Weird Horn Speaker

[Dustin B]

http://blogs.msdn.com/andrewdelin/archive/2005/12/29/507944.aspx

Friend at work showed me this link wanting to know if they'd actually be any good. I'd think there'd be weird comb filtering effects from the combination of the horn mouths and the driver direct radiation output. Also aren't horns really directional, so now we've just aimed sound pretty much everywhere but at the listener.

But they did win a single full range driver speaker design competition in Quebec, so really I have no idea. Do any of you have any thoughts?

[Saurav]

I think a 'back horn' like that is supposed to help augment the bass. Properly designed, it should provide a boost where the FR driver's output falls off. The large baffle will probably help with that too. So if the horn is operating down in the 200-300Hz range, for instance, pointing the sound away from the listener might not be all that bad. I dunno... this is all speculation, I haven't heard those speakers

[dwk]

I looked at the Cornu speakers a while ago when looking for something that might hang on a wall - I think it's actually a very clever design. Directionality is not a problem for a combination of two reasons:
1) horns are only directional when their dimensions are comparable to or larger than the wavelength of sound - below that they become aperature limted and behave like any other sound source
2) this is a back-loaded horn. (BLH) this means that it's tuned to provide bass support to the normal direct radiation of the driver. Since wavelengths are long in this range, there's no problem with directivity.

I've never heard one of these, or any other Foxtex BLH for that matter, but I'd imagine that if they successfully walk the tighrope balance between front/direct output and horn bass support, then can be very good - the coherence of a single driver with more extended bass output. If not, well, they still serve as conversation pieces.

[Dustin B]

That's the part I don't get. How does back loading the horn limit the bandwidth coming out of the horn when it's being feed by the back side of a single full range driver?

[ThomasW]

How does back loading the horn limit the bandwidth coming out of the horn

The high frequencies aren't smart enough to get through the maze.....:wink:

[Dennis H]

The back horn is just a variation on the old port/TL/bass-reflex theme, the only difference being that the port gets bigger from inside to outside. A lot of the old vintage Klipshes used the concept.

I built a 15" 3-way in the late 60's that were sorta triangular from the top, with a rear slot port and they used the room corner to complete the back horn. They probably weren't all that good by today's standards but I got nothing but compliments when we would throw college parties.

arty: