"Can't Do 3D Like Other Technologies". Fair Criticism of Horn Speakers?

Audiophile Bill said:

What are your thoughts on the horns using compression driver mids / treble with reflex cone bass then, Dave?

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I think it's difficult to come out with a seamless result. There are examples of commercial speakers with both poor coherence as well as horrific polar patterns, and some of these speakers sold for big $. We're used to hearing poor examples of this kind of speaker, but otoh there are few great examples to point to either. You could argue some more recent examples are excellent, and I'd agree they are much better, but still leave some room for improvement. BMS and Radian have made it pretty easy to make a speaker of exceptional value and very high performance with a single horn + a BR woofer, and I'm sure they are used in very high end applications too. Waveguides have less gain vs full horns though, so many of these examples are CD waveguides, these are not the same as a "full horn" and seem to be easier to match to a BR cabinet, probably because of less depth and lower gain.

On BR bass, I think the more surface area you have the more likely it is to work out well. However, it's hard to go bigger than a 15" in a large BR cabinet and have the speaker be appealing as something to put in your living room. Also, a CD + associated horn is just really different vs a cone driver, so I think an argument could be made a bass horn will always match up better. A dynamic driver in a horn is much closer in sound character to a BR bass cabinet. You can more easily match the diaphragm material, so both woofer and mid share the same kind of sound, and with a dynamic driver the actual horn is very shallow vs a CD, it's not a "full horn" so there isn't that mismatch in the type of systems involved and resulting sound character.

Eventually, I'd love to build a bass cab with 2 x 18" per side in a FLH combined with a mid and tweeter horn, but as a product it would be super-niche and tons of $. One day though...

Audiophile Bill said:

In terms of jmlc profile, I completely get why folks would use it as an upper mid range. The main drawback (imho) is that massive increase in mouth circumferential size for same fc as say a tractrix thus you get to the point where it isn’t practical to use say for upper or mid bass. In a multi-way system, you would have massive issues with height unless you used different horn geometries for these duties - or put it another way, a multichannel 5 way style Cessaro but all in jmlc would be like 10 feet high. Creating some arc in the structure to address is imho a bad idea too (to account for this) because you are shifting time alignment in doing so. No free lunch.

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Agreed, size is certainly the largest compromise in a JMLC of lower cutoff frequencies, even my 330 Hz horn is ~24" in diameter. But it does make for a really nice, enveloping, 3-D soundstage, so if that's your priority it might be worth considering. Luckily enough, it's both my priority and It happens to work well in my application.

jespera said:

I once spoke to a loudspeaker designer that had done the same two way loudspeakers in two versions: with a horn tweeter and with a ribbon tweeter. He said that when he demonstrated the two different types side by side, the audience was typically split 50-50 in terms of preference.

I got to hear two of his similar speakers: one with horn and one with ribbon. I preferred the horn. It also made me clearly realise the differences.

The ribbon tweeter is over smooth and
compressed. Gives an illusion of resolution and 3d. This can be good and most impressive with delta-sigma digital but it is flawed.

The horn just has more presence and realism. Transients and trumpets are more righteous. You do need 3-4m distance though.

The typical dome tweeter sounds shouty and struggeling and (again) compressed. Old fashioned cone tweeters better but rolled off.

Single driver can be good, but beaming and nasality can be a problem.

Electrostatics a bit like the ribbon but worse and more plasticy sound.

Mbl radial strahler: nice room filling none-hifi rounded sounding. But again again dynamically compromised. Duvet dynamics. Even though it was receiving 50-100 watts according to the vu meters on the amp.

Fwiw and imuho

Jesper

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Some of the nicest highs I have ever heard were from electrostats (but flat panels...not curved, which exaggerates the distortions and colorations of the panels) and large ribbons (think Apogee or Alsyvox). A really good horn/driver combo will sound as good and arguably more realistic and possibly less compressed, although my large electrostat panels were totally effortless with highs and had tons of headroom as you might expect from a huge section of panel doing highs. Apogee ribbons were able to deliver uncompressed highs as well. Small, tweeter only ribbons though probably run into limitations...unless you horn load those too!

One of the most endearing parts of my Odeon horns is the quality and realism of the tone and dynamics of the highs...it is what imparts a level of realism to them that I have heard in very few other speakers...

marmota said:

I was going to post the same. There was a user on headphone forums named "Mtoc", and he did exactly the same, even the writing style is similar. The modus operandi was: drops bomb post > thread goes on fire > goes out and opens another similar thread. Probably they are related or the same person, who knows.

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I think the same. This bombing style produces some side posts of real interest, but nothing seriously related to what was suggested in the thread tittle.

caesar said:

Dude, so if you and some others think being in the dark about something is better than understanding the trade offs - so you can try mitigate them, what are you doing participating in this thread?

ignore and wipe the knowledge from your brain immediately!

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No Caesar, you are the one wanting us to stay in the dark side of misunderstanding and pseudo knowledge.

Just analyzing a few brands and cases gives us just a very limited number of data points - nice opinions, but nothing enlightening on the depth or 3D of the auditory scene when using horns.

caesar said:

Dude, so if you and some others think being in the dark about something is better than understanding the trade offs - so you can try mitigate them, what are you doing participating in this thread?

ignore and wipe the knowledge from your brain immediately!

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LOL what an ego

See, the problem is not you asking questions or seeking for info, is how you do it.
You've already opened a snarky thread with a similar title before this one ("Aggressive: a fair criticism for horn designs?"), why do you open this thread instead of posting the question on your other thread? That's shitposting, only to stir up some angry reactions from people who likes horns. You do get some very interesting side posts as @microstrip said, but that's just the byproduct of people here being incredibly well educated and polite, not you asking the right questions.

Where you are 200% right is about the ignore function and leaving this thread. As Terminator said: sayonara, baby

DSkip said:

By projection I mean extending the soundstage well into space in front of where center stage is. Some test tracks I use create full circles around a listener. Others do waves of music that rush at you and then pull back.

Right now my system struggles to really reach those levels because I don’t have my reference dac in the mix. It still generates it, but it only comes out about four feet instead of an almost infinite space around the listener. That is why I don’t like generalizations because there are so many factors that can create or inhibit a single components ability to shine.

Depth isn’t exceptionally hard. Solid images is tougher - I hate the cardboard cutout images so many systems portray. Give me body! Still, projection is the toughest and it seems to be the one big element I come across that separates great gear from exceptional gear. To do that in space, across all frequencies, with strong coherence and body to the images is a very tough objective to meet.

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Do you consider projection or 3-dimensional imaging as mostly listening room phenomena?

tima said:

Do you consider projection or 3-dimensional imaging as mostly listening room phenomena?

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IMHO we can't address stereo 3-dimensional imaging without referring its origin. Stereo has no intrinsic physical 3D capabilities it is why we call it an illusionary system. It can be added strongly manipulating the phase of the signal - as done in some test tracks or artificial recordings that can envelope us as referred by DSkip. The effect of natural phase is small in common recordings and what we perceive as 3D in most classical recordings is created from small cues and intelligent tricks, including timbre manipulation, created during the recording state or mastering. Although it is biased towards dipole reproduction, not to horns , the Siegfried Linkwitz site is filled with extremely interesting information concerning the stereo auditory scene and how it is achieved. Unfortunately as we must also address the eye-ear system contribution to the auditory scene it is not possible to summarize it in five short lines.

I quote David Clark of DLC Design (http://www.dlcdesignaudio.com/) from the Linkwitz site https://www.linkwitzlab.com/Recording/AS_creation.htm


" An auditory scene is the array of auditory events that our ear-brain system creates from the pressure vs. time inputs to the eardrums. The mechanism is completely different from the visual scene we perceive through our eyes. The analogy should be taken no farther than the name “scene.”

The eye-brain system is a massively parallel system that maps nerve cells at the retina to corresponding locations in the brain to produce a visual scene of great spatial resolution. The receptor cells, however, have poor color resolution. (Green can be perceived from either pure green or a mixture of pure blue and pure yellow.)

The ear-brain system is a serial system that analyses the pressure variations into 30 frequency bands. (Bass mixed with treble does not result in the perception of midrange; it is heard as a bass pitch and a treble pitch.) The AS is not high in spatial resolution compared to the visual. Nevertheless, the ear is a very powerful identification mechanism and simultaneous auditory events can be analyzed and grouped.

Two eyes working together give us improved depth perception and two ears working together give us improved directional perception. The two systems working together give us impressive awareness capability. Usually attention is focused on the visual sense with hearing in the background confirming and sharpening the events. When there is no light, hearing becomes dominant, but we tend to retain the “scene” as our map of what is going on. This is our auditory scene. It is strongly affected by visual history and expectations, not just sounds. " (end of quote)

Surely the room reflections contribute to the 3D illusion - but either enhancing it or killing it, unfortunately depending on the recording and the listener.

tima said:

Do you consider projection or 3-dimensional imaging as mostly listening room phenomena?

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The room definitely influences it but I don’t consider it an element of the room. You have to have the gear capable of it in order to get it.

3D images - where the images themselves have depth and aren’t cardboard cutouts in space - have only been present in systems I’ve heard that can present the images in a 3D soundstage. This aspect only requires depth of the soundstage and not projection.

Projection is much harder to attain and many things have to be going right. You have to have a complement of components that can do it - if one piece is incapable of it, the system will fail utterly at reproducing it.

I would like to add that while projection is an aspect of phase play in the recording, I’ve heard even car systems reproduce simple phase play like in Pink Floyd. There are certain songs and artists/genres that feel completely different if you get the projection right. There are minor phase plays that get lost in so many systems.

I’ve only gotten close to this sound at one show: Lone Star Audio Fest 2019. I got a lot of positive feedback and an award or two at Axpona that same year, but the truth is the system was far from what it was capable of with respect to the soundstage. LSAF had great depth and a little projection and other demonstrators were even blown away and sending people to my room. The sad part is only maybe 5-10% of show attendees could hear these elements. This is why I spend 30-45 minutes teaching clients who come to hear my main system what said system does in space. If I don’t, many will still enjoy the sound but not understand why. If I do it, they listen to music in a new way and end up with a much better understanding of what a system is capable of and what they actually want out of their system. The cymbal crash at 0:38 no longer matters - the performance in front of them captivates them completely and they get closer to an experience than a ‘listening session’.

Outside of the pairing of Rosso Fiorentino and Norma, I’ve also heard this phenomenon produced very well in a system with Stenheim speakers and CH Precision. That room had obvious issues that couldn’t be fixed, but the projection was still there. The room does matter, but ultimately the gear itself has to be capable and the speakers have to be set up properly.

caesar said:

Gentlemen,
I appreciate all of the replies. Please keep them coming

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And I appreciate your questions. Please keep them coming.

I appreciate that you are trying to understand the tradeoffs so you can try to mitigate them. Whether or not you ever try something from the horn speaker end of the continuum, you will be making as informed a decision as you reasonably can.

And as I mentioned in another thread, in my opinion you are asking the tough questions that many, if not most, audiophiles would ask about horns... except that instead of actually asking, most have already made up their minds. So I WELCOME your questions!

Following on from the interesting discussions from Duke et al, I am going to try a rear firing attenuated wide bander that is delayed using dsp as a means of trying to understand any gains that can be made to imaging. To be honest, I am very happy with my current imaging, I feel it is one of my speaker’s strongest suits but you know it is always good to keep advancing
Will keep folks updated on any progress good or bad.

Audiophile Bill said:

Following on from the interesting discussions from Duke et al, I am going to try a rear firing attenuated wide bander that is delayed using dsp as a means of trying to understand any gains that can be made to imaging. To be honest, I am very happy with my current imaging, I feel it is one of my speaker’s strongest suits but you know it is always good to keep advancing
Will keep folks updated on any progress good or bad.

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Do try it. Usually one has nothing to lose as the mods are easily reversible.

When I started with this, my system was fully quad amplified. Changing the impedance of the main driver by piggybacking off it had a negligible effect on the crossover as all that happened was that the driving amplifier sees a lower impedance so relative level for that driver needed to be adjusted. In a speaker with a passive crossover, this would not be so simple. All I used was a huge stack of cheap resistors as L-pads to get the level right and then when settled replace with Duelunds. Even deciding on dipole/bipole was a purely subjective decision.

To my way of thinking DSP delay should not be necessary as the distance from the rear-firing driver to the reflective surface should take care of delay. I also think it important that the rear-firing driver is horn-loaded so that there is some degree of directionality control. But again, just my opinion and my system.

jdza said:

Do try it. Usually one has nothing to lose as the mods are easily reversible.

When I started with this, my system was fully quad amplified. Changing the impedance of the main driver by piggybacking off it had a negligible effect on the crossover as all that happened was that the driving amplifier sees a lower impedance so relative level for that driver needed to be adjusted. In a speaker with a passive crossover, this would not be so simple. All I used was a huge stack of cheap resistors as L-pads to get the level right and then when settled replace with Duelunds. Even deciding on dipole/bipole was a purely subjective decision.

To my way of thinking DSP delay should not be necessary as the distance from the rear-firing driver to the reflective surface should take care of delay. I also think it important that the rear-firing driver is horn-loaded so that there is some degree of directionality control. But again, just my opinion and my system.

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Hi jdza,

Yes agree with all your points. In this instance the dsp approach I am using is just a quick testing fix as it is easy to implement for me in parallel leaving all else (as is) untouched. Also because it allows on the fly adjustment of its specific crossover point (allowing me to test a few drivers quickly) and on the fly delay adjustments.

In terms of the horn loading point. Yes it did occur to me that it might be a consideration. I suppose it is really the goal of the rear field. My assumption at present (and of course I might well be wrong) is that wide dispersion was welcome for this application versus strictly controlled directivity. What was your rationale for wanting to control that rear directivity or was it that in your application, you wanted to channel that rear wave specifically into your bass horn because of your setup? My starting point was that wider dispersion would be helpful for this specific application in order to give space and openness in the reverberant field. I even wondered whether a fixed position of such a driver would be a bad thing and whether it will ultimately be room dependent to gain the optimum illusion.

Best.

Ah I forgot to mention. I was discussing a similar but related concept with a speaker designer recently and he was talking about bouncing this field off the ceiling.

microstrip said:

Stereo has no intrinsic physical 3D capabilities it is why we call it an illusionary system. It can be added strongly manipulating the phase of the signal - as done in some test tracks or artificial recordings that can envelope us as referred by DSkip. The effect of natural phase is small in common recordings and what we perceive as 3D in most classical recordings is created from small cues and intelligent tricks, including timbre manipulation, created during the recording state or mastering.

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DSkip said:

The room definitely influences it but I don’t consider it an element of the room. You have to have the gear capable of it in order to get it.

3D images - where the images themselves have depth and aren’t cardboard cutouts in space - have only been present in systems I’ve heard that can present the images in a 3D soundstage. This aspect only requires depth of the soundstage and not projection.

Projection is much harder to attain and many things have to be going right. You have to have a complement of components that can do it - if one piece is incapable of it, the system will fail utterly at reproducing it.

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Thanks for your responses. I agree that certain equipment can be more influential than other in facilitating both dimensional imaging and projection. I also believe speaker set-up and room acoustics can have an effect on arrival timing and that timing plays an important role in psycho-acoustic phenomena.

And I agree that many audiophiles find such phenomena attractive, fun, and they attempt to attain them from their systems.

tima said:

Do you consider projection or 3-dimensional imaging as mostly listening room phenomena?

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Perhaps my original question needs to be clarified or rephrased: Do you consider projection or 3-dimensional imaging as mostly limited to stereo listening room phenomena or do you experience those sonic characteristics (and they seem to be sonic characteristics rather than characteristics of music) when listening to live acoustic music such as in a concert hall or in smaller venue performances such as a jazz club or even a string quartett in a living room?

caesar said:

Is it a fair criticism of the horn technology? For which brands?

And Why?

Thanks in advance

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It's understandable why more than a few get agitated by the questions posing sweeping generalizations. A huge part of the room interaction with a horn relates to it's off axis energy, and diffraction from sharp edges that are spaced too far from a driver will tend to fight with the subjectively sense of a speaker "disappearing."

The shape and angle of a horn at different dimensions directly impacts how sound radiates from it. The angle of the horn walls at smaller dimensions affect higher frequency radiation, while larger areas along the horn affect lower frequencies. With some background understanding and dimensions, you can get a reasonable idea of how a horn will radiate sound just by looking at the details of the shape. While conventional speakers can add a radius or beveled edge on different size baffles, the face is almost always a confined hemisphere which then beyond some face dimension goes to full open space. In the case of conventional speakers, driver sizes and crossover selection combine with baffle dimensions to dictate the off axis behavior.

Above the frequency where you transition to direct radiators, it is generally the horn shape, not the driver selection, which dictates the off axis behavior. As such, you can have as wide a variation in behavior as you can draw or make horn shapes. This understanding should lead to the expectation of much greater variations in sound an presentation between different horn types than between conventional direct radiating speakers. The common thread is confining sound radiation to less than that of a direct radiating speaker. This makes for a few common differences vs direct radiators, but more significant potential differences within a sampling of different horns. Both the spacial confinement and the acoustic loading will increase sensitivity, which makes for some common benefits of various horns.

While the reasons I posted in the other thread explain why you can have dramatically different voicings and quality of execution, we have to also realize that horns of similar mouth size and design type, will interact with a room more similarly, while very wide angle horns vs very narrow opening horns should be expected to be more different than similar. The generalizations made by various listeners can often be directly traced to what horn examples they have experienced, as well as what sort of environment they have experienced them in.

tima said:

Perhaps my original question needs to be clarified or rephrased: Do you consider projection or 3-dimensional imaging as mostly limited to stereo listening room phenomena or do you experience those sonic characteristics (and they seem to be sonic characteristics rather than characteristics of music) when listening to live acoustic music such as in a concert hall or in smaller venue performances such as a jazz club or even a string quartett in a living room?

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Acoustic instruments and unamplified singers project and take up a singular point in space. You get the body because the instrument itself resonates and makes itself known. You don't hear a pinhead singing at you.

Some of the effects I speak of are more prominent in electronic music like Deadmau5 and Trentmoller. With this music, you can hear elements really develop across the entire room and the music becomes less of a repetitive trance and more like a world of sound. It is quite the experience when it happens. Most music doesn't have these strong projection elements, but sometimes they even poke their head out in more traditional genres unless they are live recorded in lively rooms.

I'm not sure if that is what you are after or not.

Audiophile Bill said:

In terms of the horn loading point. Yes it did occur to me that it might be a consideration.

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In my experience more important than the radiation pattern of the rear-firing energy is the delay before it arrives at the listening area. The reason I use horns and/or coaxials is because I'm not using DSP delay, so my rear-firing energy needs to go in a direction which will result in a sufficient path-length-induced delay.

I haven't tried a DSP-delayed wideband driver, but that may work very well. Note that some response shaping may be beneficial, as it's the power response that matters, rather than the driver's on-axis response.