and damped. About setup taking time, it took me over a year, and if you change position, you will redo most of them (but it takes much much less time, like a week)
 

morricab

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Apr 25, 2014
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Dear Morricab,

1. Main towers placement. Tower is >600kgs each. Think heavy. I had Sonja 1.3....230kgs...slim. That was a piece of cake by comparison. My room is L-shape with all glass wall on the right. I moved Sonja more than twenty times to get Ella not standing skew a little to the left. My room is not normal walk in the park environment. I moved my Cessaro even more.
2. Bass horns placement. Bass horn is>250kgs each. Only one inch closer to front wall bring about obvious difference in bass. The main towers sound best toed in. Should the Bass horns be toed in too or not. Do they sound better further apart or closer to each other.
3. Time alignment. Think of setting up Wilson XLF. Same concept. First time Ralph had only two days to setup. He left and it didnt sound good. I had acoustician came in two times to do measurements, adjust time alignment using graph. The equipments he brought in to measure were so damn sophisicated. End up using ears and experience is best. Graph is just a guideline. Did I do it myself? Of coursenot. I DONT HAVE A CLUE how to do. Ralph had to come again and finish the job. I just listened and gave comments. When we concur, we are done.
4. Phase adjustment. 4, 5, 6 are adjustable in the rear panel. You have to find the right point that they all sync.
5. Main towers/Bass horns crossover point. 5Hz lower the strings sound so right but vocal has less body. How to get the best of both?
6. Gain adjustment on amps of Bass horns. I could increase the gain up to 8 db but wasnt really enough. I had to move to 7.
7. Matching main amps, preamp to the speakers. I am fortunate to have Gerhard available when I needed. Modding amp, preamp output gain. My pre output is one in rca for main amps. Another xlr for bass horn amps. Rca and xlr have different gains. The bass horn werent voicing enough I said. Ralph and Gerhard collaborated. Gerhard came and did his things. Dont ask me what he did. I didnt bother ask. I was checking my sales report and signing approvals when he was modding preamp and amp. My listening room is at my work office.
8. Adjusting speaker position, time alignment again when I alter my room acoustic. Best speaker position in my room blocked 3/4 of my room entrance/door. So I needed to compromise. Move them back closer to front wall to not block my room entry. Doing so I lost depth so I put big diffuser in the middle. I get much better depth and layer. But somehow lost image focus, I had to adjust position of maintowers and bass horns again to get best of all worlds.

All these took times. Cessaro is made of composit material not glued plywood light board. It is extremely heavy. Very tiresome to set up.

Kind regards,
Tang

Yes, I can imagine that was a chore. Phase/time coherence I think is of paramount importance for such large systems with really widely spaced drivers...integration is poor without it. Amp matching would be another difficult assignment I think but i would normally go with all the same if possible.
 

gian60

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Apr 17, 2016
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Hi Tang,
5/6 way horn speaker is not simple to set up,could be impossible be perfect and always with something no good,but for some good will be incredible performance
My friend with ALE 6 way including Basshorn,became crazy for 10 years and Yamamura visit him 20 times in 10 years to check and do some small development,because always something not perfect.

One way is biamp or triamp,not simple,but i always had or listen in other system big improvement
 

DaveC

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Nov 16, 2014
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It reminds me of a comment I read on a forum many years ago, that owning a large horn system is like keeping a Tiger as a pet. :)

It is interesting the smaller horn systems are exactly the opposite, they are easier to get good results vs a typical cone 'n' dome speaker. With my speaker covering 400-15000 Hz with one driver I almost feel like I'm cheating, it's just too easy... you can even listen nearfield! :) Of course there are trade-offs like anything, I don't quite have SPL abilities for extremely large spaces, large scale music won't be as clear, etc...
 

morricab

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Apr 25, 2014
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It reminds me of a comment I read on a forum many years ago, that owning a large horn system is like keeping a Tiger as a pet. :)

It is interesting the smaller horn systems are exactly the opposite, they are easier to get good results vs a typical cone 'n' dome speaker. With my speaker covering 400-15000 Hz with one driver I almost feel like I'm cheating, it's just too easy... you can even listen nearfield! :) Of course there are trade-offs like anything, I don't quite have SPL abilities for extremely large spaces, large scale music won't be as clear, etc...

My 2-way Odeon "La Bohemes" are certainly in the easy to setup camp. With the two drivers per channel already at fixed distances to each other and phase/time aligned by design, results in an extremely coherent sound...something that is hard to do with huge multi-way horn systems.
 

Tango

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Hi Tang,
5/6 way horn speaker is not simple to set up,could be impossible be perfect and always with something no good,but for some good will be incredible performance
My friend with ALE 6 way including Basshorn,became crazy for 10 years and Yamamura visit him 20 times in 10 years to check and do some small development,because always something not perfect.

One way is biamp or triamp,not simple,but i always had or listen in other system big improvement

Gian. My preamp is not so flexible with many outputs like your CH L1. Instead of Biamp, if I have Gerhard build amps for the bass horns instead of using 1000x2 watts that came with Cessaro, it would be more tailor made fit. But let’s stop talking because you are making me itch for a step further :D.
 

Mark Seaton

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May 21, 2010
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It reminds me of a comment I read on a forum many years ago, that owning a large horn system is like keeping a Tiger as a pet. :)

It is interesting the smaller horn systems are exactly the opposite, they are easier to get good results vs a typical cone 'n' dome speaker. With my speaker covering 400-15000 Hz with one driver I almost feel like I'm cheating, it's just too easy... you can even listen nearfield! :) Of course there are trade-offs like anything, I don't quite have SPL abilities for extremely large spaces, large scale music won't be as clear, etc...

The discussion thus far has been very enlightening in confirming what enthusiasts interested in horns are willing to go through to get them to work in-room, along with some of the realities of deployment. A local friend/dealer had the Cessaro horns to demonstrate for a while and I've heard various Avantgarde speakers at homes and shows, and I have plenty of experience making more simple HF horn only designs like the JBL M2, etc. work in real rooms. Getting things to work in room is no trivial task with any speaker of acoustically large dimensions (components >~1 wavelength dimension at low end of their bandwidth). It's no coincidence that some of the best examples of large horns have one device covering a significant and subjectively critical portion of the bandwidth.

Some great food for thought and future experimentation... :cool:
 

RogerD

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The discussion thus far has been very enlightening in confirming what enthusiasts interested in horns are willing to go through to get them to work in-room, along with some of the realities of deployment. A local friend/dealer had the Cessaro horns to demonstrate for a while and I've heard various Avantgarde speakers at homes and shows, and I have plenty of experience making more simple HF horn only designs like the JBL M2, etc. work in real rooms. Getting things to work in room is no trivial task with any speaker of acoustically large dimensions (components >~1 wavelength dimension at low end of their bandwidth). It's no coincidence that some of the best examples of large horns have one device covering a significant and subjectively critical portion of the bandwidth.

Some great food for thought and future experimentation... :cool:

My hybrid horn project being a 4 way and 14 drivers for the pair,the only option I have is DSP. I understand many horns use passive crossovers,but I would think on these large horns DSP would enable better performance. Minus the digital vs analog debate am I wrong?
 

bonzo75

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My hybrid horn project being a 4 way and 14 drivers for the pair,the only option I have is DSP. I understand many horns use passive crossovers,but I would think on these large horns DSP would enable better performance. Minus the digital vs analog debate am I wrong?

Having heard these 5-way with Passive through Transcendant Kit OTL, and active using transistor, the difference was minimal. Slightly better tone on individual instruments on passive and better holding together of orchestral on the active. I have heard another 5-way with massive tapped horns using active. That was a bit sterile but could be managed. So - it is about the implementation.
 

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RogerD

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Having heard these 5-way with Passive through Transcendant Kit OTL, and active using transistor, the difference was minimal. Slightly better tone on individual instruments on passive and better holding together of orchestral on the active. I have heard another 5-way with massive tapped horns using active. That was a bit sterile but could be managed. So - it is about the implementation.

Very nice Ked...that's what I was thinking. I do agree that any difference in sound can be minimal if at all.
 

bonzo75

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Very nice Ked...that's what I was thinking. I do agree that any difference in sound can be minimal if at all.

One small thing though - the guy was very old and had been working on his system since the 1970s so never exactly asked him when he reached this stage - lol
 

RogerD

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One small thing though - the guy was very old and had been working on his system since the 1970s so never exactly asked him when he reached this stage - lol

He has lot's of company,including me...lol.
 

Mark Seaton

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My hybrid horn project being a 4 way and 14 drivers for the pair,the only option I have is DSP. I understand many horns use passive crossovers,but I would think on these large horns DSP would enable better performance. Minus the digital vs analog debate am I wrong?

As bonzo mentioned, it's all in the execution.

Simple concept crossovers through experimentation like many did decades ago is a crap shoot if you are really after smooth, predictable behavior. It's a few hundred dollars these days to have accurate measurements and complete electrical models of a speaker. Fortunately this has become much more common in designs coming to market over the past ~5 years. The issue with passive crossovers on horns is that the impedance of a horn is much more complex than a simple dome and especially compared to a ribbon. Each peak in the impedance interacts with any component in the crossover, often well above or below the intended crossover, and by design there are many more peaks in a horn's impedance vs frequency. While there are cases where horns are naturally very flat, most have significant undulations or tilt to the response which needs to be adjusted for the in the crossover. Careful measurement, modeling, and design can yield great results from a passive crossover, but are far from a beginner project. One of the biggest hurdles for the passive crossover is dealing with any physical/acoustic offset in group delay (they delay in time from when a given frequency emits from the horn vs when the signal goes in). Any changes in physical distance from the listener between devices will affect the crossover region, where the physical depth of horns makes the pathways open the possibility of physical offsets beintg a few orders of magnitude larger than that of a dome and cone design.

Obviously DSP adds components in the chain. If done before a digital source becomes analog, we could make some strong arguments for being less intrusive than any passive crossover with the caveat of being optimal for digital sources, and requiring an A-D conversion of analog sources. Obviously there are plenty who have no interested in that conversion. If it is an option, DSP offers a few very significant advantages when implementing large, multi-way horn systems. First is the freedom to manipulate and filter the frequency response entirely independent of the loudspeaker's impedance. With the tendency for horns to have more irregularities in raw response, DSP allows for exactly consistent filtering by eliminating crossover value tolerances and remaining isolated from speaker impedance variations. This is particularly useful for any narrow or sharper (=higher Q) adjustments to the response. Narrow or sharp filters are tricky to hold tight tolerances with in passive crossovers as you have multiple parts interacting, each with their own tolerances. While it is certainly possible to match significant sensitivity differences between components in a passive crossover, it is never a simple 1-2 part adjustment, as most any passive component change will impact the frequency response and behavior of crossovers and the like. With an active or DSP implementation, relative level offsets are trivial and precise. Of course the obvious and most significant advantage of DSP implementations come in the form of delay adjustments which are not practical in the same manner passively. This frees us to only have to consider the point of where the speaker radiates sound and where the sound sprays without trying to account for group delay from horn pathways or filtering. Where physically any offset will make changes in multiple dimensions, in DSP a few clicks of the mouse spares us having to re-construct or build in excessive adjustment features.

Both approaches have merit depending on someones perspective, use, preferences, and let's face it... ideology. As always, implementation always out performs technology poorly implemented. The market interest in big horns makes things a bit tricky as well, since a large portion are curious about horns and the options they can open with low powered tube amplifiers. Those fond of such tube options are more likely to be fans of analog sources and less quick to incorporate a DSP solution. While that may be a tendency, it is certainly not the rule, as many others mix tubes into the output of their digital music library to get the sound they are after. It might prove entertaining to juxtapose a digital source feeding a DSP crossover with high quality DAC's driving say a six-pack of triode monoblocks.
 

bonzo75

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Roger - bottomline is this, with the active crossover through transistor was way more real than most high end in passive mode. A handful of similar horns would be better on tone, so go ahead and do active. You are sure to get purists telling you otherwise. You can do both too.
 

RogerD

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As bonzo mentioned, it's all in the execution.

Simple concept crossovers through experimentation like many did decades ago is a crap shoot if you are really after smooth, predictable behavior. It's a few hundred dollars these days to have accurate measurements and complete electrical models of a speaker. Fortunately this has become much more common in designs coming to market over the past ~5 years. The issue with passive crossovers on horns is that the impedance of a horn is much more complex than a simple dome and especially compared to a ribbon. Each peak in the impedance interacts with any component in the crossover, often well above or below the intended crossover, and by design there are many more peaks in a horn's impedance vs frequency. While there are cases where horns are naturally very flat, most have significant undulations or tilt to the response which needs to be adjusted for the in the crossover. Careful measurement, modeling, and design can yield great results from a passive crossover, but are far from a beginner project. One of the biggest hurdles for the passive crossover is dealing with any physical/acoustic offset in group delay (they delay in time from when a given frequency emits from the horn vs when the signal goes in). Any changes in physical distance from the listener between devices will affect the crossover region, where the physical depth of horns makes the pathways open the possibility of physical offsets being a few orders of magnitude larger than that of a dome and cone design.

Obviously DSP adds components in the chain. If done before a digital source becomes analog, we could make some strong arguments for being less intrusive than any passive crossover with the caveat of being optimal for digital sources, and requiring an A-D conversion of analog sources. Obviously there are plenty who have no interested in that conversion. If it is an option, DSP offers a few very significant advantages when implementing large, multi-way horn systems. First is the freedom to manipulate and filter the frequency response entirely independent of the loudspeaker's impedance. With the tendency for horns to have more irregularities in raw response, DSP allows for exactly consistent filtering by eliminating crossover value tolerances and remaining isolated from speaker impedance variations. This is particularly useful for any narrow or sharper (=higher Q) adjustments to the response. Narrow or sharp filters are tricky to hold tight tolerances with in passive crossovers as you have multiple parts interacting, each with their own tolerances. While it is certainly possible to match significant sensitivity differences between components in a passive crossover, it is never a simple 1-2 part adjustment, as most any passive component change will impact the frequency response and behavior of crossovers and the like. With an active or DSP implementation, relative level offsets are trivial and precise. Of course the obvious and most significant advantage of DSP implementations come in the form of delay adjustments which are not practical in the same manner passively. This frees us to only have to consider the point of where the speaker radiates sound and where the sound sprays without trying to account for group delay from horn pathways or filtering. Where physically any offset will make changes in multiple dimensions, in DSP a few clicks of the mouse spares us having to re-construct or build in excessive adjustment features.

Both approaches have merit depending on someones perspective, use, preferences, and let's face it... ideology. As always, implementation always out performs technology poorly implemented. The market interest in big horns makes things a bit tricky as well, since a large portion are curious about horns and the options they can open with low powered tube amplifiers. Those fond of such tube options are more likely to be fans of analog sources and less quick to incorporate a DSP solution. While that may be a tendency, it is certainly not the rule, as many others mix tubes into the output of their digital music library to get the sound they are after. It might prove entertaining to juxtapose a digital source feeding a DSP crossover with high quality DAC's driving say a six-pack of triode monoblocks.

Roger - bottomline is this, with the active crossover through transistor was way more real than most high end in passive mode. A handful of similar horns would be better on tone, so go ahead and do active. You are sure to get purists telling you otherwise. You can do both too.

Mark...thank you for investing the time for such a detailed response...i have copied it for reference. I do have many amplifiers and also a VG tube DAC to somewhat decrease any imperfections not to my liking. I do have the option for passive,but have long broken through the digital barrier.

Ked, I am excited to go the Dirac or DSP route...as I said,I like digital and many commercial cinemas with multi horn arrays use DSP. Nothing ventured,nothing gained.
 

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