Magico M9 vs. Magico Ultimate 3 Horn- Box vs. Horn! Which will be better? In which ways?
- Thread starter caesar
- Start date
You are just repeating yourself, nothing new in your post. I answered to your points in previous posts and I am not going to repeat myself. Sorry, but having to choose on John Atkinson and you on the analysis of speaker measurents, I pick JA. Bye.
A little late to the party.
True mathematical bass horns will be very big as you all know and will be an option to almost nobody. Imagine having this at home and you need 2 for stereo
True mathematical bass horns has extreme efficiency around 115-120 dB/1w. Efficiency is what you sacrifice as you move towards 1/2 and 1/4 wavelength horns.
Wrong expansion rates, wrong loading of the driver will further compromise the efficiency and frequency response. If the horn mouth is to small it will cause ripples in the frequency response.
The so called infamous horn honk that many associate with horn speakers, is often caused by using the horn outside it`s bandpass (cutoff frequency) often in combination with 1 or more of the above mentioned problems.
With todays simulation programs (Hornresp is a nice one) the wild guessing and endless trials and errors can easily be omitted and a bulls eye can be haved in one go.
Horns are pure physics at work, no magic is involved (as in all other aspects of hifi). They work as an acoustic impedance transformer, to better transfer the signal energy from the driver, to the air in the horn throat (beginning at the horn). This high pressure/low amplitude sound wave at the throat, moves down towards the horn mouth and is transformed to a low pressure/high amplitude sound wave.
For bass frequencies one can use the room corners to expand the horn length and mouth size. This gives the option of reducing the actual horn size dramatically, without to much compromise in efficiency and FR. Klipsch Cornerhorn is a good example. I use this little neat trick in my own horn system.
The simulated response from one of my bass horn
One bass horn is comprised of 2 x 500 liter FLH each with 15" drivers. They are laid in an 90 degree angle with the horn mouth touching each other. Coupling horn mouths together will give a better loading and tune the horns lower. A coupling top plate is mounted, which will increase total horn size.
With well implemented horns, you can have your cake and eat it too.
Cheers
True mathematical bass horns will be very big as you all know and will be an option to almost nobody. Imagine having this at home and you need 2 for stereo
True mathematical bass horns has extreme efficiency around 115-120 dB/1w. Efficiency is what you sacrifice as you move towards 1/2 and 1/4 wavelength horns.
Wrong expansion rates, wrong loading of the driver will further compromise the efficiency and frequency response. If the horn mouth is to small it will cause ripples in the frequency response.
The so called infamous horn honk that many associate with horn speakers, is often caused by using the horn outside it`s bandpass (cutoff frequency) often in combination with 1 or more of the above mentioned problems.
With todays simulation programs (Hornresp is a nice one) the wild guessing and endless trials and errors can easily be omitted and a bulls eye can be haved in one go.
Horns are pure physics at work, no magic is involved (as in all other aspects of hifi). They work as an acoustic impedance transformer, to better transfer the signal energy from the driver, to the air in the horn throat (beginning at the horn). This high pressure/low amplitude sound wave at the throat, moves down towards the horn mouth and is transformed to a low pressure/high amplitude sound wave.
For bass frequencies one can use the room corners to expand the horn length and mouth size. This gives the option of reducing the actual horn size dramatically, without to much compromise in efficiency and FR. Klipsch Cornerhorn is a good example. I use this little neat trick in my own horn system.
The simulated response from one of my bass horn
One bass horn is comprised of 2 x 500 liter FLH each with 15" drivers. They are laid in an 90 degree angle with the horn mouth touching each other. Coupling horn mouths together will give a better loading and tune the horns lower. A coupling top plate is mounted, which will increase total horn size.
With well implemented horns, you can have your cake and eat it too.
Cheers
Fascinating and thank you for taking the time to explain and literally illustrate...as a confessed fan of big bass, I am well aware of my own limits in willingness to compromise on space for 'truly great bass'. I have read about the magic of FLH and would love to hear some...meanwhile, will continue to investigate perhaps scientifically more compromised solutions but ones which enable a more room friendly solution.
Would love to be able to ask you some questions along the way if that is alright?
Would love to be able to ask you some questions along the way if that is alright?
Are you using a digital crossover? Is that how you are compensating for the long path length differences between drivers?A little late to the party.
True mathematical bass horns will be very big as you all know and will be an option to almost nobody. Imagine having this at home and you need 2 for stereo
View attachment 88279
True mathematical bass horns has extreme efficiency around 115-120 dB/1w. Efficiency is what you sacrifice as you move towards 1/2 and 1/4 wavelength horns.
Wrong expansion rates, wrong loading of the driver will further compromise the efficiency and frequency response. If the horn mouth is to small it will cause ripples in the frequency response.
The so called infamous horn honk that many associate with horn speakers, is often caused by using the horn outside it`s bandpass (cutoff frequency) often in combination with 1 or more of the above mentioned problems.
With todays simulation programs (Hornresp is a nice one) the wild guessing and endless trials and errors can easily be omitted and a bulls eye can be haved in one go.
Horns are pure physics at work, no magic is involved (as in all other aspects of hifi). They work as an acoustic impedance transformer, to better transfer the signal energy from the driver, to the air in the horn throat (beginning at the horn). This high pressure/low amplitude sound wave at the throat, moves down towards the horn mouth and is transformed to a low pressure/high amplitude sound wave.
For bass frequencies one can use the room corners to expand the horn length and mouth size. This gives the option of reducing the actual horn size dramatically, without to much compromise in efficiency and FR. Klipsch Cornerhorn is a good example. I use this little neat trick in my own horn system.
The simulated response from one of my bass horn
View attachment 88280
One bass horn is comprised of 2 x 500 liter FLH each with 15" drivers. They are laid in an 90 degree angle with the horn mouth touching each other. Coupling horn mouths together will give a better loading and tune the horns lower. A coupling top plate is mounted, which will increase total horn size.
View attachment 88281
With well implemented horns, you can have your cake and eat it too.
Cheers
Schlager, I am very aware of this BIIIIIIIIG horn! It's the Denman Exponential, and I was totally wowed by it at the London Science Museum, some 8 to 9 years ago. However, despite its size, it didn't generate tremendous levels of bass.A little late to the party.
True mathematical bass horns will be very big as you all know and will be an option to almost nobody. Imagine having this at home and you need 2 for stereo
View attachment 88279
True mathematical bass horns has extreme efficiency around 115-120 dB/1w. Efficiency is what you sacrifice as you move towards 1/2 and 1/4 wavelength horns.
Wrong expansion rates, wrong loading of the driver will further compromise the efficiency and frequency response. If the horn mouth is to small it will cause ripples in the frequency response.
The so called infamous horn honk that many associate with horn speakers, is often caused by using the horn outside it`s bandpass (cutoff frequency) often in combination with 1 or more of the above mentioned problems.
With todays simulation programs (Hornresp is a nice one) the wild guessing and endless trials and errors can easily be omitted and a bulls eye can be haved in one go.
Horns are pure physics at work, no magic is involved (as in all other aspects of hifi). They work as an acoustic impedance transformer, to better transfer the signal energy from the driver, to the air in the horn throat (beginning at the horn). This high pressure/low amplitude sound wave at the throat, moves down towards the horn mouth and is transformed to a low pressure/high amplitude sound wave.
For bass frequencies one can use the room corners to expand the horn length and mouth size. This gives the option of reducing the actual horn size dramatically, without to much compromise in efficiency and FR. Klipsch Cornerhorn is a good example. I use this little neat trick in my own horn system.
The simulated response from one of my bass horn
View attachment 88280
One bass horn is comprised of 2 x 500 liter FLH each with 15" drivers. They are laid in an 90 degree angle with the horn mouth touching each other. Coupling horn mouths together will give a better loading and tune the horns lower. A coupling top plate is mounted, which will increase total horn size.
View attachment 88281
With well implemented horns, you can have your cake and eat it too.
Cheers
Yes 4 way active with multi subs, behind listening position (LP) are 1 FLH 500 liter horn sub to the left and right.
This gets a bit technical, but it is a generally misunderstanding that you need time alignment in the sub bass. Up to 30 ms of delay under 100 hz is not noticeable. Below 100 hz the bass as we hear it, takes up to 3-5 cycles before human ears perceive it as a tone with a pitch. At 50 hz that would be 60-100 ms before we recognize the bass sound. In that time the sound wave has been around the room at least a couple of times. This is also the reason that in the bass, we hear the combination of room and speakers. Fortunately we can use this to our advantage.
With 4 distributed bass horns I use a program called Multi-Sub Optimizer (MSO) to get an even in room bass response in multiple seatings, using gain, delay, PEQ and x-over for each individual sub. The program will also integrate the subs to the mains. I actually have a delay on all subs between 0-20 ms, can´t remember the exact numbers for each sub, but that is beyond the point. The point is that multisubs gives a more even in room response and by implementing it right, it will deliver truly reference bass.
This is my in-room bass response for 5 different seatings.
The right graph is the simulated response from MSO and the left is the actual measured response in REW. Blue is LP. You see that the response is dropping off around 26 hz, just as Hornsresp simulated and then the room gain kicks in below to 20 hz.
So time alignment is not important at bass frequencies, but an even FR is. We are much more sensitive to time differences above 700 hz or so.
As icing on the cake I use digital room correction on top of MSO.
Well with the right driver and back loaded properly, it certainly should produce tremendous bass. Some horns even use compression drivers down to the 20´s hz, though they are very expensive and have low x-max.
First of all, your horn amazing work and very well explained.
You need YL Acoustic 1250ss driver(40kg) 16hz-800hz and a 4.5 -5.0m horn ( mouth 1.5m) to go below 30hz. A pair over 8k€ last time sold ukmart. remains a dream that cannot be realized in normal living spaces
Dasguteohr, would be interestingly to hear such drivers on a bass horn. Does it give a different bass? quite surely, is it better? perhaps. I´m more concerned with the typically low x-max on such drivers. Imminent danger for blowing up, ouch!
I never heard in real a horn driver below 80hz, the yl have 5.5 inch diaphragma max 60 Watt 16ohm with 104db/1watt. You need get really loud to be blow it up. I think it a fast bass( no mass) that you can't get with normal woofer.
I don´t understand that term "fast bass". The driver will swing accordingly to the frequency it is fed. A small 5,5" diaphragm will have to swing a lot more than say a 15" driver, for the same amplitude, so that don´t hold up. What perhaps will give a different tonal character, could be things like distortion, mechanical noise, beside that I don´t believe that there will be much sonic difference, as long as the driver/horn combo is played within it´s bandpass and kept below severe distortion and dynamic and thermal compression. In the bass it is mainly about in room FR and integration with the mains/midrange
Horns brings mainly superior SPL, dynamic and transient capabilities to the table.
Horns brings mainly superior SPL, dynamic and transient capabilities to the table.
Schlager, I am enjoying your recent posts about bass horns. I have vintage corner horns which perhaps go down into the low 30s. I have always thought that a significant part of the bass quality I hear is the result of the rest of the system driving these particular speakers. Could you comment on the role the rest of the system might also play in presenting good natural sounding deep bass from these horn speakers?
"Fast" the same as impulse hardness or impulse fidelity, a normal woofer simply needs more time to process the signal due to the larger moving mass.that's why you need big horns to amplify the moving air mass and build up pressure.
If I understand you correctly, I would actually turn this the other way around. It is an even bass FR and well integrated with the mains or midrange, that allows you to hear the quality of the main speakers. For example if you have a 8 db peak at 100 hz, due to room problems (or bad speaker design), it will severely mask the surrounding frequencies and it will tilt the spectral balance, giving the sound a muffled feeling.
If you refer to the front end gear, I´m very much an objectivist. You can "colour" or "eq" your speakers a bit with different types of gear, especially tube amps. I just find it more beneficial to eq the total response after analysing the measurements I take.
I would say that bass response also is a matter of the amp control and adequate power supply. For me tube amps won´t suffice, because they have high output impedance due to the use of output transformer. This will give low damping control over the bass driver.
Let me know if I misunderstood your question.
Hi schlager,
I‘ve always understand speed to refer to ‘slew rate’….the ability of a woofer to change from one instantaneous value (frequency/amplitude) to another. Think of reproducing a square wave….the flatter and less tilted the straight line portion of the wave appears, the faster the woofer.
IME, problems with integration of subwoofers arise when the rise times of subwoofer and main speaker are substantially different. I believe it may be one reason why its easier to integrate a subwoofer with a full range speaker vs a monitor with more limited bass.
I had a pair of Sonus Faber Guarneris where subwoofer integration was a real issue
Let´s go the other way and call some bass for "slow bass". That would mainly resort to and uneven FR under 100 hz. Peaks with +10 db will severely compromise the feeling of "fast bass". Suchs peaks is due to a build up of resonances, due to mostly room modes. This resonance will persist for 0.3 - 1.5 seconds like ringing bass (long decay). When the resonance/ringning stops, the rest of the music has moved forward, seemingly leaving the bass behind in time. Masking is another "troublemaker". Luckily we can apply simple eq, to reduce the peak and ultimately the resonance and ringing . That would give faster bass. Again bass integration to the mains is crucial. Even bass frequency response (FR) (dips are not so severe as peaks), good integration with mains, powerful amp, good room, will give the perception of fast bass.
Here is a bass FR decay plot
Look at the peaks at 38 and 70 hz. The 38 hz will sound as a full deep rumple not so severe to human ears, but the 70 hz would be much more annoying and degrading the overall sound quality, by a great deal. Along with peaks comes ringing. At 0.4 sek it has not stopped and will continue further in time, getting smaller in amplitude. Such peaks are very easily dealt with a propriate EQ. Room resonances, ringing and standing waves are predominately so called minimum phase phenomena, so PEQ will do the trick, as they work as minimum phase filters.
Look at the peaks at 38 and 70 hz. The 38 hz will sound as a full deep rumple not so severe to human ears, but the 70 hz would be much more annoying and degrading the overall sound quality, by a great deal. Along with peaks comes ringing. At 0.4 sek it has not stopped and will continue further in time, getting smaller in amplitude. Such peaks are very easily dealt with a propriate EQ. Room resonances, ringing and standing waves are predominately so called minimum phase phenomena, so PEQ will do the trick, as they work as minimum phase filters.
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