MakeMineVinyl
Well-Known Member
https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2017/11/08/capital-audiofest-2017-gary-gils-magic-horn-loudspeakers/
Somewhere in the fog of lost generations of engineers who knew what was and was not a horn, I have seen the above type of speaker being accepted more often than not as a true horn; it is not. The examples are numerous beyond the above; companies like Klipsch and others seem to have become selectively ignorant of what a horn is and isn't.
For the record, the presence of some type of megaphone thingy in front of an otherwise conventional speaker driver only makes use of a relatively small part of what constitutes the principal advantage of horns - dynamic realism coupled with efficiency.
The missing part is the compression driver. The definition of a compression driver is that the sound undergoes literal compression from the time it is produced by a diaphragm to the time it enters the horn structure proper. The way this is accomplished is that the exit hole from the compression driver is physically smaller than the diaphragm; a 2 to 1 ratio is common. This creates a higher pressure entering the horn itself which is transformed (its acoustic impedance is transformed) to that of the air at the mouth of the horn.
True compression drivers are expensive and difficult to make. There needs to be a phasing plug directly in front of the diaphragm so that the sound from the edges and the center of the diaphragm - the edge path is slightly longer than the center - enter the throat of the horn at the exact same time and in the proper phase relationship.
You can spot a pretender horn by the fact that the diameter of the speaker driver is the same size or larger than the entrance of the throat of the horn. In the above "horn" system, this is clearly the case, and absolutely no compression is taking place before the sound enters the horn. Also, the back of the speaker driver is open to the room, which introduces more weirdness.
Yes, yes, I know. I get it. This is all semantics to a degree. However I still believe that technologies get diluted in effectiveness from their full, original potential over time as succeeding generations of designers become more and more ignorant of what they are actually doing, and increasingly have little or no contact with a genuine example of what they are trying to emulate.
Also, that bastard which is marketing rears its ugly head as more and more consumers have less and less actual contact with the genuine article of this or that mature technology. This opens them up to influence by snake oil salesmen, and they don't even realize they've been bitten by a snake.
So, take this is a touchstone as it were. A reality check, that hopefully makes whoever reads this a tiny bit wiser and discriminating in their shopping for audio gear. If you buy a fake horn, there's nothing particularly wrong with that - just realize what you actually have, and don't assume its something more than what it is.
Somewhere in the fog of lost generations of engineers who knew what was and was not a horn, I have seen the above type of speaker being accepted more often than not as a true horn; it is not. The examples are numerous beyond the above; companies like Klipsch and others seem to have become selectively ignorant of what a horn is and isn't.
For the record, the presence of some type of megaphone thingy in front of an otherwise conventional speaker driver only makes use of a relatively small part of what constitutes the principal advantage of horns - dynamic realism coupled with efficiency.
The missing part is the compression driver. The definition of a compression driver is that the sound undergoes literal compression from the time it is produced by a diaphragm to the time it enters the horn structure proper. The way this is accomplished is that the exit hole from the compression driver is physically smaller than the diaphragm; a 2 to 1 ratio is common. This creates a higher pressure entering the horn itself which is transformed (its acoustic impedance is transformed) to that of the air at the mouth of the horn.
True compression drivers are expensive and difficult to make. There needs to be a phasing plug directly in front of the diaphragm so that the sound from the edges and the center of the diaphragm - the edge path is slightly longer than the center - enter the throat of the horn at the exact same time and in the proper phase relationship.
You can spot a pretender horn by the fact that the diameter of the speaker driver is the same size or larger than the entrance of the throat of the horn. In the above "horn" system, this is clearly the case, and absolutely no compression is taking place before the sound enters the horn. Also, the back of the speaker driver is open to the room, which introduces more weirdness.
Yes, yes, I know. I get it. This is all semantics to a degree. However I still believe that technologies get diluted in effectiveness from their full, original potential over time as succeeding generations of designers become more and more ignorant of what they are actually doing, and increasingly have little or no contact with a genuine example of what they are trying to emulate.
Also, that bastard which is marketing rears its ugly head as more and more consumers have less and less actual contact with the genuine article of this or that mature technology. This opens them up to influence by snake oil salesmen, and they don't even realize they've been bitten by a snake.
So, take this is a touchstone as it were. A reality check, that hopefully makes whoever reads this a tiny bit wiser and discriminating in their shopping for audio gear. If you buy a fake horn, there's nothing particularly wrong with that - just realize what you actually have, and don't assume its something more than what it is.
