Hello WBF members,
I would like to first call attention the question marks at the end of topic statement this time
Joking aside, have you noticed that the Ultimate expression of the best loudspeaker for Magico or Living Voice are not their dynamic speakers, which can stand on their own, but in a cost-no-object horn design?
What is it about horns that make them so desired and yet so rejected at the same time?
How can a speaker tell the most real truth about your music and yet also lie straight to your face?
Why are there so few horn manufacturers out there?
Why are the owners of horn speakers known as perverts?
We hope to answer these questions through the introduction of the First Zero Diffraction 3 way Horn speaker... The Symphonia by Aries Cerat.
Most of us that have heard a horn speaker know about Dynamics. It is the first thing you become aware of compared to a traditional dynamic loudspeaker. Music is uncompressed and effortless through a horn with percussion and impact that truly is LIVE. They are also exceptionally efficient, leaving a slew of options for power. The high level of efficiency gives a more consistent listening experience for more than one listener, in more than one seated position.
This is the real truth. The lies are much more influential though....
Poor design and support is commonplace in horn speaker design. The end result are dynamics that are highly colored resulting in ringing, honking, and disjointed bass being the most common. Because horns are like a microscope of your front end, harshness and bright sound is falsely conveyed on the speaker and not the true culprit. Room conditions must also be optimal as horns can throw much more energy into the room. A poorly treated room will give you reflections for days making listening painful because all you hear is room. These traits have become pervasive in the majority of horn design and are best described sounding "horny". So if you own a horn you have unwittingly become a pervert because you are now "horny"
Bass:
The main body of the Symphonia is a 3M long bass horn (not to be confused with a transmission line) utilizing a full range Fostex to produce sound down to 32hz with no room gain. A basshorn is essential to match to the performance and speed of the midrange horn and tweeter horn. The speed and efficiency do not match well with large woofers no matter how much power you throw at them. Separate large active subs are common in most horn designs. Matching impedance is close to impossible without these major drawbacks. So why don't all horns come with basshorns? Horns themselves are already difficult to manufacture and produce so adding in a well designed basshorn only adds to the complexity and cost when you can easily add an active sub and call it a day.
Midrange:
The midrange horn is built from solid wood flared into a 360 bullet shape leveraging a 4 inch compression driver. The solid wood prevents any energy storage in the horn itself so you do not get any ringing or honking. Since there are no flat surfaces on the midrange horn the end result is zero diffraction and no coloration. Casting is much easier, cheaper and less time consuming, but you end up with thin and brittle horns with uneven material in the horn itself. The results of such mass produced design is colored "horny" sound.
Tweeter:
Using the finest ribbon available from Raal, the same housing techniques applied to midrange horn are also present in the tweeter bullet. While it would have been easier to use a compression tweeter, the ribbon was proven to be the superior choice. It would have been much easier to use a compression tweeter as no one building a horn uses ribbons, but a way was found after long R&D.
Crossover:
The Symphonia employs an external variable slope crossover with midrange adjustments from 1-3db to suit the room conditions for optimal sound. Suffice to say there is a lot of information in this alone so stating 500hz and 3k would not be accurate to explain the crossover points.
The Contendo Statement loudspeaker introduced in 2010 was designed to fix all the problems of horns, but in separates. Today we have the Symphonia which brings the entire package of the Contendo into a full range speaker that most homes would have the room to accommodate. We hope to use the Symphonia to make people believe in high fidelity again and turn the misconception of horns from negative to positive. This is the representation of the highest level of fidelity with limits that have yet to be found with this speaker.
I encourage any questions as I have invited the designer to be a resource for you to leverage. We will be ready to host a full system of Aries Cerat electronics and the Symphonia come March 1st 2016 in the Austin, TX area. I will also add the system to the virtual systems on AGON when it is all setup.
US reviewers are welcome to contact me via PM to arrange for private demonstration at our expense.
Amir and the Symphonia
I would like to first call attention the question marks at the end of topic statement this time
Joking aside, have you noticed that the Ultimate expression of the best loudspeaker for Magico or Living Voice are not their dynamic speakers, which can stand on their own, but in a cost-no-object horn design?
What is it about horns that make them so desired and yet so rejected at the same time?
How can a speaker tell the most real truth about your music and yet also lie straight to your face?
Why are there so few horn manufacturers out there?
Why are the owners of horn speakers known as perverts?
We hope to answer these questions through the introduction of the First Zero Diffraction 3 way Horn speaker... The Symphonia by Aries Cerat.
Most of us that have heard a horn speaker know about Dynamics. It is the first thing you become aware of compared to a traditional dynamic loudspeaker. Music is uncompressed and effortless through a horn with percussion and impact that truly is LIVE. They are also exceptionally efficient, leaving a slew of options for power. The high level of efficiency gives a more consistent listening experience for more than one listener, in more than one seated position.
This is the real truth. The lies are much more influential though....
Poor design and support is commonplace in horn speaker design. The end result are dynamics that are highly colored resulting in ringing, honking, and disjointed bass being the most common. Because horns are like a microscope of your front end, harshness and bright sound is falsely conveyed on the speaker and not the true culprit. Room conditions must also be optimal as horns can throw much more energy into the room. A poorly treated room will give you reflections for days making listening painful because all you hear is room. These traits have become pervasive in the majority of horn design and are best described sounding "horny". So if you own a horn you have unwittingly become a pervert because you are now "horny"
Bass:
The main body of the Symphonia is a 3M long bass horn (not to be confused with a transmission line) utilizing a full range Fostex to produce sound down to 32hz with no room gain. A basshorn is essential to match to the performance and speed of the midrange horn and tweeter horn. The speed and efficiency do not match well with large woofers no matter how much power you throw at them. Separate large active subs are common in most horn designs. Matching impedance is close to impossible without these major drawbacks. So why don't all horns come with basshorns? Horns themselves are already difficult to manufacture and produce so adding in a well designed basshorn only adds to the complexity and cost when you can easily add an active sub and call it a day.
Midrange:
The midrange horn is built from solid wood flared into a 360 bullet shape leveraging a 4 inch compression driver. The solid wood prevents any energy storage in the horn itself so you do not get any ringing or honking. Since there are no flat surfaces on the midrange horn the end result is zero diffraction and no coloration. Casting is much easier, cheaper and less time consuming, but you end up with thin and brittle horns with uneven material in the horn itself. The results of such mass produced design is colored "horny" sound.
Tweeter:
Using the finest ribbon available from Raal, the same housing techniques applied to midrange horn are also present in the tweeter bullet. While it would have been easier to use a compression tweeter, the ribbon was proven to be the superior choice. It would have been much easier to use a compression tweeter as no one building a horn uses ribbons, but a way was found after long R&D.
Crossover:
The Symphonia employs an external variable slope crossover with midrange adjustments from 1-3db to suit the room conditions for optimal sound. Suffice to say there is a lot of information in this alone so stating 500hz and 3k would not be accurate to explain the crossover points.
The Contendo Statement loudspeaker introduced in 2010 was designed to fix all the problems of horns, but in separates. Today we have the Symphonia which brings the entire package of the Contendo into a full range speaker that most homes would have the room to accommodate. We hope to use the Symphonia to make people believe in high fidelity again and turn the misconception of horns from negative to positive. This is the representation of the highest level of fidelity with limits that have yet to be found with this speaker.
I encourage any questions as I have invited the designer to be a resource for you to leverage. We will be ready to host a full system of Aries Cerat electronics and the Symphonia come March 1st 2016 in the Austin, TX area. I will also add the system to the virtual systems on AGON when it is all setup.
US reviewers are welcome to contact me via PM to arrange for private demonstration at our expense.
Amir and the Symphonia
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