|
High Efficiency Speaker Asylum Need speakers that can rock with just one watt? You found da place. |
Register / Login
|
|
|
High Efficiency Speaker Asylum Need speakers that can rock with just one watt? You found da place. |
Register / Login
|
In Reply to: The Pros and Cons of Horn Speakers posted by cawson@onetel.com on August 21, 2024 at 05:19:58:
Hi
I think i can offer some insight on the ups and down sides of horns.
Stereo, the stereo image is a deliberate illusion that if perfect,, makes you think there is a different space between the two speakers than is in your room. Perfection is making a voice sound so real that there has to be a person standing there.
Regardless of the source and environment, there is a finite relationship between the speakers and listener where this illusion can take place. For example, not just the angle between the speaker to listener but that they are equal distances. The best place to hear what any speakers do, where they image the best is outdoors where there are no room effects. Here, the sound that reaches your ears is nearly entirely direct from the speaker with no reflections other than the ground. Yes you will not be happy with bass, but i explain why below.
It is also the clues that speakers add, that rooms add that allows one estimate the speakers distance when ones eyes are closed or reflections (Haas kickers, deliberate reflections as Don Davis called them in the 80's) that can make the sound much larger than the between two speakers space.
An up side of horns is they have directivity and can reduce the sound radiated sideways and rearward, this makes the sound at the listening position more "near field" or more of the direct sound and less of the reflected sound arriving later in time. This is consistent with the old "hopkins Stryker" thumb rule for intelligibility.
For home stereo, horns are problematic, they suffer from what multi-way driver speakers usually do but more so.
When you have a tweeter, mid and woofer lest say, there is a listening distance one must be before those sources "knit" into one source. For separate horns, these are physically / acoustically much larger and so this distance is much larger being farther apart.
This matters less at large distances and where a phantom image isn't part of it but in the home or larger space where stereo image IS desired like theaters and listening rooms, the separate source nature still lets your brain triangulate the approximate distances to the source (close your eyes). That spatial identity detracts from the stereo image, in a perfect case, one isn't aware of the speakers as sources and NOT standing out as part of the image..
This is where simple or single sources sound different and can make a stronger image, they can have fewer spatial clues that conflict with the illusion.
Response in a room. Floyd Toole's and others work shows that there is a preferred response curve, an average from many listeners and this curve is a smooth rising response as the frequency falls but NOT FLAT. A curious thing is the best response anechoic is flat and when that speaker that's flat is in a room, one finds the room increasingly contains the sound as the frequency falls resulting in the desired slope with increasing low end.
The ATC50 was mentioned, keep in mind at least the floor standing version (we have a pair at work) are NOT flat, they have a significant dip in the mid which makes the tweeter sparkle and airy.
Speakers don't have to be flat, but that imposes a "sound" of their own.
In reality, if one could make 3 different pairs of speakers that were signal perfect, they would be indistinguishable at the same level on axis (ignoring all other properties).
Tom
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Follow Ups
- RE: The Pros and Cons of Horn Speakers - tomservo 06:22:34 08/21/24 (0)
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
