In horns, as in everything in life, you get what you pay for.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the current thread "Horns
are bad", in which some apparently underprivileged audiophiles
pontificate weightily about public address horns and sound
reinforcement horns and mickey mouse high frequency horns to fill out
the top end of multicone boxes. This is a hi-fi conference. Those
aren't hi-fi horns.

A hi-fi horn is a point-source, full-range speaker. The least expensive
possibly good ones are made with Fostex drivers, the guaranteed good
ones are made with Lowther drivers, those with extra drool-factor are
custom-made to order by Tannoy and deservedly called Royal Westminster.
Even at the bottom, Fostex end, horns are not for the impecunious; good
hi-fi horns start a long way up the speaker price range. Poor
audiophiles can get a taste of point source speakers in tapered
quarterwave pipes, also called Voigt pipes after their inventor, the
original Lowther designer Paul Voigt. (Note the absent h.)

What a good horn is good for in hi-fi is precisely what good panels are
good for in hi-fi, a stunning midrange and very clean bass and treble.
The owners of panels and horns are almost always big fans of vocals and
small instrumental ensembles. I have both Quad ESL63 electrostats and
Lowther Fidelio horns in the same room often visited by professional
musicians and can vouch for the authority of each quieting conversation
instantly. It is not that they are not good for large-scale music as
well, but that horns and panels bring you especially close to
individual musicians in smaller groups or performing solo.

It is a fallacy that you cannot get deep bass on panels or horns. In
either case all that is required for deep bass is space and money. In
panels you simply stack as many pairs of ESL as are required to give
bass as deep as you want or the room will take. In horns you simply
make the horn larger until, if necessary, it occupies a room of its own
or you have to dig up the lawn to bury it in the garden. The pure
quality of the sound and the authority of the horn, or the clarity of
the panels, may make this worthwhile to you. The truth is that few who
have heard the bell-like purity of Quad panels or the spine-rippling
authority of a Lowther horn can be bothered to mess around trying to
improve what is already near-perfect. In fact the truth is the
opposite: those with experience of horns deliberately design horns to
limit the frequency extremes to guarantee the cleanest sound; even Quad
owners who own more than one pair rarely stack their panels except in
spaces too large for one pair to fill.

We, the lucky owners, don't care about the opinions of underprivileged
"engineers". We live in bliss already. That is what hi-fi is about:
hedonism.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review

Yo, Keith, this might interest you and your friends as well. You are
invited because at our recent Chinese theme party you were so well
behaved... And we discovered a lotta tubies hiding out among the
ukrainians. AJ

Andre Jute wrote:
In horns, as in everything in life, you get what you pay for.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the current thread "Horns
are bad", in which some apparently underprivileged audiophiles
pontificate weightily about public address horns and sound
reinforcement horns and mickey mouse high frequency horns to fill out
the top end of multicone boxes. This is a hi-fi conference. Those
aren't hi-fi horns.

A hi-fi horn is a point-source, full-range speaker. The least expensive
possibly good ones are made with Fostex drivers, the guaranteed good
ones are made with Lowther drivers, those with extra drool-factor are
custom-made to order by Tannoy and deservedly called Royal Westminster.
Even at the bottom, Fostex end, horns are not for the impecunious; good
hi-fi horns start a long way up the speaker price range. Poor
audiophiles can get a taste of point source speakers in tapered
quarterwave pipes, also called Voigt pipes after their inventor, the
original Lowther designer Paul Voigt. (Note the absent h.)

What a good horn is good for in hi-fi is precisely what good panels are
good for in hi-fi, a stunning midrange and very clean bass and treble.
The owners of panels and horns are almost always big fans of vocals and
small instrumental ensembles. I have both Quad ESL63 electrostats and
Lowther Fidelio horns in the same room often visited by professional
musicians and can vouch for the authority of each quieting conversation
instantly. It is not that they are not good for large-scale music as
well, but that horns and panels bring you especially close to
individual musicians in smaller groups or performing solo.

It is a fallacy that you cannot get deep bass on panels or horns. In
either case all that is required for deep bass is space and money. In
panels you simply stack as many pairs of ESL as are required to give
bass as deep as you want or the room will take. In horns you simply
make the horn larger until, if necessary, it occupies a room of its own
or you have to dig up the lawn to bury it in the garden. The pure
quality of the sound and the authority of the horn, or the clarity of
the panels, may make this worthwhile to you. The truth is that few who
have heard the bell-like purity of Quad panels or the spine-rippling
authority of a Lowther horn can be bothered to mess around trying to
improve what is already near-perfect. In fact the truth is the
opposite: those with experience of horns deliberately design horns to
limit the frequency extremes to guarantee the cleanest sound; even Quad
owners who own more than one pair rarely stack their panels except in
spaces too large for one pair to fill.

We, the lucky owners, don't care about the opinions of underprivileged
"engineers". We live in bliss already. That is what hi-fi is about:
hedonism.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review

Andre Jute wrote:

A hi-fi horn is a point-source, full-range speaker.

LMFAO !

I see you don't know much about *acoustic* considerations in horns either
in that case !

You can find some 'very nice' PA trumpets that fit the above category. As
used in fairgrounds, amusement parks, stadia etc.

Hi-fi my arse !

Graham

On 12 Jan 2006 14:41:32 -0800, "Andre Jute" wrote:

In horns, as in everything in life, you get what you pay for.

A hi-fi horn is a point-source, full-range speaker. The least expensive
possibly good ones are made with Fostex drivers, the guaranteed good
ones are made with Lowther drivers, those with extra drool-factor are
custom-made to order by Tannoy and deservedly called Royal Westminster.
Even at the bottom, Fostex end, horns are not for the impecunious; good
hi-fi horns start a long way up the speaker price range. Poor
audiophiles can get a taste of point source speakers in tapered
quarterwave pipes, also called Voigt pipes after their inventor, the
original Lowther designer Paul Voigt. (Note the absent h.)

This would be a better discussion if we were to separate true
horn loading (an acoustical transformer between diaphragm and
ambient air) and various back-loading schemes to affect the
diaphragm's movement (which may have their own charms).

True horns optimally require driver fundamental resonance to
be placed within the horn's passband; this pretty much means
a (quite) small rear chamber, very large mouths, on the order
of a wavelength, and acceptance that our ten octave hearing
is fundamentally wider than can be reproduced by conventional
drivers (by a factor of three-ish, log).

In return, they can provide a level of linearity which the same
driver cannot in free air, and a damping of the driver's
incidental resonances free air cannot. The trade-off
is in bandwidth vs. performance in several these categories.


Low mass panels approach this from the opposite direction.
Instead of trying to couple a high mass, high force (high
mechanical impedance) driver to the low mass, high
compliance (low mechanical impedance) ambient air, as horns
do, they are themselves low mass and low mechanical impedance.

IOW, they couple natively to the air they're driving. Perhaps
surprisingly, electrostatically driven panel speakers have the
same high conversion efficiencies of horn coupled dynamics.
(Their parasitic capacitance is outside of the driver model,
and could be "returned" with an elaborate design; kinda
like braking in electric cars).


And don't get me started about the sad shape of (most)
commercial horn flares.
Sorry for babbling,

Chris Hornbeck
"Slugs and snails are after me; DDT keeps me happy,
Guess I'm gonna haf'ta tell 'em, that I've got no cerebellum.
Gonna get my PHD, ...
All the girls are in love with me, ..." -Ramones

"Andre Jute" wrote in message
oups.com...
Yo, Keith, this might interest you and your friends as well. You are
invited because at our recent Chinese theme party you were so well
behaved... And we discovered a lotta tubies hiding out among the
ukrainians. AJ


Lumme, it's been a while since I had an 'invite'...!! :-)

(I ironed a shirt, but I can't find me cufflinks....)


Andre Jute wrote:
In horns, as in everything in life, you get what you pay for.


Hah! Who told you that - Jim Carfrae?



Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the current thread "Horns
are bad", in which some apparently underprivileged audiophiles
pontificate weightily about public address horns and sound
reinforcement horns and mickey mouse high frequency horns to fill out
the top end of multicone boxes. This is a hi-fi conference. Those
aren't hi-fi horns.


OK, we haven't seen that in ukra...

Not 'hifi horns'? - Neither are foghorns, ships 'whistles', the triple-tones
found on classic English sports cars (even the dualtones on trains) or all
those shiny things you see in orchestras but they all make a lovely sound!!
:-)

(Tubas are particularly nice...!! :-)


A hi-fi horn is a point-source, full-range speaker. The least expensive
possibly good ones are made with Fostex drivers,


Actually the Visaton drivers are a third of the price of Fostex and give a
bassier, more 'rounded sound' - if conceding a little 'classiness' and
finesse/delicacy...


the guaranteed good
ones are made with Lowther drivers,


My eyes are fixed firmly in that direction - the chin is lifted, the lips
are pursed, the brow is furrowed....


those with extra drool-factor are
custom-made to order by Tannoy and deservedly called Royal Westminster.
Even at the bottom, Fostex end, horns are not for the impecunious; good
hi-fi horns start a long way up the speaker price range. Poor
audiophiles can get a taste of point source speakers in tapered
quarterwave pipes, also called Voigt pipes after their inventor, the
original Lowther designer Paul Voigt. (Note the absent h.)


Yes indeed they can - I already done Needles and Buschhorns and I'm now on a
pair of Jerichos:

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/titl...20speakers.htm

Others are puddling along in the same general direction and we chatter - see
this extract from an email I received earlier this evening:

"Keith,

As you can see, the Castles have gone - soon to power up the DVD-TV setup in
the other room...

I am now a total convert to Full Range speakers - they are absolutely
superb..."

and here are his beauties (not finished yet:

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Dougie1.JPG

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Dougie2.jpg



What a good horn is good for in hi-fi is precisely what good panels are
good for in hi-fi, a stunning midrange and very clean bass and treble.


Yes.


The owners of panels and horns are almost always big fans of vocals and
small instrumental ensembles.


Yes, but not exclusively so - this week's standout 'rediscoveries' have been
Mingus' 'Tijuana Moods' and PF's 'Ummagumma'...

(It's the *clarity*...!!)


I have both Quad ESL63 electrostats and
Lowther Fidelio horns in the same room often visited by professional
musicians and can vouch for the authority of each quieting conversation
instantly.


:-)


It is not that they are not good for large-scale music as
well, but that horns and panels bring you especially close to
individual musicians in smaller groups or performing solo.

It is a fallacy that you cannot get deep bass on panels or horns.


:-)

I know that, you know that... ;-)

(The 'Foghorn' reference above should give a leetle clue as to what *is*
possible....)


In
either case all that is required for deep bass is space and money.


A folded 15 foot horn'll go as low as you could ever want, I'm reliably
informed....



We, the lucky owners, don't care about the opinions of underprivileged
"engineers".


We don't neither...


We live in bliss already. That is what hi-fi is about:
hedonism.


I must be doing summat wrong then - it's harder work than 'working for a
living'...!! ;-)

Chris Hornbeck wrote:
On 12 Jan 2006 14:41:32 -0800, "Andre Jute" wrote:

In horns, as in everything in life, you get what you pay for.

A hi-fi horn is a point-source, full-range speaker. The least expensive
possibly good ones are made with Fostex drivers, the guaranteed good
ones are made with Lowther drivers, those with extra drool-factor are
custom-made to order by Tannoy and deservedly called Royal Westminster.
Even at the bottom, Fostex end, horns are not for the impecunious; good
hi-fi horns start a long way up the speaker price range. Poor
audiophiles can get a taste of point source speakers in tapered
quarterwave pipes, also called Voigt pipes after their inventor, the
original Lowther designer Paul Voigt. (Note the absent h.)

This would be a better discussion if we were to separate true
horn loading (an acoustical transformer between diaphragm and
ambient air) and various back-loading schemes to affect the
diaphragm's movement (which may have their own charms).


I was going to say I don't know what book Jute read this out of: while
horn loading is possible with full range drivers, "horns" much more
typically are things like A4 Altecs, JBLs, Klipschhorns and
derivatives, Edgarhorns, things like that. Usually using compression
drivers for treble and midrange.

The Tannoy Dual Concentric is a fine driver, but they are no longer
available at any reasonable basis: they, and the Altec 604 and similar
drivers, are not horns in and of themselves. Neither are they
"full-range single drivers"-they are two drivers in one unit and
require external crossover or bi-amping. The Tannoy cabs are not "all
that and a bag of chips".

Bret Ludwig wrote:

The Tannoy Dual Concentric is a fine driver, but they are no longer
available at any reasonable basis: they, and the Altec 604 and similar
drivers, are not horns in and of themselves. Neither are they
"full-range single drivers"-they are two drivers in one unit and
require external crossover or bi-amping.

Yup.

And the LF section isn't horn loaded either.

Graham

On 12 Jan 2006 19:34:15 -0800, "Bret Ludwig"
wrote:

while
horn loading is possible with full range drivers, "horns" much more
typically are things like A4 Altecs, JBLs, Klipschhorns and
derivatives, Edgarhorns, things like that.

And, FWIW, many of the classic Altecs and JBL's aren't
really horn-coupled either. A7's etc.

Maybe a good speaker for somebody, but *not* representative
of the "horn coupled" genre.

But then, neither are *any* backloaded designs. Semantic
slippage, etc.

Chris Hornbeck
"Slugs and snails are after me; DDT keeps me happy,
Guess I'm gonna haf'ta tell 'em, that I've got no cerebellum.
Gonna get my PHD, ...
All the girls are in love with me, ..." -Ramones

"Andre Jute"

In horns, as in everything in life, you get what you pay for.



** Oh no, that is not so Andre.


" The best things in life are free

If you steal 'em from the bourgeoisie "

Country Joe.



.......... Phil

Chris Hornbeck wrote:
On 12 Jan 2006 14:41:32 -0800, "Andre Jute" wrote:

In horns, as in everything in life, you get what you pay for.

A hi-fi horn is a point-source, full-range speaker. The least expensive
possibly good ones are made with Fostex drivers, the guaranteed good
ones are made with Lowther drivers, those with extra drool-factor are
custom-made to order by Tannoy and deservedly called Royal Westminster.
Even at the bottom, Fostex end, horns are not for the impecunious; good
hi-fi horns start a long way up the speaker price range. Poor
audiophiles can get a taste of point source speakers in tapered
quarterwave pipes, also called Voigt pipes after their inventor, the
original Lowther designer Paul Voigt. (Note the absent h.)

This would be a better discussion if we were to separate true
horn loading (an acoustical transformer between diaphragm and
ambient air) and various back-loading schemes to affect the
diaphragm's movement (which may have their own charms).

True horns optimally require driver fundamental resonance to
be placed within the horn's passband; this pretty much means
a (quite) small rear chamber, very large mouths, on the order
of a wavelength, and acceptance that our ten octave hearing
is fundamentally wider than can be reproduced by conventional
drivers (by a factor of three-ish, log).

In return, they can provide a level of linearity which the same
driver cannot in free air, and a damping of the driver's
incidental resonances free air cannot. The trade-off
is in bandwidth vs. performance in several these categories.

Low mass panels approach this from the opposite direction.
Instead of trying to couple a high mass, high force (high
mechanical impedance) driver to the low mass, high
compliance (low mechanical impedance) ambient air, as horns
do, they are themselves low mass and low mechanical impedance.

IOW, they couple natively to the air they're driving. Perhaps
surprisingly, electrostatically driven panel speakers have the
same high conversion efficiencies of horn coupled dynamics.
(Their parasitic capacitance is outside of the driver model,
and could be "returned" with an elaborate design; kinda
like braking in electric cars).


And don't get me started about the sad shape of (most)
commercial horn flares.
Sorry for babbling,

Chris Hornbeck
"Slugs and snails are after me; DDT keeps me happy,
Guess I'm gonna haf'ta tell 'em, that I've got no cerebellum.
Gonna get my PHD, ...
All the girls are in love with me, ..." -Ramones

Sorry for babbling,

Not at all. This is the most interesting of the responses. However, I
was really only talking about backloaded "full range" hi-fi horns, not
any collection of trumpets with wave guides of whatever size. I'm not
into VOT gear.

And of course you're right, even a backloaded horn is a compromise
between bandwidth and quality. That is why sensible horn designers
sacrifice a tiny amount of bandwidth for greater authority.

As for the horn expansions touted by this one and that, not even to
mention the mysteries of the bicor, I've tried them all and the math is
only an approximation to glee. As far as I can tell, my current
Fidelio-types shouldn't really work (too small, too short, very odd
compression chamber). But I really shouldn't single out the very
successful Fidelio; most of the successful horns I have ever heard
don't cut it on paper when considering only the math. Virtually every
good horn known was developed rather than designed, regardless of how
the designer waves around beautiful CAD. It seems to me a shame that
the horn ceased to be a consumer item before its hi-fi mysteries were
fully plumbed, so that our knowledge is really stuck in 1939.

I have often wondered if the small motion of horn drivers and panels
have something to do with the purity and clarity of their sound.

Andre Jute

Phil Allison wrote:
"Andre Jute"

In horns, as in everything in life, you get what you pay for.

** Oh no, that is not so Andre.

" The best things in life are free

If you steal 'em from the bourgeoisie "

Country Joe.

......... Phil

You'd better bring help, Phil. Stealing my horns will give you a bad
back, carrying the 100kg cabs down four flights of stairs!

Andre Jute
Booboise

Andre Jute wrote:

In horns, as in everything in life, you get what you pay for.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the current thread "Horns
are bad", in which some apparently underprivileged audiophiles
pontificate weightily about public address horns and sound
reinforcement horns and mickey mouse high frequency horns to fill out
the top end of multicone boxes. This is a hi-fi conference. Those
aren't hi-fi horns.

A hi-fi horn is a point-source, full-range speaker. The least expensive

possibly good ones are made with Fostex drivers, the guaranteed good
ones are made with Lowther drivers, those with extra drool-factor are
custom-made to order by Tannoy and deservedly called Royal Westminster.

Even at the bottom, Fostex end, horns are not for the impecunious; good

hi-fi horns start a long way up the speaker price range. Poor
audiophiles can get a taste of point source speakers in tapered
quarterwave pipes, also called Voigt pipes after their inventor, the
original Lowther designer Paul Voigt. (Note the absent h.)

What a good horn is good for in hi-fi is precisely what good panels are

good for in hi-fi, a stunning midrange and very clean bass and treble.
The owners of panels and horns are almost always big fans of vocals and

small instrumental ensembles. I have both Quad ESL63 electrostats and
Lowther Fidelio horns in the same room often visited by professional
musicians and can vouch for the authority of each quieting conversation

instantly. It is not that they are not good for large-scale music as
well, but that horns and panels bring you especially close to
individual musicians in smaller groups or performing solo.

It is a fallacy that you cannot get deep bass on panels or horns. In
either case all that is required for deep bass is space and money. In
panels you simply stack as many pairs of ESL as are required to give
bass as deep as you want or the room will take. In horns you simply
make the horn larger until, if necessary, it occupies a room of its own

or you have to dig up the lawn to bury it in the garden. The pure
quality of the sound and the authority of the horn, or the clarity of
the panels, may make this worthwhile to you. The truth is that few who
have heard the bell-like purity of Quad panels or the spine-rippling
authority of a Lowther horn can be bothered to mess around trying to
improve what is already near-perfect. In fact the truth is the
opposite: those with experience of horns deliberately design horns to
limit the frequency extremes to guarantee the cleanest sound; even Quad

owners who own more than one pair rarely stack their panels except in
spaces too large for one pair to fill.

We, the lucky owners, don't care about the opinions of underprivileged
"engineers". We live in bliss already. That is what hi-fi is about:
hedonism.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review

Poopie Stevenson, a fat DJ, replied:
Pooh Bear wrote:
Andre Jute wrote:

A hi-fi horn is a point-source, full-range speaker.

LMFAO !

Laughing your FAT arse off, eh Poopie? The fiber diet works, or
exercise, or self-restraint.

I see you don't know much about *acoustic* considerations in horns either
in that case !

You can find some 'very nice' PA trumpets that fit the above category. As
used in fairgrounds, amusement parks, stadia etc.

Hi-fi my arse !

Graham

That is precisely the point of my little scribbling, Poopie, that those
who are qualified to know, know that I mean backloaded horns of a
certain format. It is also the point that those who are qualified to
know, also know that we can leave narrowband PA trumpet horns to poor
unfortunates like you. That is why there are poor unfortunates, so that
they may have underprivileged (1) sound.

HTH you understand your rung on the food ladder, Poopie.

Andre Jute

(1) I hesitate to say "handicapped sound"...

"Andre Jute"

In horns, as in everything in life, you get what you pay for.


** Oh no, that is not so Andre.

" The best things in life are free

If you steal 'em from the bourgeoisie "

Country Joe.

......... Phil


You'd better bring help, Phil. Stealing my horns will give you a bad
back, carrying the 100kg cabs down four flights of stairs!

Andre Jute
Booboise


** My post had NOTHING to do with YOUR horns.

Just your false assertion.




.......... Phil

Keith G wrote:
"Andre Jute" wrote in message
oups.com...
Yo, Keith, this might interest you and your friends as well. You are
invited because at our recent Chinese theme party you were so well
behaved... And we discovered a lotta tubies hiding out among the
ukrainians. AJ


Lumme, it's been a while since I had an 'invite'...!! :-)

(I ironed a shirt, but I can't find me cufflinks....)


Andre Jute wrote:
In horns, as in everything in life, you get what you pay for.


Hah! Who told you that - Jim Carfrae?



Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the current thread "Horns
are bad", in which some apparently underprivileged audiophiles
pontificate weightily about public address horns and sound
reinforcement horns and mickey mouse high frequency horns to fill out
the top end of multicone boxes. This is a hi-fi conference. Those
aren't hi-fi horns.

OK, we haven't seen that in ukra...

Lucky you. It was a troll to start with and has now degenerated into a
bunfight about which transistor amp sounds worse than a piece of
straight wire.

Not 'hifi horns'? - Neither are foghorns, ships 'whistles', the triple-tones
found on classic English sports cars (even the dualtones on trains) or all
those shiny things you see in orchestras but they all make a lovely sound!!
:-)

(Tubas are particularly nice...!! :-)

A hi-fi horn is a point-source, full-range speaker.

The least expensive
possibly good ones are made with Fostex drivers,


Actually the Visaton drivers are a third of the price of Fostex and give a
bassier, more 'rounded sound' - if conceding a little 'classiness' and
finesse/delicacy...

I think that once a DIY loudspeaker goes over a couple of hundred quid
-- which is several times that in high-street value -- refinement
becomes of the essence.

the guaranteed good
ones are made with Lowther drivers,


My eyes are fixed firmly in that direction - the chin is lifted, the lips
are pursed, the brow is furrowed....

Never mind the stiff upper lip and pulling the tummy in, Keith. Sit
down before you ask the price! I know, I know, the sound will please
long after the price is forgotten, as that noted audiophile Henry Royce
said, but a coupla Christmasses ago I stuck an allen key through a
Lowther foam surround while hurrying to finish a speaker, and I'm still
smarting from the price of a replacement pair...

those with extra drool-factor are
custom-made to order by Tannoy and deservedly called Royal Westminster.
Even at the bottom, Fostex end, horns are not for the impecunious; good
hi-fi horns start a long way up the speaker price range. Poor
audiophiles can get a taste of point source speakers in tapered
quarterwave pipes, also called Voigt pipes after their inventor, the
original Lowther designer Paul Voigt. (Note the absent h.)


Yes indeed they can - I already done Needles and Buschhorns and I'm now on a
pair of Jerichos:

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/titl...20speakers.htm

Others are puddling along in the same general direction and we chatter - see
this extract from an email I received earlier this evening:

"Keith,

As you can see, the Castles have gone - soon to power up the DVD-TV setup in
the other room...

I am now a total convert to Full Range speakers - they are absolutely
superb..."

and here are his beauties (not finished yet:

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Dougie1.JPG

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Dougie2.jpg

Ooh, I am impressed. My speakers hardly ever reach the stage of being
painted before they go to a good home.

What a good horn is good for in hi-fi is precisely what good panels are
good for in hi-fi, a stunning midrange and very clean bass and treble.


Yes.


The owners of panels and horns are almost always big fans of vocals and
small instrumental ensembles.


Yes, but not exclusively so - this week's standout 'rediscoveries' have been
Mingus' 'Tijuana Moods' and PF's 'Ummagumma'...

(It's the *clarity*...!!)


I have both Quad ESL63 electrostats and
Lowther Fidelio horns in the same room often visited by professional
musicians and can vouch for the authority of each quieting conversation
instantly.


:-)


It is not that they are not good for large-scale music as
well, but that horns and panels bring you especially close to
individual musicians in smaller groups or performing solo.

It is a fallacy that you cannot get deep bass on panels or horns.

:-)

I know that, you know that... ;-)

(The 'Foghorn' reference above should give a leetle clue as to what *is*
possible....)


In
either case all that is required for deep bass is space and money.


A folded 15 foot horn'll go as low as you could ever want, I'm reliably
informed....

Herself might have something to say about you digging up the floor to
install it... Here's a smaller version:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/K...20T91HWAF3.jpg
and here
http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/JUTE%20ON%20AMPS.htm
you will find amps to drive it that you can build for almost as little
as your Chinese amps cost.

We, the lucky owners, don't care about the opinions of underprivileged
"engineers".


We don't neither...


We live in bliss already. That is what hi-fi is about:
hedonism.


I must be doing summat wrong then - it's harder work than 'working for a
living'...!! ;-)

You reward will be in another world. -- Bill Deeds to a journalist
foolish enough to ask for a raise.

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
"wonderfully well written and reasoned information
for the tube audio constructor"
John Broskie TubeCAD & GlassWare
"an unbelievably comprehensive web site
containing vital gems of wisdom"
Stuart Perry Hi-Fi News & Record Review

"Andre Jute" wrote

I think that once a DIY loudspeaker goes over a couple of hundred quid
-- which is several times that in high-street value -- refinement
becomes of the essence.


Yes, agreed.



the guaranteed good
ones are made with Lowther drivers,


My eyes are fixed firmly in that direction - the chin is lifted, the lips
are pursed, the brow is furrowed....

Never mind the stiff upper lip and pulling the tummy in, Keith. Sit
down before you ask the price!


I'm only too well aware of the price - the ones I have in mind look like
costing 1,500 UKP a pair!!

(We'll see...!! ;-)


I know, I know, the sound will please
long after the price is forgotten, as that noted audiophile Henry Royce
said, but a coupla Christmasses ago I stuck an allen key through a
Lowther foam surround while hurrying to finish a speaker, and I'm still
smarting from the price of a replacement pair...


Replacement pair? Was that *entirely* not fixable...???

(Even if it meant sending the damaged driver off?)

Did it affect the sound much?



and here are his beauties (not finished yet:

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Dougie1.JPG

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/Dougie2.jpg

Ooh, I am impressed. My speakers hardly ever reach the stage of being
painted before they go to a good home.


Sorry if I mislead you, I haven't built those - they were built by someone
(Dougie) I have been chatting to. I left this bit out...

"Many thanks for the encouragement..."

....purely out of modesty! :-)



A folded 15 foot horn'll go as low as you could ever want, I'm reliably
informed....

Herself might have something to say about you digging up the floor to
install it... Here's a smaller version:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/K...20T91HWAF3.jpg
and here
http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/JUTE%20ON%20AMPS.htm
you will find amps to drive it that you can build for almost as little
as your Chinese amps cost.



Excellent stuff, but I am only just in from my workshop (garage) from these:

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/L1070449.JPG

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/L1070450.JPG


.....a few minutes ago (for a cup o' tea) and will be back out there
shortly....

(There is a fair bit more to go in and the buggers are weighing a ton
already. That's mostly 21mm ply....:-)

They will sing sometime next week - I eschew 'machine noise' at the
weekends, so I won't get them finished (raw state) for a few days yet. I
already have the amp to drive them (pro temps) - my 2A3 LW SET...

Incidentally, I don't have time to go into it right now but I believe the
only/best by far amp for these horns is a SET - I wonder how many people who
dismiss them so readily have never heard them thus.....



I must be doing summat wrong then - it's harder work than 'working for a
living'...!! ;-)

You reward will be in another world. -- Bill Deeds to a journalist
foolish enough to ask for a raise.


Sounds like a Spiderman quote to me.....

Keith G wrote:
"Andre Jute" wrote

the guaranteed good
ones are made with Lowther drivers,

My eyes are fixed firmly in that direction - the chin is lifted, the lips
are pursed, the brow is furrowed....

Never mind the stiff upper lip and pulling the tummy in, Keith. Sit
down before you ask the price!

I'm only too well aware of the price - the ones I have in mind look like
costing 1,500 UKP a pair!!

(We'll see...!! ;-)


I know, I know, the sound will please
long after the price is forgotten, as that noted audiophile Henry Royce
said, but a coupla Christmasses ago I stuck an allen key through a
Lowther foam surround while hurrying to finish a speaker, and I'm still
smarting from the price of a replacement pair...


Replacement pair? Was that *entirely* not fixable...???

Lowthers have a long break-in period and settle over the years, so you
don't replace one, you replace the pair. This particular pair had
further been treated with Enemoser's Lack, which itself has a break-in
period that can stretch a bit. So replacing one would make the sound a
bit off-balance.

As for fixing it, the hole was too big. The foam surround on Lowthers
weaken after twenty years or so, and one wants to take very great care
of it then, because the oldest Lowthers are the most desirable. This
wasn't so much a small allen-key sized hole as the foam crumbling.
Lowther used to recone and refoam drivers, I believe, but that was
before my time. Now they offer a new for old exchange scheme.

(Even if it meant sending the damaged driver off?)

Did it affect the sound much?

Playing the broken speaker accidentally ripped a bigger hole in it.

I haven't made the exchange yet because I am loath to let the treated,
well-settled driver go. I'm thinking of going exclusively mono, not
because of this incident but because much of the time I have my
speakers arranged to be a single source, ESL behind each other for
instance. Generally speaking, the only time I listen in stereo is when
I use ESL like big headphones, one each side of my chair. That also
works with horns (in widish rooms) but my favourite horn use is as a
corner horn, one horn at a time. That may not suit everyone's music but
it suits me fine.

A folded 15 foot horn'll go as low as you could ever want, I'm reliably
informed....

Herself might have something to say about you digging up the floor to
install it... Here's a smaller version:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/K...20T91HWAF3.jpg
and here
http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/JUTE%20ON%20AMPS.htm
you will find amps to drive it that you can build for almost as little
as your Chinese amps cost.

Excellent stuff, but I am only just in from my workshop (garage) from these:

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/L1070449.JPG

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/show/L1070450.JPG

....a few minutes ago (for a cup o' tea) and will be back out there
shortly....

(There is a fair bit more to go in and the buggers are weighing a ton
already. That's mostly 21mm ply....:-)

And when you finish varnishing those, you'll be due a break you could
spend in Ireland varnishing mi... I mean having a holiday.

They will sing sometime next week - I eschew 'machine noise' at the
weekends, so I won't get them finished (raw state) for a few days yet. I
already have the amp to drive them (pro temps) - my 2A3 LW SET...

Incidentally, I don't have time to go into it right now but I believe the
only/best by far amp for these horns is a SET - I wonder how many people who
dismiss them so readily have never heard them thus.....

I don't care about the sneerers and jeerers. Most of them formed their
opinion without ever listening to a SETH chain. Some of them are so
underprivileged that when one says "horns" they automatically think
"PA". Ugh!

Andre Jute

"Andre Jute" wrote in message
oups.com...

A hi-fi horn is a point-source, full-range speaker. The least expensive
possibly good ones are made with Fostex drivers, the guaranteed good
ones are made with Lowther drivers, those with extra drool-factor are
custom-made to order by Tannoy and deservedly called Royal Westminster.

http://www.audiophile.com.au/tnny_sp..._wstmnstr.html

Ironically the Royal Westminster is a 2-way speaker with vestigial horn
loading of its direct-radiator lower range direct radiator driver. It's not
really a full-range horn. It's a horn mid-tweeter mated to a driver that is
a direct radiator over much of its active range.

"Andre Jute" wrote

Replacement pair? Was that *entirely* not fixable...???

Lowthers have a long break-in period and settle over the years, so you
don't replace one, you replace the pair. This particular pair had
further been treated with Enemoser's Lack, which itself has a break-in
period that can stretch a bit. So replacing one would make the sound a
bit off-balance.


OK but you could run a replacement on its own endlessly to catch it up a bit
by playing the radio through it and shutting the door on it?



As for fixing it, the hole was too big. The foam surround on Lowthers
weaken after twenty years or so, and one wants to take very great care
of it then, because the oldest Lowthers are the most desirable. This
wasn't so much a small allen-key sized hole as the foam crumbling.
Lowther used to recone and refoam drivers, I believe, but that was
before my time. Now they offer a new for old exchange scheme.


Hmm, that's never totally appealing, is it?



(Even if it meant sending the damaged driver off?)

Did it affect the sound much?

Playing the broken speaker accidentally ripped a bigger hole in it.


Ok, it was stuffed then....


I haven't made the exchange yet because I am loath to let the treated,
well-settled driver go. I'm thinking of going exclusively mono, not
because of this incident but because much of the time I have my
speakers arranged to be a single source, ESL behind each other for
instance. Generally speaking, the only time I listen in stereo is when
I use ESL like big headphones, one each side of my chair. That also
works with horns (in widish rooms) but my favourite horn use is as a
corner horn, one horn at a time. That may not suit everyone's music but
it suits me fine.


Which is fair enough.



And when you finish varnishing those, you'll be due a break you could
spend in Ireland varnishing mi... I mean having a holiday.


I can't stand varnished ply, I'm painting mine with emulsion paint - it's
possible to get a really 'velvety' finish with 2 or 3 coats and a rub of
sandpaper in between coats. (The Jerichos will be black - looks good with
the Fostex 'banana yellow!!) Later they can be glossed, lacquered, sprayed
or whatever. (I also don't like veneers at the moment - I don't have any
rubber gloves and I don't want to catch a veneerial disease...)


I don't care about the sneerers and jeerers. Most of them formed their
opinion without ever listening to a SETH chain. Some of them are so
underprivileged that when one says "horns" they automatically think
"PA". Ugh!


I also couldn't give a FF, I'm listening to a Radio 3 choral concert atm -
never mind the oustanding quality of the voices and piano (tone/timbre) the
'spatiality' in the *applause* is worth listening to alone! No escaping
steam, no 'heavy rainfall' - just *clapping*! It is easy to single out a
number of individuals and picture the relative distances. Best of all
though, the sound is no more related to the speakers than it is to a pair of
pictures on the facing wall - it's almost like someone could carry them out
of the room and the 'soundscape' would be unaffected...!!

But enough of this, it's always difficult to describe 'sound' without coming
across like a **** - there are those who *know* what I'm referring to and
those who never will.....

Andre Jute wrote:

Chris Hornbeck wrote:
On 12 Jan 2006 14:41:32 -0800, "Andre Jute" wrote:

In horns, as in everything in life, you get what you pay for.

A hi-fi horn is a point-source, full-range speaker. The least expensive
possibly good ones are made with Fostex drivers, the guaranteed good
ones are made with Lowther drivers, those with extra drool-factor are
custom-made to order by Tannoy and deservedly called Royal Westminster.
Even at the bottom, Fostex end, horns are not for the impecunious; good
hi-fi horns start a long way up the speaker price range. Poor
audiophiles can get a taste of point source speakers in tapered
quarterwave pipes, also called Voigt pipes after their inventor, the
original Lowther designer Paul Voigt. (Note the absent h.)

This would be a better discussion if we were to separate true
horn loading (an acoustical transformer between diaphragm and
ambient air) and various back-loading schemes to affect the
diaphragm's movement (which may have their own charms).

True horns optimally require driver fundamental resonance to
be placed within the horn's passband; this pretty much means
a (quite) small rear chamber, very large mouths, on the order
of a wavelength, and acceptance that our ten octave hearing
is fundamentally wider than can be reproduced by conventional
drivers (by a factor of three-ish, log).

In return, they can provide a level of linearity which the same
driver cannot in free air, and a damping of the driver's
incidental resonances free air cannot. The trade-off
is in bandwidth vs. performance in several these categories.

Low mass panels approach this from the opposite direction.
Instead of trying to couple a high mass, high force (high
mechanical impedance) driver to the low mass, high
compliance (low mechanical impedance) ambient air, as horns
do, they are themselves low mass and low mechanical impedance.

IOW, they couple natively to the air they're driving. Perhaps
surprisingly, electrostatically driven panel speakers have the
same high conversion efficiencies of horn coupled dynamics.
(Their parasitic capacitance is outside of the driver model,
and could be "returned" with an elaborate design; kinda
like braking in electric cars).


And don't get me started about the sad shape of (most)
commercial horn flares.
Sorry for babbling,

Chris Hornbeck
"Slugs and snails are after me; DDT keeps me happy,
Guess I'm gonna haf'ta tell 'em, that I've got no cerebellum.
Gonna get my PHD, ...
All the girls are in love with me, ..." -Ramones

Sorry for babbling,

Not at all. This is the most interesting of the responses. However, I
was really only talking about backloaded "full range" hi-fi horns, not
any collection of trumpets with wave guides of whatever size. I'm not
into VOT gear.

And of course you're right, even a backloaded horn is a compromise
between bandwidth and quality. That is why sensible horn designers
sacrifice a tiny amount of bandwidth for greater authority.

As for the horn expansions touted by this one and that, not even to
mention the mysteries of the bicor, I've tried them all and the math is
only an approximation to glee. As far as I can tell, my current
Fidelio-types shouldn't really work (too small, too short, very odd
compression chamber). But I really shouldn't single out the very
successful Fidelio; most of the successful horns I have ever heard
don't cut it on paper when considering only the math. Virtually every
good horn known was developed rather than designed, regardless of how
the designer waves around beautiful CAD. It seems to me a shame that
the horn ceased to be a consumer item before its hi-fi mysteries were
fully plumbed, so that our knowledge is really stuck in 1939.

I have often wondered if the small motion of horn drivers and panels
have something to do with the purity and clarity of their sound.

Andre Jute

It was unfortunate that at least two home contructors here with moderate
inteligence and woodworking skills sailed west to discover good horn sound
but they only discovered how to make elaborate firewood.

A third guy went for old large Altec and JBL compression drivers and the
moulded Al horns that came with them, but he only had money, no brains and
no woodworking or electronic ability, but he has the best horn system of the 3
guys.
But he at least knew bass down to 30Hz was impossible with horns, and settled
for
an Altec 15" in a reflex box for up to 500Hz.
This system sounded the best despite the use of 6 amps, active Xover,
elaborate source.
But it was always a battle for this guy to keep all the levels of the amps
correct,
he'd fiddle with level settings, and never know what the best settings were,
so
it was like having a 3 way graphic eq without any marked setting for
what did actually give a flat response.
Crossover analomies are impossible to monitor, the ear cannot tell us
if huge peaks and nulls appear along the band, or just at what F they
appear....

A fourth has now some plans for horns which are not following known contours,
and thinks he can out-develop all those who went before him.
No doubt he will generate lots of firewood.
And mdf board is not even really good firewood.
Wooden horns tend to resonate badly, polished stone is by far a better
material,
but nobody here has the tenacity and patience to work stone,
or cast conctrete horns.
He so far is happiest with amps using a 45, ie, 1 watt SET.
But he spent about 4 years with "normal" speakers and a a succession of
SET amps using every known tube from 45 up to GM70, all coupled together for
quick trials
with leads with alligator clips.
Visitors could say they knew what alligator clips sound like.
He does not believe in the scientic method, does not have a reference
system on hand to compare the new constructions to, and if these are superior,
they become the reference.
Nor does he believe in measuring very much.
So anything new he hooks up is never properly compared; maybe its worse than
something
he made previously, he'd never really know.

But I have yet to hear a good sounding speaker system that measures poorly.

All the guys I know now tinkering do not posses nor use a decent measuring
system
using at least a known flat source of pink noise, flat microphone, and a
filter capable of at least 33 F channels along the band from 20Hz to 20kHz.
One guy has just got a microphone, and its taken a lot of hot air to persuade
him to invest
in Speclab or some other program to analyse what the mic is hearing.
I built all my own analog test gear prior to getting a PC in 2000, but today
the PC
makes the science all the more easily available without even the simplest of
calculations.

Building good speakers is applied science, and the more one guesses, the
worse the result, and development without science is like trying to
sail from Sydney to New York without a compass, GPS system or even a sextant
and charts and chronometer.
If you ever arrive before the provisions run out you will
find you have taken the long way around to get there.

Patrick Turner.

"Patrick Turner" wrote


snip longest whinge in audio usenet history


Building good speakers is applied science, and the more one guesses, the
worse the result, and development without science is like trying to
sail from Sydney to New York without a compass, GPS system or even a
sextant
and charts and chronometer.
If you ever arrive before the provisions run out you will
find you have taken the long way around to get there.


Do leave off Patrick....

I'm building 'firewood horns' from other people's designs, I build them
carefully and make 'uneducated guesses' as to how to modify the design when
things don't quite add up. I select (fullrange) drivers by hearing alone,
over a period of time and swap back and forth if need be.

I've got Ruarks, JM Labs and B&W 'commercial' speakers here - the Ruarks (38
Hz) and JM Labs are now on the telly (Home Cinema, I suppose) and the B&Ws
are effectively sold.

On my audio systems (which include the notorious Chinese SETs) are two pairs
of firewood horns - they are 82 dB and 86 dB, the Ruarks are 89/90 dB and
the JMs are 91.5 dB, so you can forget the 'sensitivity' angle.....

Even George Bush wants to come and hear them....

On 13 Jan 2006 06:22:15 -0800, "Andre Jute" wrote:

As for the horn expansions touted by this one and that, not even to
mention the mysteries of the bicor, I've tried them all and the math is
only an approximation to glee. As far as I can tell, my current
Fidelio-types shouldn't really work (too small, too short, very odd
compression chamber). But I really shouldn't single out the very
successful Fidelio; most of the successful horns I have ever heard
don't cut it on paper when considering only the math. Virtually every
good horn known was developed rather than designed, regardless of how
the designer waves around beautiful CAD. It seems to me a shame that
the horn ceased to be a consumer item before its hi-fi mysteries were
fully plumbed, so that our knowledge is really stuck in 1939.

I'll tell you a secret, but you have to promise not to tell
anybody else. Ya' promise? OK. The great tragic flaw in
all classic horn flare contours is that the designer
assumed a flat wave front. This is convenient for calculatin'
but is only even roughly correct very far back in the
throat.

The speed of sound is constant, so sound has *only* spherical
wavefronts. This is even correct in the nearfield, if you
integrate all the surface as a collection of point sources.
(Nearfield response looks like a plane wave for this reason.)

Calculation of correct horn walls is possible by step-wise
iteration, and results in the involute of a circle.

I have often wondered if the small motion of horn drivers and panels
have something to do with the purity and clarity of their sound.

Bingo. Distortion decreases monotonically with decreased
excursion, and the myriad mechanical resonances of real-
world devices decrease with increased damping. Win, win.

Thanks, as always, (but backloading isn't a horn! dagnabit)
Arf!

Chris Hornbeck
"Slugs and snails are after me; DDT keeps me happy,
Guess I'm gonna haf'ta tell 'em, that I've got no cerebellum.
Gonna get my PHD, ...
All the girls are in love with me, ..." -Ramones

Keith G wrote:

"Patrick Turner" wrote

snip longest whinge in audio usenet history

Building good speakers is applied science, and the more one guesses, the
worse the result, and development without science is like trying to
sail from Sydney to New York without a compass, GPS system or even a
sextant
and charts and chronometer.
If you ever arrive before the provisions run out you will
find you have taken the long way around to get there.

Do leave off Patrick....

I'm building 'firewood horns' from other people's designs, I build them
carefully and make 'uneducated guesses' as to how to modify the design when
things don't quite add up. I select (fullrange) drivers by hearing alone,
over a period of time and swap back and forth if need be.

I've got Ruarks, JM Labs and B&W 'commercial' speakers here - the Ruarks (38
Hz) and JM Labs are now on the telly (Home Cinema, I suppose) and the B&Ws
are effectively sold.

On my audio systems (which include the notorious Chinese SETs) are two pairs
of firewood horns - they are 82 dB and 86 dB, the Ruarks are 89/90 dB and
the JMs are 91.5 dB, so you can forget the 'sensitivity' angle.....

Even George Bush wants to come and hear them....

Gee, I thought he was too busy playing with his own little horn.

Patrick Turner

Keith G wrote:

"Andre Jute" wrote

Replacement pair? Was that *entirely* not fixable...???

Lowthers have a long break-in period and settle over the years, so you
don't replace one, you replace the pair. This particular pair had
further been treated with Enemoser's Lack, which itself has a break-in
period that can stretch a bit. So replacing one would make the sound a
bit off-balance.

OK but you could run a replacement on its own endlessly to catch it up a bit
by playing the radio through it and shutting the door on it?


As for fixing it, the hole was too big. The foam surround on Lowthers
weaken after twenty years or so, and one wants to take very great care
of it then, because the oldest Lowthers are the most desirable. This
wasn't so much a small allen-key sized hole as the foam crumbling.
Lowther used to recone and refoam drivers, I believe, but that was
before my time. Now they offer a new for old exchange scheme.

Hmm, that's never totally appealing, is it?


(Even if it meant sending the damaged driver off?)

Did it affect the sound much?

Playing the broken speaker accidentally ripped a bigger hole in it.

Ok, it was stuffed then....


I haven't made the exchange yet because I am loath to let the treated,
well-settled driver go. I'm thinking of going exclusively mono, not
because of this incident but because much of the time I have my
speakers arranged to be a single source, ESL behind each other for
instance. Generally speaking, the only time I listen in stereo is when
I use ESL like big headphones, one each side of my chair. That also
works with horns (in widish rooms) but my favourite horn use is as a
corner horn, one horn at a time. That may not suit everyone's music but
it suits me fine.

Which is fair enough.

And when you finish varnishing those, you'll be due a break you could
spend in Ireland varnishing mi... I mean having a holiday.

I can't stand varnished ply, I'm painting mine with emulsion paint - it's
possible to get a really 'velvety' finish with 2 or 3 coats and a rub of
sandpaper in between coats. (The Jerichos will be black - looks good with
the Fostex 'banana yellow!!) Later they can be glossed, lacquered, sprayed
or whatever. (I also don't like veneers at the moment - I don't have any
rubber gloves and I don't want to catch a veneerial disease...)

I don't care about the sneerers and jeerers. Most of them formed their
opinion without ever listening to a SETH chain. Some of them are so
underprivileged that when one says "horns" they automatically think
"PA". Ugh!

I also couldn't give a FF, I'm listening to a Radio 3 choral concert atm -
never mind the oustanding quality of the voices and piano (tone/timbre) the
'spatiality' in the *applause* is worth listening to alone! No escaping
steam, no 'heavy rainfall' - just *clapping*! It is easy to single out a
number of individuals and picture the relative distances. Best of all
though, the sound is no more related to the speakers than it is to a pair of
pictures on the facing wall - it's almost like someone could carry them out
of the room and the 'soundscape' would be unaffected...!!

But enough of this, it's always difficult to describe 'sound' without coming
across like a **** - there are those who *know* what I'm referring to and
those who never will.....

Point taken about the sound of applause, that's very on the mark afaiac.

We'll let you off this time, but next time if you talk about the sound of one
armed audience members clapping, beware, although if they
all kick the seats together it might sound interesting.

Patrick Turner.

Hi Andre,

A few weeks ago I mentioned the affordable Beyma-based horn speaker
"Das Viech" (The beast) as an interesting entry-level horn speaker.
Meanwhile we were still building them and you asked me to give
feedback.

Well, tonight, finally, we had the moment of truth. The beasts looked
very nice thanks to 3 coats of paint but would they play well ? Or
would they at least be worth the 240 EUR/pair that they cost to make
(66 EUR/speakers, 110 EUR for precisely cut MDF, the rest on paint,
glue, binding posts, paint rollers, cable, damping material, sanding
paper etc)?

The executive summary: we were very happy with the result.

In more detail: true to the fullrange driver magic, the beasts give a
nice and BIG threedimensional image. They also sound truly relaxed and
effortless. They are also smooth and relatively warm sounding (I was a
bit afraid of a speaker that would be too much upfront, a tonal
character that I personally don't like about many Fostex speakers). The
bass is surprisingly decent (esp. considering that the driver has a fs
of around 100 hz !). It gives nicely DRY bass until something like
50-60 hz. Unless you're playing action movies, the bass seems ample.
And as I said, this is delivered effortlessly and in a dry, precise
fashion. The medium frequencies currently seem ok (maybe a bit
laid-back), the high frequencies are about OK when strictly on axis and
lack a bit of sparkle, but that is corresponding to the designer's
findings: when new, the Beyma speakers deliver until 10-11khz, after
some time they will improve until around 15-16khz. Basically, after
100 hours the highs should be noticeably airier. So my friend will be
playing radio non-stop for the next two weeks to break in the drivers.
Of course, they are no match for your Lowthers. Then again, this is a
cheap design. I have not yet heard Lowthers, but I have heard and
enjoyed AERs, which I think must be similar in qualities. The (very
expensive) AERs disappeared, they gave an electrostatic-like precise
look on the music. The Beymas are not that transparent, but considering
the price I think that the result is really nice. These speakers have a
lot more character and musicality than any speakers in the shop for the
price. And it was the first time I carefully listened to horn bass and
I can now understand why many like this so much. When I compare with my
own speakers (65 litres bass reflex using the 125 EUR Beyma 8BX
coaxial): my speakers have deeper bass, and it's nicely firm, yet
somehow the beast's musical bass didn't suffer that much in comparison
! The coaxial horn tweeter of the 8BX will always sound airier and more
detailed than the beast's treble, no matter how long you break in. But
on the other hand my speakers (incl. a decent filter) cost almost the
double.

In short, I can really recommend this project for someone who wants to
try out a back-loaded horn and who doesn't want to spend too much. In
the past I have made a Zigmahornet transmission line with the Fostex
103 which costs the same as the Beyma. OK the small Fostex will go
higher but I think that the beasts are much more musical and effortless
sounding. The small Fostex was positively shouting in comparison.
Because of the high sensitivity, I can imagine the beasts working well
with a low power tube amp.

I hope this was interesting feedback!

best regards,

Tom Alaerts

ps For those who are interested: the pdf with the (German) description
is at:
http://royalts.cybton.com/diverses/DasViech.pdf .
We used -as recommended by the designer- damping variant 2 with a
relatively stiff roll of 26gr of Visaton synthetic damping wool just
below the driver. We also used extra ribs for stiffening the enclosure.
We didn't use a correction filter.

pps music used for the test included "St. James infirmary" on Hans
Theessink's "Songs from the southland", "The dream" by Robert Cray &
Albert Collins, some Rachmaninov (piano was convicing), a choir, Joe
Lovano's "Joyous Encounter", Diana Krall live in paris, a fragment from
the fun pulp movie "Blade 2" etc

Thank you for giving your source material for the test. Few would have,
and it seems to be sufficiently challenging to be a reasonably true
test.

Peter Wieck
Wyncote, PA

Tom Alaerts wrote:

Hi Andre,

A few weeks ago I mentioned the affordable Beyma-based horn speaker
"Das Viech" (The beast) as an interesting entry-level horn speaker.
Meanwhile we were still building them and you asked me to give
feedback.

Well, tonight, finally, we had the moment of truth. The beasts looked
very nice thanks to 3 coats of paint but would they play well ? Or
would they at least be worth the 240 EUR/pair that they cost to make
(66 EUR/speakers, 110 EUR for precisely cut MDF, the rest on paint,
glue, binding posts, paint rollers, cable, damping material, sanding
paper etc)?

Probably not the first time I'm making this remark: It is apples and
oranges to compare a speaker you built cost for cost with what is
available on the high street. You should be asking instead whether it
is better than speakers at three or four times the cost. In this case,
does it beat speakers that cost say 1000 EUR. It should, easily.

The executive summary: we were very happy with the result.

In more detail: true to the fullrange driver magic, the beasts give a
nice and BIG threedimensional image. They also sound truly relaxed and
effortless. They are also smooth and relatively warm sounding (I was a
bit afraid of a speaker that would be too much upfront, a tonal
character that I personally don't like about many Fostex speakers).

I think that has to do with the treble of the smaller Fostex speakers,
not the "size" of their sound.

The
bass is surprisingly decent (esp. considering that the driver has a fs
of around 100 hz !). It gives nicely DRY bass until something like
50-60 hz. Unless you're playing action movies, the bass seems ample.
And as I said, this is delivered effortlessly and in a dry, precise
fashion.

You're so right. Clean bass you can live with. "Big" bass is
momentarily impressive but soon starts to sound like one note,
boof-boof, like some teenager's hatchback with 68 speakers and 2000W in
amps passing on the street.

The medium frequencies currently seem ok (maybe a bit
laid-back), the high frequencies are about OK when strictly on axis and
lack a bit of sparkle, but that is corresponding to the designer's
findings: when new, the Beyma speakers deliver until 10-11khz, after
some time they will improve until around 15-16khz. Basically, after
100 hours the highs should be noticeably airier. So my friend will be
playing radio non-stop for the next two weeks to break in the drivers.

That sounds about right. You'll grow into this horn and discover when
comparing other speakers to live music that the other speakers add an
artificial brightness. I don't know how old you are, but most of the
people who have my Impresario don't use the supplied tweeters; they are
all middleaged and the output sounds better balanced to them; some of
them think my Lowther horns a bit bright...

Of course, they are no match for your Lowthers. Then again, this is a
cheap design. I have not yet heard Lowthers, but I have heard and
enjoyed AERs, which I think must be similar in qualities. The (very
expensive) AERs disappeared, they gave an electrostatic-like precise
look on the music.

Eh? I thought AERs were just rebranded Fostexes. Perhaps I am wrong.
But if I am right, they should not be enormously expensive.

That's the key to a good horn, that it gives you 99 per cent of
electrostatic quality for half the price.

I hope you aren't going to be disappointed when you do get to hear
Lowthers. The improvement over your "cheap" (it isn't, it is a thousand
Euro speaker at the factory gate, with your labour making up the
difference) horn will not be proportionate to the increase in cost.
Marginality will be at work: every few per cent improvement costs a
geometically larger additional sum.

The Beymas are not that transparent, but considering
the price I think that the result is really nice. These speakers have a
lot more character and musicality than any speakers in the shop for the
price. And it was the first time I carefully listened to horn bass and
I can now understand why many like this so much. When I compare with my
own speakers (65 litres bass reflex using the 125 EUR Beyma 8BX
coaxial): my speakers have deeper bass, and it's nicely firm, yet
somehow the beast's musical bass didn't suffer that much in comparison
! The coaxial horn tweeter of the 8BX will always sound airier and more
detailed than the beast's treble, no matter how long you break in. But
on the other hand my speakers (incl. a decent filter) cost almost the
double.

Marginality, like I said!

In short, I can really recommend this project for someone who wants to
try out a back-loaded horn and who doesn't want to spend too much. In
the past I have made a Zigmahornet transmission line with the Fostex
103 which costs the same as the Beyma. OK the small Fostex will go
higher but I think that the beasts are much more musical and effortless
sounding. The small Fostex was positively shouting in comparison.
Because of the high sensitivity, I can imagine the beasts working well
with a low power tube amp.

I hope this was interesting feedback!

Fascinating. A horn for very little more money than my Impresario, to
cover the same range and for essentially the same floor space, is very
good going.

best regards,

Tom Alaerts

ps For those who are interested: the pdf with the (German) description
is at:
http://royalts.cybton.com/diverses/DasViech.pdf .
We used -as recommended by the designer- damping variant 2 with a
relatively stiff roll of 26gr of Visaton synthetic damping wool just
below the driver. We also used extra ribs for stiffening the enclosure.
We didn't use a correction filter.

pps music used for the test included "St. James infirmary" on Hans
Theessink's "Songs from the southland", "The dream" by Robert Cray &
Albert Collins, some Rachmaninov (piano was convicing), a choir, Joe
Lovano's "Joyous Encounter", Diana Krall live in paris, a fragment from
the fun pulp movie "Blade 2" etc

Good stuff, Tom. Thanks a lot. I have my electrostats hooked up. I
think I'll play my horns instead. Hands across the ether!

Andre Jute

"Keith G" wrote in
:

They will sing sometime next week

A good time to return the Dynavox me-thinks :-)

--
Cessna172

"Keith G" wrote in
:

But enough of this, it's always difficult to describe 'sound' without
coming across like a **** - there are those who *know* what I'm
referring to and those who never will.....


Your description is well understood and the sound yearned for!

--
Cessna172

"Cessna172" wrote in message
40.12...
"Keith G" wrote in
:

But enough of this, it's always difficult to describe 'sound' without
coming across like a **** - there are those who *know* what I'm
referring to and those who never will.....


Your description is well understood and the sound yearned for!



No good yearning (or spraying money about) - ya gotta **** blood to get *the
right sound*!! :-)

"Cessna172" wrote in message
.217...
"Keith G" wrote in
:

They will sing sometime next week

A good time to return the Dynavox me-thinks :-)



Actually, scrub that - I got a jaldi on and they are singing (OK, playing
the organ - R3) even as I type!!

(I think you will not disparage these buggers when you get to hear them!!
;-)

"Keith G" wrote in message
...

"Cessna172" wrote in message
.217...
"Keith G" wrote in
:

They will sing sometime next week

A good time to return the Dynavox me-thinks :-)



Actually, scrub that - I got a jaldi on and they are singing (OK, playing
the organ - R3) even as I type!!

(I think you will not disparage these buggers when you get to hear them!!
;-)



I suppose a link wouldn't go amiss....??

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/fostexfe206e/fostex.htm

"Keith G" wrote in
:

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/fostexfe206e/fostex.htm

Your blue speakers sounded like they were coming out of boxes that big!!!

--
Cessna172

"Keith G" wrote in
:


"Keith G" wrote in message
...

"Cessna172" wrote in message
.217...
"Keith G" wrote in
:

They will sing sometime next week

A good time to return the Dynavox me-thinks :-)



Actually, scrub that - I got a jaldi on and they are singing (OK,
playing the organ - R3) even as I type!!

(I think you will not disparage these buggers when you get to hear
them!! ;-)



I suppose a link wouldn't go amiss....??

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/fostexfe206e/fostex.htm

Your blue speakers sounded like they were coming out of speakers that
big!!!


--
Cessna172

"Cessna172" wrote


I suppose a link wouldn't go amiss....??

http://www.apah69.dsl.pipex.com/fostexfe206e/fostex.htm

Your blue speakers sounded like they were coming out of speakers that
big!!!


Which is why I couldn't give Don a better answer the other day when he asked
'how do they compare?' - apart from the 'scale' there is notta lotta
difference!!

For the benefit of observers here - we are talking about a very small room,
the Needles are able to drive it surprisingly well!!

Wot *is* a larf is that all the tone/clarity/detail/timbre/blah/blah etc.
etc. is there and we are talking *3" industrial* drivers here - that's
politespeak for 'car speakers'!! :-)

(8 quid each....!! :-)