Visit to Audiophile Bill to hear his horns project

[bonzo75]

Make something out of Ked's bits at some stage because I'll be amazed if he ever does it.

Be sure to charge him an absolute fortune, though

You can be sure he will never be happy so the constant stream of upgrade requests is guaranteed income for life!

This is why I am not putting it together

 

[morricab]

The point actually was that the driver worked with the lowest watt amp we tried and not the others. There was no dogmatism it was an observation. The post also said I would like to try other low watt amps like 45s.

Yet, you are adamant that only a low powered amp can work...like User211 said...weird. I can fully understand how some amp topologies won't work well due to high damping on a low Qts driver, preponderance of high and odd order distortion that the AERs will highlight etc.. but a well designed SET of whatever power should work fine. Perhaps the other SETs were simply not of the quality of the Mayer and it has nothing to do with the power?

 

[morricab]

"t seems that long horns pose a serious issue with time delay of the sound coming out of the horn vs. direct radiation. I think this could lead to a single driver sounding not so unified due to the delay line introduced by the horn for lower frequencies"

I think this is correct and this is what the Mayer 46 was adjusting for in the pnoe compared to other amps tried. The other more powerful amps were pushing out the bass forward at a different timing.

You are suggesting then that the Mayer amp might have inadequate bass or out of phase bass on other speakers? I would find that hard to believe given Thomas Mayer's design chops. I expect the amp is quite linear down to a few Hz...like other well designed SETs.

 

[bonzo75]

Yet, you are adamant that only a low powered amp can work...like User211 said...weird. I can fully understand how some amp topologies won't work well due to high damping on a low Qts driver, preponderance of high and odd order distortion that the AERs will highlight etc.. but a well designed SET of whatever power should work fine. Perhaps the other SETs were simply not of the quality of the Mayer and it has nothing to do with the power?

One of them was a Mayer 211. The other was Nat magma. There were various iterations of the 46 and the 211 and I preferred all the 46s, none of the 211s. The iterations were improvements in terms of adding more silver, separate boxes for power supply

 

[bonzo75]

You are suggesting then that the Mayer amp might have inadequate bass or out of phase bass on other speakers? I would find that hard to believe given Thomas Mayer's design chops. I expect the amp is quite linear down to a few Hz...like other well designed SETs.

No. Again. We tried Mayer 46, Mayer 211, Nat magma, and audio consulting on the pnoe. Mayer 46 was also played on BD swings and Bill's AER based horns as well, it works great on their bass. Mayer 211 was also tried on horns symphonia and did not drive it adequately.

That aside, the other observation was the difference in nuance between the Mayer 46 and the other amps is very high on the AER. Inflections and micro dynamics are much higher. This is no different from observations of 2a3 or 45 with respect to higher wattage amps. The difference is that these lower wattage amps lack the drive for most speakers, but not for pnoe or the likes of Bill's

 

[the sound of Tao]

"who detests around 99% of speakers "

By this definition, I am your daddy

Lol

 

[VinylSavor]

To all following those discussions about 46 amps.
Higher power versions are in progress thanks to a new Elrog tube in development which recreates the 46 sound at 300B power levels... Work still in progress. News updates will be on my blog next month

Thomas

 

[Alrainbow]

"t seems that long horns pose a serious issue with time delay of the sound coming out of the horn vs. direct radiation. I think this could lead to a single driver sounding not so unified due to the delay line introduced by the horn for lower frequencies"

I think this is correct and this is what the Mayer 46 was adjusting for in the pnoe compared to other amps tried. The other more powerful amps were pushing out the bass forward at a different timing.

How does an amp adjust for misalignment of time ..?

 

[bonzo75]

How does an amp adjust for misalignment of time ..?

I never said I know or that is what it does. I said what I heard with 3 more powerful amps, a low powered amp, and Justin heard the misalignment in Munich with a 100w amp. I am sure someone can Google up a theory

 

[Alrainbow]

My google guess would be the higher powered amps control the bass driver better and in turn shows the unbalanced nature of the system by driving the bass out front more ..

A low powered amp will seek easiest load and promote less low bass ..

 

[bonzo75]

My google guess would be the higher powered amps control the bass driver better and in turn shows the unbalanced nature of the system by driving the bass out front more ..

A low powered amp will seek easiest load and promote less low bass ..

Possible. And the less bass here is correct because the speaker has excess bass that can sound easily overpowering.

 

[Robh3606]

But crux of it was that 4001 was extended by adding peak resonances and needs some work in the cross over to smooth that, while 4003 was Bart Locanthi (the engineer's) best work to iron out those issues and was linear to 18khz. 4001 can be used in the same design though.

Hello Bonzo

I am not a TAD guy more JBL. The 4001 was closer to say a 375/2440 with a 4 slit phase plug? Did the 4001 also use a 4 slit or 5. Reason I was wondering is I believe the 4003 uses a 5 slit and that was part of the "fix" as the Be diaphragms extended out another octave above the aluminum using the same surround type. Is this correct??

Rob

 

[christensenleif@msn.com]

incorrect
not same surround/ suspension of diaphragm
slightly different and softer
also the wires from driver terminals are replaced by custom plug that connects directly to diaphragm assy poles...
same in 2002
my partner in the compression driver/ horn combo project was a die hard JBL fan too, but the 4003 made him roll over....
next in line was JBL 2450/2451SL with trueextent

 

[bonzo75]

Hello Bonzo

I am not a TAD guy more JBL. The 4001 was closer to say a 375/2440 with a 4 slit phase plug? Did the 4001 also use a 4 slit or 5. Reason I was wondering is I believe the 4003 uses a 5 slit and that was part of the "fix" as the Be diaphragms extended out another octave above the aluminum using the same surround type. Is this correct??

Rob

The first dual FLH that impressed me was the jbl 375 with a Beryllium diaphragm in a 4550 cabinet

Both 4001 and 4003 have 5 phase plug, as do Radian 950. I think in JBL 2450.

4003 did have a change that allowed direct connection from the speaker wire to the Beryllium Diaphragm.

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Some piccies during development with my mentor:


Here you can start to appreciate the wall thickness that is >10cm in specific areas


Front portion of horn


My wonderful mentor and teacher. 88 years old and strong as a bull. Knows a thing or 2 about wood turning and joinery

 

[spiritofmusic]

Bill, what a great guy. Had he even heard of horn speakers before you linked up with him? If not, what did he think you were proposing?

 

[Audiophile Bill]

Bill, what a great guy. Had he even heard of horn speakers before you linked up with him? If not, what did he think you were proposing?

Hi Marc,

So this is quite mad. He did indeed know about horn speakers because of his age and because of the gramophone era. He loves a challenge and was mad enough to take me and my ideas on.

I have grown enormously fond of him - he helped heal me through nearly 2 years of emotional family torment. Getting deep into this craft allowed my brain to recalibrate.

I later designed this mini iPhone horn below for fun and he built himself one for his clock radio by his bed. He said, “you saved me from needing hearing aids” - what a legend.

 

[spiritofmusic]

I did see that mini horn at yours. As they say, and never truer here, they really don't make 'em like him anymore. I can well imagine he saw a kindred spirit in you, and held you under his wing. He must be absolutely chuffed with what you've achieved from the initial push and unique skillset he gave you. Acorns/trees...

 

[Alrainbow]

Some piccies during development with my mentor:


Here you can start to appreciate the wall thickness that is >10cm in specific areas
View attachment 67485

Front portion of horn
View attachment 67486

My wonderful mentor and teacher. 88 years old and strong as a bull. Knows a thing or 2 about wood turning and joinery

View attachment 67487

The quality of work is immense, just wow ...!

 

[Audiophile Bill]

I did see that mini horn at yours. As they say, and never truer here, they really don't make 'em like him anymore. I can well imagine he saw a kindred spirit in you, and held you under his wing. He must be absolutely chuffed with what you've achieved from the initial push and unique skillset he gave you. Acorns/trees...

Thanks Marc. Yes he was surprised how badly I was bitten by the bug. At one point I was sending him images of bowls and hollow forms on a daily basis during lockdown for critique and teaching. I made all sorts of mad things mainly for practice.

Yes as you correctly say - he is made like they aren’t made now. Seriously puts me to shame. He turns 89 in the autumn and he cycles minimum 15km per day at his age. He goes to the gym 4 days per week. He has been vegetarian for 20 years, which he seems to think helps his immunity etc. I would leave his workshop after a 10 hour day literally desperate for bed. He went off to play table tennis with his great grand children.

Some madness below - good for practice as much harder than horns.