Ever wonder about the advantages and disadvantages of horn load speakers? And check out our newest TH-cam channel / @octaverecordsanddsdst... Octave Records.
A big complaint i have of regular box speakers is they sound too small. It's like there's two lasers sending me music in the room. Open baffle speakers help with this problem, so do electrostatic panels, and so do horns. When I hear horn speakers they sound much bigger than they really are. They also have more dynamic range which I like. They sound punchier, more forceful. Anyways, that's why I do like them.
The only speaker that can give you high efficiency, low distortion, accuracy, micro dynamics, effortless, distortion free sound is a horn speaker. Modern Horns don't suffer from colouration.
I agree. The very moment I heard a proper waveguide designed by earl geddes I knew it was it. Cant go back. The immediacy, density and resolution are unmatched
When I first heard the edgar horns, it was eye opening. It reminded me of my younger days at live jazz clubs sitting 10 15 feet from stage. You notice even magico flagship top of the line is a horn. I have never gone back to tall boxes. I prefer open baffle speakers than boxes.. When the speaker attracts your ear and the music you prefer plays well with it; then that's the speaker for you. Very personal... For me single ended amps, tubes, with front loaded horns japanese cartridges and vinyl is my end of search.
Also I have yet to hear anything as efficient as a horn speaker... What non horn design does he have that is going to produce 105+ db at 1 watt of power?
As a longtime audiophile, I have a 'soft spot' for planar and/or horn loaded speakers. Today's horn loaded speakers are a lot smoother and not as 'shouty' as older models, and I am smitten by how lively they make the music sound! There is just something about a well designed horn type speaker that to me, is pure magic! Even my cheaper 'office system' in which I run JBL Studio 530 speakers (horn loaded design) brings me to tears at times! I was listening to an older Rudy Van Gelder recording of Sonny Rollins' 'Sax Colossus' on these small speakers, and I could not believe how close they got me to the music! The timbral accuracy and sonic signature coming out of these little horn loaded speakers just blew me away!
As an aside: The human ear is a horn. Its inner, middle and outer components are essentially a horn-loaded, compression driver in reverse (a mic). Moreover, the human ear is 'reference' quality in its reproduction ;-) I am reminded that poor implementations of good ideas are not to be confused with bad ideas.
a technicallity, but the human ear does not reproduce. also, our ears have plenty of flaws i'm sure. It's just that mother nature decided to throw a heckofalot of really advanced DSP at the problem.
"It's just that mother nature decided to throw a heckofalot of really advanced DSP at the problem." The human brain being the DSP. It's just that some people have a very inefficient DSP.
The ear is only horn-like near the eardrum as the ear canal is more cylindrical there. Otherwise, the ear is nothing like a horn. It is a frequency filtering and tonal-shaping mechanism specific to humans and their survival needs. The unique architecture of the ridges in the pinna (the outer ear) have specifically evolved for the purpose of sound-shaping in the mid-frequencies, where the human voice is centered. Acoustic horns, even when folded, avoid any type of ridge-structure along the path of the sound waves and are generally not tuned to specific frequencies, with a few exceptions. The human ear is structured differently. It is an extraordinary sound and tone filtering device, more than it is a sound-gathering device. If it were only for sound-gathering, we would have ears like servals, probably. Also, the electro-chemical signals sent to the brain from the cochlea are more digital in nature than analog, as they stream in pulses.
Much is now known about how horns work and how early horns produced "horn honk" coloration, and it is now easily avoided. Horns increase gain in two ways: 1) by limiting the spherical angle of power radiation, and 2) by using compression to increase volume velocity, then using the momentum of gas particles to maintain velocity as the wavefront expands. Horn honk is caused by internal reflections in the horn that cause high frequencies to be attenuated, and resonances that cause midrange frequencies to be accentuated. Resonance is desirable in low frequency horns because it increases sensitivity at the lowest frequency where the horn operates, based on the length of the horn path, by creating quarter-wave resonance which is damped somewhat by the capacitive effect (high-pass effect) of the horn's flare rate. In the midrange, it is less tolerable and leads to "honk", so careful choice of the flare rate is important. Then at high frequencies, you really want as little resonant behavior as possible, so a high flare rate is used. Also, it is important to use non-parallel horn walls (such as elliptical-section horns) to avoid side-to-side and top-to-bottom reflective modes (high order modes) that create cancellation at high frequencies and delayed emission of sound. You have to consider that the wave, when it is emitted, is round, and so the horn cross section really should be either round or elliptical, not rectangular as we have seen for so many years. Companies like Eighteen Sound, BMS, and Faital Pro have been making elliptical-section horns for a while now, and Renkus-Heinz has been using a round-obround-elliptical-round section profile from throat to exit through its Complex Conic horns for many years, and these horns have less horn coloration. Also, "waveguides" (shallow horns) which do not employ a diffraction slot (and are thus not "constant directivity" have the least colored sound, but at the price of consistent pattern control.
paul doing his very best not to say "horns sound like ass" and this is the reason i subscribed, i have never herd any horn speakers that sounded good in 35 years
Reminds me of the joke when Amar Bose meets Paul Klipsch: Walking down the street, Paul sees Amar, he turns and faces a wall and yells "Hey Amar, how's business?". Amar cups his hands around his mouth and yells "Hey Paul, I can't understand a thing you said". Paul turns towards Amar, cups his hands around his mouth, and yells "Have a nice day!".
@@ImmanuelSundar ahh, hence the 'direct/reflecting' hype. Actually l had purchased a pair of 501's and they sounded pretty good. AND THEN l discovered Cerwin-Vega r12s. No contest.
I have two friends who built Klipsh corner horns in college. They sounded pretty good with Altec compression drivers and large midrange horns. The transient response at the crossover was terrible because of the time delay through the folded horn. I would like to hear them with phase-corrected digital delay to the mids and highs, which wasn't available at the time. They shared a room. Four Klipsh corner horns (stacked) in a dorm room produced some amazing sounding rock-n-roll! In the early '80s, I built some speakers that used JBL compression drivers, horns and diffraction lenses. They sounded pretty good. Then I came across The Tube from Transylvania Power Company, Karlson Couplers for tweeters, and bought them. They got rid of the slightly nasal coloring of the horns and still properly loaded the compression drivers. They still seem like magic to me, and I still use them.
In my opinion Paul's hand-cupping demonstration is an oversimplification which simply does not apply to modern horn designs. That "cupped hands" coloration is the result of internal reflections within the horn. Angle your hands into a much wider flare, Paul, and it almost disappears... and with good modern horn design it disappears entirely, at the expense of reduced acoustic amplification (which is a trade-off we can afford to make). I've had blind audiophiles in my room at audio shows and they did not realize they were listening to horns until somebody told them.
I have a pair of A-7's "Voice of the Theater" that I built a long time ago with Altec 515 bass drivers, Altec 511B horns, and JBL horn tweeters. Because the horn of the A-7 cuts off at about 80 hz., I use a large infinite baffle with a pair of JBL 15s as a subwoofer. The sound quality and realism IMO are astonishing. The fundamental problem with horn speakers is that they're big and heavy not to say expensive.
i think that an advantage of horn loaded drivers especially mid and high Hz drivers coud be the control of dispersion. In many home listening rooms the acoustic is quite far from ideal and reflections from the walls can mix with the direct sound from speakers in a random way with delays and so on ... a speaker with a narrow dispersion can be aimed to the listening spot and the acoustic treatment can be limited to the wall behind the listening spot I guess Much easier thing to do
I had the opportunity a couple of years ago to spend an hour at Oswalds Mill listening to their (albeit outrageously expensive) horn setup. It was as close to a religious experience as I’ve ever had. The music was alive, around me, vibrant and warm, and unlike anything I’ve ever heard. Was the music “colored”? I have no idea. I only know it was amazing. Jonathan Weiss is as passionate and persnickety as anyone I’ve ever met, and truly believes that his way of crafting speakers and horns is the best. I would imagine that you know Jonathan. It would be great to get you guys in a room together and listen to you both discuss your approaches to music reproduction. I love watching your videos and always learn something new. You are so knowledgeable and passionate about sound, and you come across as a nice guy, too. I would love to hear your IRS V setup at PS Audio some day. I bet it is as wonderful as people say. Keep up the good work!
That is the Tube Tasting gathering I am referring to. I know Jonathan also. I wish I hadn't dropped off the scene, but my health has been failing me so I could not attend anymore.
The Altec model 19s still stand out as one of the greatest horn speakers of all time. They have one of the most unhorn like sounds I've heard from a horn speaker due in part to an internal diffuser lens mounted in the throat of the horn (an Altec patent) and a very complex crossover that smooths out irregularities in the speaker's response. Model 19s are still able to compete with most of the best horn systems made today. In my opinion 19s with xover upgrades easily outclasses than anything Klipsch ever made in terms of transparency, low coloration and accuracy of response. The only horn systems I've heard capable of beating them are the JBL Everests, Rey Audio's RM-7Vs, JBL Hartsfield reproductions and some of Kenrick Sound of Japan's masterful retrofits of JBL.
"a very complex crossover that smooths out irregularities in the speaker's response" Whither the efficiency with them? And thinking about what they do to phasing... I'll stick with my transmission lines with a single capacitor crossover thanks.
A wide dispersion horn sounds great if it is part of a speaker system, its also great because it separates more of the mid range frequency and broadens the sound stage. Coupled with good tweeters and good woofers they can sound fantastic. In the 70s and 80s bigger was better and you could get a 3 way or 4 way system without taking out a loan. If you are on a budget you can still find some of the classic speakers that sound great and give you more for your money than spending twice as much on a newer design with smaller drivers.
I had it explained to me like this: When you are linking two stages, maximum power is transferred when the output impedance of stage 1 is matched to the input impedance of stage 2. Basic electronics, right? Well a horn matches the speaker's output to the impedance of the air!
Reminds me of the first speakers I built (enclosures only) using Eletrovoice horns mid and high with a 15inch woofer. Horns were controlled by crossover level controls, but always sounded nasal or too midrange. Powered with an old 70's Pioneer intergrated amp with 10watts...they were loud. Later in life I tried Electrovoice Centrury two ways horn and 15 inch woofer, clean sound but still not detailed and linear, the most expensive speaker I ever bought.
I actually thought you were Don Herbert from Mr wizards world and you sir are a wizard as well . Thank you for taking the time to make these videos 👍👍👍
I thought that horn loudspeakers achieve their effect (of very high efficiency) by coupling the sound of the driver to the room, not by amplifying the sound. A horn with about 12 feet to 13 feet diameter at the end is able to reproduce very low frequencies with a minimum (relative) of power. The driver is working at low power and therefore at minimum distortion.
I've got one question : how can you make a membrane speaker as efficient as a horn? This is what is said from 7:29. The question here is how can you achieve a coupling as efficient as a horn? BTW, a horn does not "amplify" sound (amplification needs an external power source) ; it couples the moving element to a VOLUME of air instead of to a SURFACE of air. Thus, the coupling is much more efficient. Thus the sound comes out much louderé It does so at the expense of putting a mechanical load on the membrane. (The same speaker takes more power when attached to the horn than in free air, hence the apparent "amplification".)
@6:44 I think the "Multiple Horn" has been done by Danley Sound Labs in a slightly different way - Multiple Drivers in a single Horn... and quite successfully.
Danley's multiple driver "horn" is actually a new invention - the Synergy Horn. A proper description would be to call it a BROADBAND (as in full range frequency response) Controlled Directivity Linear Phase Single Point Source. And I think it's something Paul McGowen needs to listen to - as always, in a proper listening room with an excellent setup & superior associated equipment. This is NOT your father's (or grand father or great grand father's) "horn". Paul - you are invited (to my place) if you have time during the next AXPONA :)
Your other videos seemed to have reasonable information, sad to say that is not true of this one. There are bad example of any technology. I was lucky enough to get to know some of the guys at The Mastering Lab and meet Doug Sax a few times in the 90's and hear about how they made some of the famous Sheffield direct to disk recordings and spend some time in his mastering rooms. Guess what, they were horn loaded speakers from the mid range up and were amazingly natural sounding and excelled at micro detail. You could hear the texture on some of the percussion instruments. I heard new things in recordings that I had had for years. One of his engineers showed me his personal system (horn loaded) and gave me some tips on the system I was building at the time based on the TAD compression driver and Bruce Edgar horns. Every electrical engineer understands the importance of impedance matching, the same is true for acoustic design. A good compression driver is expensive, that's the only reason we don't see them more in home audio gear.
Eh, it’s all about sound preference. Coloration or not, it’s all about the experience of the sound. I have heard many speakers in my time from Paradigm, B&W’s, Tannoy’s, Martin Logan, Polk’s, Triangle, JBL’s, Totems, Monitor Audio, and KEF’s. I have to admit, I always go back to Klipsch. All the other speakers I mentioned to me doesn’t have that excitement and dynamics that I’m looking for. As for accuracy, heck you want accuracy go to a recording studio and hear them instead. There is no such thing as a good and bad speaker. It’s all about how much your budget and what the listener likes!
I inherited a pair of huge speakers with 15 inch woofers, EV1828R midhorns and EV35T tweeters. After much research I found that the EV1828R is a public announcement horn driver and cannot find anything on it being used in a stereo speaker. These are homemade speakers so what I'm concerned with is are these horns ok to use in a high fi speaker or is this the wrong model horn entirely to use in a home stereo speaker ? They don't sound great and I have no knowledge tweaking crossover frequencies to change the sound. Any advice would be much appreciated, they look cool and I'm trying to resurrect them to sound decent.
This conversation might benefit from an explanation of First-watt theory and the direct function existing between increased power and increased distortion. Previous comments, below, regarding modern horns, tailored to frequency ranges, coupled with properly designed crossover networks are true enough... the results can be absolutely stunning. We all have our preferences; but, categorically dismissing horns out-of-hand may be more than a little misleading--especially to newcomers, and those finding their way into hi-fidelity sound.
Paul Lazarro I’m not so sure about his firm grasp of all the acoustic theories involved, or the facts that as numerous others have noted that: 1) all loudspeakers are imperfect, even those designed by Arnie Nudel, Paul Klipsch, Peter Walker, or the entire teams of engineers at KEF, B&W - pick your poison- and none exist that will satisfy every listener, or fit their budget or domestic situation; 2) materials science and advances in computer modelling have over the past many decades, but within the living memory of many of the readers and commentators here and the span of Paul’s business career, significantly improved the objectively measurable performance and affordability of audio equipment in general, certainly including loudspeakers. That said, Paul certainly has an avuncular demeanour that allows us to easily overlook his occasional technical gaffe, or subjective bias - things of which few of us are innocent. I’ve been in this hobby/lifestyle long enough (over 50yrs) to have auditioned /owned / built literally hundreds of systems, including scores of speakers. Some of the most unsatisfying / impractical loudspeakers I’ve personally experienced have been horn loaded multi-ways ranging from old school Klipsches, JBL, Tannoy, Lowther, etc. Conversely, some of my most enjoyable musical experiences have been with relatively modest rear horn loaded enclosures utilizing full range single drivers, assisted with realistic expectations and perhaps a relaxation beverage or three.
The problem lies only in using the same horn over a wide range. But this is true of any loudspeaker- hence "full range speakers" are useless, unless you are listening to solo saxophone all the time . An active, multi-amped, multi-way system (using horns for the midrange area and ribbons for the highs, for my taste) is by far the best solution.
Dream Diction bullcrap. He said the tin can analogy was a poor one, it's just that he can't give to a simple explanation. I understood it. Go away TROLL.
Awesome.. I was always fascinated with Cerwin Vega earthquakes but never understood how a very bad looking folded horn would be good for the smooth wave.. if the corners were smooth would it sound better? Like if you somehow folded a trumpet into a snake
“Mister Rogers of audio”...🔥🔥🔥🔥😂😂😂😂😂 I’m glad I subbed 😎👍🏻 you answer a lot of tough questions and I personally appreciate the work you do 👍🏻 thank you kindly sir !
You mentioned you create the same effect as the horns but without the colorations, in your speakers. Can you please elaborate how you do that? I want to build some speakers, and really want the effeciency up the notch.
I think some of us would love to hear updates on how your loudspeaker project is going. All we've seen so far is a sneak peek at the reference. Hope you don't make us wait for an electronics show. 😉
Hi Paul, I'm old also and when you cupped your hands to ears in this vid it reminded me of the fact that I suffer from tinitus. When listening to my "horns" with cupped hands to ears it produces a marked improvement over simply turning up the volume. I know that you can buy electronic hearing aids that can partially ellimate the noise in your ears from tinitus but the idea of listening to my HIFI system's tube's sound eminating from my horns into the room and then finally translated by a tiny litle amp of who knows what design just before the sound enters my ears, seems to defeat the whole purpose of a HIFI system. I wish that some smart engineering company like yours would investigate passive amplifcation. It could be a boon to people like myself and possibly apartment dwellers too.
I find it quite humorous that there are so many people that watch these videos just so they can make unjust comments to show their uneducated opinions on them. I am not an engineer,a specialist in the stereo field, or an audiophile. I watch these to learn different aspects in the field of music and the equipment that reproduces the sound. It always seems that there is someone who thinks they are smarter and can explain it better; they think PS Audio are making these videos to sell their product. After watching many of these I have yet to hear Paul say a price on his products or tell anyone to come to his facility to purchase only. If you trolls are so much smarter, start your own business and then start producing your own videos to show the world that you are better than everyone else. Now to Paul... Thank you for the time you take to make these videos to help shed a light on the differences in systems,speakers , and all that is combined to produce the sounds that surround us in what seems to be everything in our lives today. I am planning a trip to Colorado just to stop by and visit your new facility and visit with you about music and sound reproduction. I find this to be a very interesting subject. Thank you again sir for your time and efforts to make these videos
I have been to his listening room and he has the Infinity IRS speakers and they are impressive but he also has multi-thousand dollar cables hooked up to them that are unnecessary.
Develop a loudspeaker based on instrument category. Horns can be just brass instruments. Take a trumpet and play that through a horn: you have a trumpet with its characteristics. Horns tend to be directional even movement left or right: in phase out of phase. Take and instrument like strings - generally omnidirectional except for the sound hole - planar / electrostatics / ribbons are good for that reproduction. Drums would be good through flat woofers - just like the skins on a frame. Other percussive instruments such as triangles, bells, mallet instruments - dome tweeters or Linaeum tweeters. An amplifier and crossover for each section would be needed. Recording of such instruments must be done on each individual track / channel and allocated to each appropriate amplifier. Ch 1 - drums, Ch 2 - Strings, Ch - 3 Brass Ch - 4 Percussion, Ch5 - Voice, etc. If the object is to get as close to the real thing, reproduce it as it would be performed live or else just bring in a band, musician, orchestra into your living room. The expense of speakers systems today is generally for the well to do. So why not make a system to get closer to what is real as the ideal purpose of being an audiophile in the first place. DSD is great for recording and playback.
With the coloration and decrease of frequency range in consideration.... would a horn bass speaker be more efficient then a regular full range speaker for this type of scenario?
I share the same reluctance to horns with Paul. I believe, though, that some well experienced designers, with great knowledge of their shortcomings and willing to take the long, hard way to overcome them, may still produce incredibly good horn loudspeakers. In my opinion, one of these designers is Stavros Danos of Aries Cerat audio company in Cyprus. His flagship model is, by all means, outstanding! So, no to horns as a general rule. But as in any rule, there's always some very little room, for some very exquisite exceptions.
Horns are awesome if equalized / tuned right. I'm using fostex wooden horn and drivers H400/D1400. 800~7000 KHz + T925a. 7000~20000 KHz active all the way. Don't know what your on about.? Build many speakers, and nothing come close to the dynamic and life like sound from the horns. My all time favorite.! I would agree that, horn can sound harsh an fatigue sets in quickly if not tuned right. Ps a lot of eq was necessary / endless listening hours, tuning.
Chip, I'm running 3-way active (plus a sub) with horn mids and tops too, not Fostex but similar, and I totally concur with your characterization. I've never encountered such a life-like and seductive presentation of recorded music---with the best recordings, that is. And that's from 35-45 year old vintage drivers. Active linear-phase multiamping definitely lets horns perform at their best and reveals the advantages of their quickness in reproducing inner texture and holographic imaging, especially if their manufacturing tolerances are tight enough to assure very close left-right matching of their "ballistics".
@@naturalverities Awesome.! Glad to hear. I'm also running my front, with too stereo 18" isobaric subwoofer in 160L basreflex enclosure. 4 4" flared tubers tuned to 28Hz. Peace bro✌️
Since we are on the topic of horns. Lets cover transmission line's in the next video. I believe it's possible to create a horn that does not color the sound. We also need to understand that another purpose of horns are to direct sound across particular distances. Understanding the soundwave itself allows you to decide what length of horn or even wave guide is needed for the application.
Coloration is mainly caused from softer, weak, thin, or loose materials. When the given frequency interacts with its surroundings and begins resonating thats when acoustic coloration begins. Soft materials are used to absorb sound and hard materials are used to reflect or project the sound. The goal in transmission line's and wave guides are to be as hard, solid and smooth as possible. You are mainly wanting to focus your attention on the speaker drivers themselves and only hear the sound that they are giving off. Not the enclosure resonance for the drivers. Only if it were possible to make speaker enclosures and wave guides out of polished diamond. The hardest known rock solid substance on the planet. Then you would understand what im talking about. But the price of diamonds is the main reason it hasn't been done. Maybe some kind of glass... Cone material of a driver designed for a particular frequency response is a completely different story because thats when weight and efficiencie is involved.
Hi, thanks for exposin this theme May I desagree a bit? As i understand, for get a reasonable power in reproducing high frecuencies, it is necessary to use horn drivers, and also for low frecuencies, it is known that horn loaded subwoofers offer more punch. I have the idea that in the subwoofers, the cuestion may be an inertia problem. It seems to me, that the mass of the subwoofer cone, requires a lot of energy from the amplifier to accelerate and brake, so, the compression of air in a small chamber followed by a horn should work as natural suspension, making the cone to produce more pressure, instead of just gaming self inertia That is why i replyed in the comments section. It is a very interesting issue Thanks
Hi there Paul congratulation for your channel. I find it very useful. would you recomend me a pairs of loudspeakers? I know there's not such a thing like the best speakers. I don't know whether I am an audiophile but I'm for sure a music lover. I love classic, Jazz, Rock, almost all metal( Heavy, Thrash,Power,new,nu,ect) also some opera and of course I'm totally nuts about the blues, so is probably hard to find a pair of speakers which fullfill my expectations for such a vary tasre for music. I own an old Marantz as a preamp and one power Emotiva. As you can see I'm not rich so I'm not able to afford Mark Levimson, McIntosh( one of my favourite),or Krell but my old vintage Marantz has gave me a lot of hours of satisfation. I also own a pair of old 3way 15" National speakers which have made the job pretty well. I actually replaced the High horns and the mids speakers because the original died. So I decided was the time to boost my system so I bought a pair of JBL ES90 .They sure can handle the Emotiva Power but I got tell you the sound is not what i expected. you won't believe but I found my old National a little better . The bass is more deep. even the highs sound louder. the JBLs sound better when the mids are the subject. So i think is time to change again. I was thinking of Fluance Signature , Klipsch r625 or some Polk. what do you think?
Your information on horn speakers is 50 years out of date. It sounds like you have not heard a modern horn design like the Klipsch Palladium's. You can exaggerate and cup your hands close together all you want and talk about Thomas Edison but that is NOT how modern horns sound! If you OPEN your cupped hands wider the shouty sound GOES AWAY which is how modern horns are designed. Please try it for yourself, modern horn designs do not sound like that exaggerated closed hand demonstration you gave. Try listening to the recently re-designed Klipsch Forte III by Klipsch's brilliant engineer Roy Delgado and get back to us with your opinion of that horn sound. I don't care if a person does or does not like the horn sound, but it's not helpful to disseminate information from 2 centuries ago and omit up-to-date 21st century technology information. Respectfully.
The more you watch his videos, the more you realize he is not really and audio engineer. He has a team doing the dirty work, he is just the face of PS audio
I own 4 pairs of Klipsch and JBL horn loaded speakers ,I got into a 3 day argument with a kid on audioholics who said I was a liar when I said I had to rebuild the 12" woofers in my K-Horns, the " horn loaded bass " spec meant he thought the speaker had a 12" bass horn lol Anyhow I've never found any pair of horn loaded speakers that weren't too bright and didn't need the horn damped ,I damp all my horn systems to get away from that metal twang brightness I'm sensitive to.
Hi Paul, the horn is not an amplifier though it is it, being it doesn't add energy to the equation. It just stops the energy loss through efficiency right? Anyway, thanks for the vid!
I had attended a yearly "Tube Tasting" gathering for some years awhile back and in one, there was a speaker engineer who demonstrated horns. He demonstrated them by talking into them. For the same reasons, I originally did not like horns, they were too peaky and did color the sound some. However, he demonstrated one horn that was an almost perfect acoustic amplifier. I was very impressed. I still prefer the direct speaker also however. And for those who are complaining, I pretty much believe that horn technology was perfected a looong time before Klipsch formed his company... so... unless that one (the one proclaiming foul) works for Klipsch, well, this video is sufficiently educational and accurate with regards how horns work and what they do. The physics behind them can take much more time than he had here to explain, as well as the geometry of the horn shape, length, diameter of the opening, etc. etc. etc.
A really nice and informative Little Video..again! Thanks for all the Time and Efort answering all These questions. Really enjoy watching them. Best Regards From Germany
Hi Paul. Thank you for your interesting content. I know this is an old video but I wanted to ask you: Can one via a dedicated pedal (high pass filter?) Manipulate a “normal” speaker to act like a horn speaker? I’m interested in having my guitar amp produce a “horn” sound of my guitar. thank you
Horn speakers have no equal for transient response. The reason is their highly effective energy-coupling into the air, which provides a very high damping factor for the driver's diaphragm. The difficulty with horns - and the reason why some designs sound colored - is that they have very abrupt cutoff at their low frequency limit. Crossovers need to be designed so that their output is attenuated by a significant factor before cutoff is reached. That is difficult to do with passive crossovers, so as a designer I would much prefer to use horns in multi-amp applications with active crossovers.
@@naturalverities It would be nice to know more about your system. Ever heard of Speakerlab? They were a Seattle-based speaker design company in Seattle back in the 70's and 80's. I own a pair of Speakerlab 7's which have an E-V T350 tweeter and a large horn midrange, and originally, a 12" and 10" set of woofers electrically and acoustically in parallel to make a 4 ohm speaker. The original woofer surrounds rotted away, so I changed over to a single 4 ohm 12" woofer and sealed the 10" opening. They still have passive crossovers. Some day I may go active, and align the drivers. Currently the midrange driver is too far back and the frequency response is all over the map. But they still produce fabulous detail in the highs.
@@marianneoelund2940 Hi! Yes I have definitely heard of Speakerlab. I used to lust after Sevens back when I was young and broke. K's too. My light-years-best system (I also own 7 pairs of Klipsches) consists of 18" ported sub (B&C pro cinema driver), 2x 15" midbass drivers (TOA Altec clones), 2x 22" wide radial mid horns (University comp drivers), and 2x ring/slot tweeters (TOA, very like the famous JBL 2403/2405). Crossover is a Dayton DSP-408, inexpensive and very capable, including time compensation and massive parametric EQ capabilities. Super easy to use! Amp is an Onkyo AVR with 7 analog multichannel inputs/amps. Total system cost less cabinet materials and streaming source (phone/laptop) is about $600 (thanks, Craigslist!); once tweaked-in, sound quality is an epiphany, especially with classical music. DSP active multiamping is a game-changer!
I think "amplifies" is used incorrectly in this discussion. The horn does not amplify the sound, it directs and focuses the sound so it's not attenuated and dispersed when it gets to the listener. "Amplification" implies that the sound pressure wave is somehow increased over the original wave. The total sound pressure wave is still the same with or without the horn, it's just more focused and therefore louder when it gets to the listener's ears.
Hi Mr. Rogers , Paul, what you say about Horn Speakers is 99% correct. I had over20 different huge horn speakers in my 75 years stay on earth now. Because you are a curious guy, check out my Casta B Horn Speakers from Milan Italy , colour and musicality is a factor of taste. One searches ,if money is available for one’s hobby needs, it is still difficult to come to the point when one conclude his or her taste. My kit now just moves me to nirvana. A tube Preamp 4, 6SN7 tubes, 90 watt linear Power Amp. And Casta Speakers do it for me today. Love your CD player and saving up for it now. I have learned all the good stuff to improve my music playback .Wish we lived closer to have a coffee and listen to a few tracks. Best Regards Johnnie Also love Red Book quality CD digital music playback form Spotify and Tidal. Keep up the great information come Paul
A wave guide is much different than a horn. The former is largely an issue of perfecting dispersion, while the latter is poor man's amplification device. Anything which resembles a horn too much doesn't create a sound I prefer.
Paul, you are not old or corney, however, you are wise, loveable, and as Mr. Rodgers was, he was wise to the imagination of children. You are wise and a master of the explanation and realization of what an audiophile is looking for. Thank you!
I agree. I have a Klipsch Palladium as well and there is that very slight horn coloration which is most apparent in its reproduction of a human voice. It's great speakers though, very clear and transparent. Great for jazz and orchestra type music.
Paul, I wonder if the same applies to horn loaded tweeters. Do those become colored because of the horn too? Or maybe they tune the frequencies accordingly in the factory to compensate? Just curious...
Two things... First, I think you sound much more like David Letterman than Fred Rogers! The expression "put a sock in it" is usually used when someone wants another person to be quiet. Originally, however, it referred to literally putting a sock inside the horn of a gramophone, as there was no other way of controlling the volume.
The acoustic horn is not an amplifier it is an acoustic transformer that basically matches the high acoustic impeadance of the source driver to the low acoustic impeadance of free space in an a analogous way to an electrical transformer matches different electrical impeadances. Read up on Harry F. Olson and Leo Beranek.
i was one of the guys who said your Mr Rogers of audio lol. glad to see you read comments. Anyhow what is your take on dome mids? Thanks and keep up the great work.
Speakers are the "clay feet" of audio. Every speaker design is a compromise. You choose what's important to you whether it be price, flat frequency response, efficiency, imaging, etc. Most important is that you derive pleasure from listening to your system. I like systems that sound musical, have good imaging, and lack obvious coloration. I don't really care how the designer achieves my objectives.
Most of the comments for this video seem to be very much in favour of horns. I really have to agree with Paul on this topic. I have never heard a horn I thought was listenable and I've heard a lot of horns in my time. They can only shout, they can't whisper. IMO The reason people like horns is that they are good at dynamics. They hear a horn and say "that's got great dynamics, I want more of that". They then chase designs with more and more dynamics that have less and less of everything else. The horn loaded speaker is a one trick pony.
Up until about a year ago, I would have agreed with you. That's when I built my speakers using Altec theater horns. When a designer is freed from the limitations of what will fit in and look good in a living room, a horn can be properly designed. Before the 1980's, just about every movie theater in the world used this technology, and sometimes the movies got very quiet. Horns can whisper, they can produce a deep and defined image and they do not have a "horn" sound if designed properly. The downside, the good ones are huge. Like any other driver, they are not full range. They are unattractive, I keep mine in the basement. Unlike Paul's requirement of 130db, I find 95db to be loud. My midrange horns (Altec 203b) will do that with 10 milliwatts. They will hit 130db, and will do it with 15 watts. A "normal" speaker of 90db sensitivity would require 10,000 watts to do the same thing. While I also dislike every commercial horn I have ever heard, Avantgarde included, this isn't due to inherent faults in horn technology.
@@johnlebeau5471 I'm glad to hear that you have built a great sounding horn. As so many people like horns there must be something good about them. Everytime I get a chance I listen but still haven't found the magic for myself.
Thanks, Paul. The most impressive speakers I have ever heard were Altec-Lansing A7500s. A large exponential horn with back-loading, a 12" Altec woofer and an Altec compression horn driver (similar to Paul Klipsch's driver in the Klipschorns) for the highs. They were made for movie-house sound reproduction, like Cinerama. They were driven by massive Altec tube amps. Nothing had the power and majesty of those monsters. No other speaker (although better in frequency-response) could even touch them. It would be like comparing Pete Townshend and his stack of Hiwatts to a tone-deaf busker with frozen fingers. They were so efficient they could be driven by a 20 watt Bogen PA amp and rock the house! They were the PA speakers for my band (we had champagne tastes) and we filled an abandoned torpedo hanger with incredible sound from them. They don't make speakers like that anymore, alas...
From the same wikipedia article - "Acoustic horns are found in nature in the form of the burrows constructed by male mole crickets to amplify(!) their song..." "This has the effect of maximizing the efficiency with which sound waves from the particular source are transferred to the air."!
“Speaking horns are known to amplify sounds because they match the acoustic impedance between sounds emitted through the horn's narrow end and the air at the wide end of the horn” royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2013.2362#d3e758
“The Horn amplifies the sound to an impressive level. Opening or closing the wood doors on the front controls loudness by blocking the horn inside.” edisontechcenter.org/speakers.html
“A horn funnel effectively guides the motion of sound waves and thus substantially increases the sensitivity and effectiveness of sound radiations. A horn is the most natural and powerful way to amplify sound.” www.avantgarde-acoustic.de/en/horn-technology.html
“The reason as to why a horn amplifies sound is its funnel shape. A horn is typically slim at the end and grows larger as the diameter goes towards its hollow opening. Their capability to amplify sound is actually what inspired sound engineers to manufacture horn loudspeakers. Horn loudspeakers are basically the oldest type of loudspeakers.” audiomention.com/types-of-loudspeakers/
I'm a fan of horn loaded speakers, specifically Klipsch and in my opinion sometimes the coloration you talk about actually can improve the the overall sound of a speaker.
A big complaint i have of regular box speakers is they sound too small. It's like there's two lasers sending me music in the room. Open baffle speakers help with this problem, so do electrostatic panels, and so do horns. When I hear horn speakers they sound much bigger than they really are. They also have more dynamic range which I like. They sound punchier, more forceful. Anyways, that's why I do like them.
The only speaker that can give you high efficiency, low distortion, accuracy, micro dynamics, effortless, distortion free sound is a horn speaker. Modern Horns don't suffer from colouration.
I agree. The very moment I heard a proper waveguide designed by earl geddes I knew it was it. Cant go back. The immediacy, density and resolution are unmatched
pure coloration and low fidelity
Pyramid shaped horns are horrible, but true exponential horns with phase plugs are worth it
When I first heard the edgar horns, it was eye opening. It reminded me of my younger days at live jazz clubs sitting 10 15 feet from stage. You notice even magico flagship top of the line is a horn. I have never gone back to tall boxes. I prefer open baffle speakers than boxes..
When the speaker attracts your ear and the music you prefer plays well with it; then that's the speaker for you. Very personal...
For me single ended amps, tubes, with front loaded horns japanese cartridges and vinyl is my end of search.
Also I have yet to hear anything as efficient as a horn speaker... What non horn design does he have that is going to produce 105+ db at 1 watt of power?
As a longtime audiophile, I have a 'soft spot' for planar and/or horn loaded speakers. Today's horn loaded speakers are a lot smoother and not as 'shouty' as older models, and I am smitten by how lively they make the music sound! There is just something about a well designed horn type speaker that to me, is pure magic! Even my cheaper 'office system' in which I run JBL Studio 530 speakers (horn loaded design) brings me to tears at times! I was listening to an older Rudy Van Gelder recording of Sonny Rollins' 'Sax Colossus' on these small speakers, and I could not believe how close they got me to the music! The timbral accuracy and sonic signature coming out of these little horn loaded speakers just blew me away!
As an aside: The human ear is a horn. Its inner, middle and outer components are essentially a horn-loaded, compression driver in reverse (a mic). Moreover, the human ear is 'reference' quality in its reproduction ;-) I am reminded that poor implementations of good ideas are not to be confused with bad ideas.
Well said.
a technicallity, but the human ear does not reproduce.
also, our ears have plenty of flaws i'm sure.
It's just that mother nature decided to throw a heckofalot of really advanced DSP at the problem.
"It's just that mother nature decided to throw a heckofalot of really advanced DSP at the problem."
The human brain being the DSP. It's just that some people have a very inefficient DSP.
The ear is only horn-like near the eardrum as the ear canal is more cylindrical there. Otherwise, the ear is nothing like a horn. It is a frequency filtering and tonal-shaping mechanism specific to humans and their survival needs. The unique architecture of the ridges in the pinna (the outer ear) have specifically evolved for the purpose of sound-shaping in the mid-frequencies, where the human voice is centered. Acoustic horns, even when folded, avoid any type of ridge-structure along the path of the sound waves and are generally not tuned to specific frequencies, with a few exceptions. The human ear is structured differently. It is an extraordinary sound and tone filtering device, more than it is a sound-gathering device. If it were only for sound-gathering, we would have ears like servals, probably. Also, the electro-chemical signals sent to the brain from the cochlea are more digital in nature than analog, as they stream in pulses.
i got 2 mics in my head with wax in it haha
Much is now known about how horns work and how early horns produced "horn honk" coloration, and it is now easily avoided. Horns increase gain in two ways: 1) by limiting the spherical angle of power radiation, and 2) by using compression to increase volume velocity, then using the momentum of gas particles to maintain velocity as the wavefront expands. Horn honk is caused by internal reflections in the horn that cause high frequencies to be attenuated, and resonances that cause midrange frequencies to be accentuated. Resonance is desirable in low frequency horns because it increases sensitivity at the lowest frequency where the horn operates, based on the length of the horn path, by creating quarter-wave resonance which is damped somewhat by the capacitive effect (high-pass effect) of the horn's flare rate. In the midrange, it is less tolerable and leads to "honk", so careful choice of the flare rate is important. Then at high frequencies, you really want as little resonant behavior as possible, so a high flare rate is used. Also, it is important to use non-parallel horn walls (such as elliptical-section horns) to avoid side-to-side and top-to-bottom reflective modes (high order modes) that create cancellation at high frequencies and delayed emission of sound. You have to consider that the wave, when it is emitted, is round, and so the horn cross section really should be either round or elliptical, not rectangular as we have seen for so many years. Companies like Eighteen Sound, BMS, and Faital Pro have been making elliptical-section horns for a while now, and Renkus-Heinz has been using a round-obround-elliptical-round section profile from throat to exit through its Complex Conic horns for many years, and these horns have less horn coloration. Also, "waveguides" (shallow horns) which do not employ a diffraction slot (and are thus not "constant directivity" have the least colored sound, but at the price of consistent pattern control.
What if you scalloped the edges with each side having a different frequency and magnitude of the peaks and valley?
paul doing his very best not to say "horns sound like ass" and this is the reason i subscribed, i have never herd any horn speakers that sounded good in 35 years
You can’t trust a guy that sells a dac for 100k
Reminds me of the joke when Amar Bose meets Paul Klipsch:
Walking down the street, Paul sees Amar, he turns and faces a wall and yells "Hey Amar, how's business?". Amar cups his hands around his mouth and yells "Hey Paul, I can't understand a thing you said". Paul turns towards Amar, cups his hands around his mouth, and yells "Have a nice day!".
Pardon my ignorance but HUH??
@@oluhamilton2121 Bose makes speakers that bounces sound off walls
@@ImmanuelSundar ahh, hence the 'direct/reflecting' hype. Actually l had purchased a pair of 501's and they sounded pretty good. AND THEN l discovered Cerwin-Vega r12s. No contest.
staaf Awesome analogy humor!!!! and quite true as well ..
I love this joke....great...i own a pair of. Cerwin Vegas 910.s.Thanks , love thr joke.
I have two friends who built Klipsh corner horns in college. They sounded pretty good with Altec compression drivers and large midrange horns. The transient response at the crossover was terrible because of the time delay through the folded horn. I would like to hear them with phase-corrected digital delay to the mids and highs, which wasn't available at the time. They shared a room. Four Klipsh corner horns (stacked) in a dorm room produced some amazing sounding rock-n-roll!
In the early '80s, I built some speakers that used JBL compression drivers, horns and diffraction lenses. They sounded pretty good. Then I came across The Tube from Transylvania Power Company, Karlson Couplers for tweeters, and bought them. They got rid of the slightly nasal coloring of the horns and still properly loaded the compression drivers. They still seem like magic to me, and I still use them.
That “sounds slightly illegal” joke less than a minute in had me subscribing and laughing my *ss off.
The new JBL and Klipsch sound fantastic, I agree a lot of older horn speakers didn't sound as good.
In my opinion Paul's hand-cupping demonstration is an oversimplification which simply does not apply to modern horn designs. That "cupped hands" coloration is the result of internal reflections within the horn. Angle your hands into a much wider flare, Paul, and it almost disappears... and with good modern horn design it disappears entirely, at the expense of reduced acoustic amplification (which is a trade-off we can afford to make). I've had blind audiophiles in my room at audio shows and they did not realize they were listening to horns until somebody told them.
Well the problem with is with horn speakers you only around 1 watt of amplification lol
I have a pair of A-7's "Voice of the Theater" that I built a long time ago with Altec 515 bass drivers, Altec 511B horns, and JBL horn tweeters. Because the horn of the A-7 cuts off at about 80 hz., I use a large infinite baffle with a pair of JBL 15s as a subwoofer. The sound quality and realism IMO are astonishing. The fundamental problem with horn speakers is that they're big and heavy not to say expensive.
i think that an advantage of horn loaded drivers especially mid and high Hz drivers coud be the control of dispersion. In many home listening rooms the acoustic is quite far from ideal and reflections from the walls can mix with the direct sound from speakers in a random way with delays and so on ... a speaker with a narrow dispersion can be aimed to the listening spot and the acoustic treatment can be limited to the wall behind the listening spot I guess Much easier thing to do
I had the opportunity a couple of years ago to spend an hour at Oswalds Mill listening to their (albeit outrageously expensive) horn setup.
It was as close to a religious experience as I’ve ever had. The music was alive, around me, vibrant and warm, and unlike anything I’ve ever heard. Was the music “colored”? I have no idea. I only know it was amazing.
Jonathan Weiss is as passionate and persnickety as anyone I’ve ever met, and truly believes that his way of crafting speakers and horns is the best. I would imagine that you know Jonathan. It would be great to get you guys in a room together and listen to you both discuss your approaches to music reproduction.
I love watching your videos and always learn something new. You are so knowledgeable and passionate about sound, and you come across as a nice guy, too.
I would love to hear your IRS V setup at PS Audio some day. I bet it is as wonderful as people say. Keep up the good work!
Excellent post! Very interesting.
That is the Tube Tasting gathering I am referring to. I know Jonathan also. I wish I hadn't dropped off the scene, but my health has been failing me so I could not attend anymore.
The Altec model 19s still stand out as one of the greatest horn speakers of all time. They have one of the most unhorn like sounds I've heard from a horn speaker due in part to an internal diffuser lens mounted in the throat of the horn (an Altec patent) and a very complex crossover that smooths out irregularities in the speaker's response. Model 19s are still able to compete with most of the best horn systems made today. In my opinion 19s with xover upgrades easily outclasses than anything Klipsch ever made in terms of transparency, low coloration and accuracy of response. The only horn systems I've heard capable of beating them are the JBL Everests, Rey Audio's RM-7Vs, JBL Hartsfield reproductions and some of Kenrick Sound of Japan's masterful retrofits of JBL.
"a very complex crossover that smooths out irregularities in the speaker's response"
Whither the efficiency with them? And thinking about what they do to phasing... I'll stick with my transmission lines with a single capacitor crossover thanks.
A wide dispersion horn sounds great if it is part of a speaker system, its also great because it separates more of the mid range frequency and broadens the sound stage. Coupled with good tweeters and good woofers they can sound fantastic. In the 70s and 80s bigger was better and you could get a 3 way or 4 way system without taking out a loan. If you are on a budget you can still find some of the classic speakers that sound great and give you more for your money than spending twice as much on a newer design with smaller drivers.
I had it explained to me like this: When you are linking two stages, maximum power is transferred when the output impedance of stage 1 is matched to the input impedance of stage 2. Basic electronics, right? Well a horn matches the speaker's output to the impedance of the air!
Reminds me of the first speakers I built (enclosures only) using Eletrovoice horns mid and high with a 15inch woofer. Horns were controlled by crossover level controls, but always sounded nasal or too midrange. Powered with an old 70's Pioneer intergrated amp with 10watts...they were loud. Later in life I tried Electrovoice Centrury two ways horn and 15 inch woofer, clean sound but still not detailed and linear, the most expensive speaker I ever bought.
I actually thought you were Don Herbert from Mr wizards world and you sir are a wizard as well . Thank you for taking the time to make these videos 👍👍👍
Do you realize that he is advertising his products with these kinds of videos?
I thought that horn loudspeakers achieve their effect (of very high efficiency) by coupling the sound of the driver to the room, not by amplifying the sound. A horn with about 12 feet to 13 feet diameter at the end is able to reproduce very low frequencies with a minimum (relative) of power. The driver is working at low power and therefore at minimum distortion.
I've got one question : how can you make a membrane speaker as efficient as a horn? This is what is said from 7:29. The question here is how can you achieve a coupling as efficient as a horn?
BTW, a horn does not "amplify" sound (amplification needs an external power source) ; it couples the moving element to a VOLUME of air instead of to a SURFACE of air. Thus, the coupling is much more efficient. Thus the sound comes out much louderé It does so at the expense of putting a mechanical load on the membrane. (The same speaker takes more power when attached to the horn than in free air, hence the apparent "amplification".)
the Klipschorns sounded pretty good as I recall. they were tied to a big Audio Research GS 150 amp
@6:44 I think the "Multiple Horn" has been done by Danley Sound Labs in a slightly different way - Multiple Drivers in a single Horn... and quite successfully.
Danley's multiple driver "horn" is actually a new invention - the Synergy Horn. A proper description would be to call it a BROADBAND (as in full range frequency response) Controlled Directivity Linear Phase Single Point Source. And I think it's something Paul McGowen needs to listen to - as always, in a proper listening room with an excellent setup & superior associated equipment. This is NOT your father's (or grand father or great grand father's) "horn". Paul - you are invited (to my place) if you have time during the next AXPONA :)
Your other videos seemed to have reasonable information, sad to say that is not true of this one. There are bad example of any technology. I was lucky enough to get to know some of the guys at The Mastering Lab and meet Doug Sax a few times in the 90's and hear about how they made some of the famous Sheffield direct to disk recordings and spend some time in his mastering rooms. Guess what, they were horn loaded speakers from the mid range up and were amazingly natural sounding and excelled at micro detail. You could hear the texture on some of the percussion instruments. I heard new things in recordings that I had had for years. One of his engineers showed me his personal system (horn loaded) and gave me some tips on the system I was building at the time based on the TAD compression driver and Bruce Edgar horns. Every electrical engineer understands the importance of impedance matching, the same is true for acoustic design. A good compression driver is expensive, that's the only reason we don't see them more in home audio gear.
Hey Mr Rogers was my favorite back in 1980 we're already off to a good start
i remember learning as a kid and being surprised that mr rogers was famous nationwide and not just a pittsburgh thing
Eh, it’s all about sound preference. Coloration or not, it’s all about the experience of the sound. I have heard many speakers in my time from Paradigm, B&W’s, Tannoy’s, Martin Logan, Polk’s, Triangle, JBL’s, Totems, Monitor Audio, and KEF’s. I have to admit, I always go back to Klipsch. All the other speakers I mentioned to me doesn’t have that excitement and dynamics that I’m looking for. As for accuracy, heck you want accuracy go to a recording studio and hear them instead. There is no such thing as a good and bad speaker. It’s all about how much your budget and what the listener likes!
Thanks Paul. It will be a pleasure for me hear your new loudspeaker.... hope to met you in Münich.
This may be a little down the road, time wise
Thanks for sharing knowledge with us
I inherited a pair of huge speakers with 15 inch woofers, EV1828R midhorns and EV35T tweeters. After much research I found that the EV1828R is a public announcement horn driver and cannot find anything on it being used in a stereo speaker. These are homemade speakers so what I'm concerned with is are these horns ok to use in a high fi speaker or is this the wrong model horn entirely to use in a home stereo speaker ? They don't sound great and I have no knowledge tweaking crossover frequencies to change the sound. Any advice would be much appreciated, they look cool and I'm trying to resurrect them to sound decent.
This conversation might benefit from an explanation of First-watt theory and the direct function existing between increased power and increased distortion. Previous comments, below, regarding modern horns, tailored to frequency ranges, coupled with properly designed crossover networks are true enough... the results can be absolutely stunning. We all have our preferences; but, categorically dismissing horns out-of-hand may be more than a little misleading--especially to newcomers, and those finding their way into hi-fidelity sound.
I think this guy knows better but is trying to sell his own products
Paul Lazarro I’m not so sure about his firm grasp of all the acoustic theories involved, or the facts that as numerous others have noted that:
1) all loudspeakers are imperfect, even those designed by Arnie Nudel, Paul Klipsch, Peter Walker, or the entire teams of engineers at KEF, B&W - pick your poison- and none exist that will satisfy every listener, or fit their budget or domestic situation;
2) materials science and advances in computer modelling have over the past many decades, but within the living memory of many of the readers and commentators here and the span of Paul’s business career, significantly improved the objectively measurable performance and affordability of audio equipment in general, certainly including loudspeakers.
That said, Paul certainly has an avuncular demeanour that allows us to easily overlook his occasional technical gaffe, or subjective bias - things of which few of us are innocent.
I’ve been in this hobby/lifestyle long enough (over 50yrs) to have auditioned /owned / built literally hundreds of systems, including scores of speakers. Some of the most unsatisfying / impractical loudspeakers I’ve personally experienced have been horn loaded multi-ways ranging from old school Klipsches, JBL, Tannoy, Lowther, etc. Conversely, some of my most enjoyable musical experiences have been with relatively modest rear horn loaded enclosures utilizing full range single drivers, assisted with realistic expectations and perhaps a relaxation beverage or three.
Mr Rogers was the man. Definitely take that as a compliment!
“Colored” can be adjusted right? Is Cerwin Vega trying to fix the problem with a deeper box (36,24,36)enclosure?
The problem lies only in using the same horn over a wide range. But this is true of any loudspeaker- hence "full range speakers" are useless, unless you are listening to solo saxophone all the time . An active, multi-amped, multi-way system (using horns for the midrange area and ribbons for the highs, for my taste) is by far the best solution.
The tin cans and a string analogy,clears up alot for me .Thanks!
No it doesn't, transmitting sound along a string has nothing to do with horn radiation.
Dream Diction bullcrap. He said the tin can analogy was a poor one, it's just that he can't give to a simple explanation. I understood it. Go away TROLL.
@Taco I use a dinosaur Victrola
Awesome.. I was always fascinated with Cerwin Vega earthquakes but never understood how a very bad looking folded horn would be good for the smooth wave.. if the corners were smooth would it sound better? Like if you somehow folded a trumpet into a snake
“Mister Rogers of audio”...🔥🔥🔥🔥😂😂😂😂😂 I’m glad I subbed 😎👍🏻 you answer a lot of tough questions and I personally appreciate the work you do 👍🏻 thank you kindly sir !
Enjoyable presentation,
“Mr. Audio”...
Best answer and explanation I've ever heard! Great job
You mentioned you create the same effect as the horns but without the colorations, in your speakers. Can you please elaborate how you do that? I want to build some speakers, and really want the effeciency up the notch.
I think some of us would love to hear updates on how your loudspeaker project is going. All we've seen so far is a sneak peek at the reference. Hope you don't make us wait for an electronics show. 😉
Hi Paul, I'm old also and when you cupped your hands to ears in this vid it reminded me of the fact that I suffer from tinitus. When listening to my "horns" with cupped hands to ears it produces a marked improvement over simply turning up the volume. I know that you can buy electronic hearing aids that can partially ellimate the noise in your ears from tinitus but the idea of listening to my HIFI system's tube's sound eminating from my horns into the room and then finally translated by a tiny litle amp of who knows what design just before the sound enters my ears, seems to defeat the whole purpose of a HIFI system. I wish that some smart engineering company like yours would investigate passive amplifcation. It could be a boon to people like myself and possibly apartment dwellers too.
I find it quite humorous that there are so many people that watch these videos just so they can make unjust comments to show their uneducated opinions on them. I am not an engineer,a specialist in the stereo field, or an audiophile. I watch these to learn different aspects in the field of music and the equipment that reproduces the sound. It always seems that there is someone who thinks they are smarter and can explain it better; they think PS Audio are making these videos to sell their product. After watching many of these I have yet to hear Paul say a price on his products or tell anyone to come to his facility to purchase only. If you trolls are so much smarter, start your own business and then start producing your own videos to show the world that you are better than everyone else.
Now to Paul... Thank you for the time you take to make these videos to help shed a light on the differences in systems,speakers , and all that is combined to produce the sounds that surround us in what seems to be everything in our lives today. I am planning a trip to Colorado just to stop by and visit your new facility and visit with you about music and sound reproduction. I find this to be a very interesting subject. Thank you again sir for your time and efforts to make these videos
When you smell ass, you might aswell kiss it, right........
You don’t see Paul say a price on his product because his premium products are ridiculously overpriced.
I have been to his listening room and he has the Infinity IRS speakers and they are impressive but he also has multi-thousand dollar cables hooked up to them that are unnecessary.
For Rock and Jazz to me there is no better sounding speaker than the Klipschorn in a proper room.
I just puked in my mouth.
Bonjour Paul, as-tu déjà essayé les pavillons lecleach ? J'ai un 53cm 300hz en plâtre fibré, je peux t'assurer que la coloration est inexistante
Develop a loudspeaker based on instrument category. Horns can be just brass instruments. Take a trumpet and play that through a horn: you have a trumpet with its characteristics. Horns tend to be directional even movement left or right: in phase out of phase. Take and instrument like strings - generally omnidirectional except for the sound hole - planar / electrostatics / ribbons are good for that reproduction. Drums would be good through flat woofers - just like the skins on a frame. Other percussive instruments such as triangles, bells, mallet instruments - dome tweeters or Linaeum tweeters. An amplifier and crossover for each section would be needed. Recording of such instruments must be done on each individual track / channel and allocated to each appropriate amplifier. Ch 1 - drums, Ch 2 - Strings, Ch - 3 Brass Ch - 4 Percussion, Ch5 - Voice, etc. If the object is to get as close to the real thing, reproduce it as it would be performed live or else just bring in a band, musician, orchestra into your living room. The expense of speakers systems today is generally for the well to do. So why not make a system to get closer to what is real as the ideal purpose of being an audiophile in the first place. DSD is great for recording and playback.
Thank you for your thoughtful replies and topics in all your videos.
With the coloration and decrease of frequency range in consideration.... would a horn bass speaker be more efficient then a regular full range speaker for this type of scenario?
How is your loudspeaker project coming along?? An update would be appreciated. Thanks Paul.
I share the same reluctance to horns with Paul. I believe, though, that some well experienced designers, with great knowledge of their shortcomings and willing to take the long, hard way to overcome them, may still produce incredibly good horn loudspeakers. In my opinion, one of these designers is Stavros Danos of Aries Cerat audio company in Cyprus. His flagship model is, by all means, outstanding! So, no to horns as a general rule. But as in any rule, there's always some very little room, for some very exquisite exceptions.
The Symphonia could possibly be the best horn speaker out there
Actually a horn makes the acoustical impedance of the driver higher.
The coloring effect can be compensated in the crossover.
Horns are awesome if equalized / tuned right. I'm using fostex wooden horn and drivers H400/D1400. 800~7000 KHz + T925a. 7000~20000 KHz active all the way. Don't know what your on about.? Build many speakers, and nothing come close to the dynamic and life like sound from the horns. My all time favorite.! I would agree that, horn can sound harsh an fatigue sets in quickly if not tuned right. Ps a lot of eq was necessary / endless listening hours, tuning.
Chip, I'm running 3-way active (plus a sub) with horn mids and tops too, not Fostex but similar, and I totally concur with your characterization. I've never encountered such a life-like and seductive presentation of recorded music---with the best recordings, that is. And that's from 35-45 year old vintage drivers. Active linear-phase multiamping definitely lets horns perform at their best and reveals the advantages of their quickness in reproducing inner texture and holographic imaging, especially if their manufacturing tolerances are tight enough to assure very close left-right matching of their "ballistics".
@@naturalverities Awesome.! Glad to hear. I'm also running my front, with too stereo 18" isobaric subwoofer in 160L basreflex enclosure. 4 4" flared tubers tuned to 28Hz. Peace bro✌️
"And thus, the bass horn, or the folded horn, was born."
Since we are on the topic of horns. Lets cover transmission line's in the next video. I believe it's possible to create a horn that does not color the sound. We also need to understand that another purpose of horns are to direct sound across particular distances. Understanding the soundwave itself allows you to decide what length of horn or even wave guide is needed for the application.
Coloration is mainly caused from softer, weak, thin, or loose materials. When the given frequency interacts with its surroundings and begins resonating thats when acoustic coloration begins. Soft materials are used to absorb sound and hard materials are used to reflect or project the sound. The goal in transmission line's and wave guides are to be as hard, solid and smooth as possible. You are mainly wanting to focus your attention on the speaker drivers themselves and only hear the sound that they are giving off. Not the enclosure resonance for the drivers. Only if it were possible to make speaker enclosures and wave guides out of polished diamond. The hardest known rock solid substance on the planet. Then you would understand what im talking about. But the price of diamonds is the main reason it hasn't been done. Maybe some kind of glass... Cone material of a driver designed for a particular frequency response is a completely different story because thats when weight and efficiencie is involved.
Thanks Paul. Greeting.
While Bose had once a 109 db SPL. What's yours?
I dunno about Mr. Rogers, but you definitely remind me of Mr. Wizard!!!
i want to know whats the use of all the speakers used on a sound system?
Hi, thanks for exposin this theme
May I desagree a bit?
As i understand, for get a reasonable power in reproducing high frecuencies, it is necessary to use horn drivers, and also for low frecuencies, it is known that horn loaded subwoofers offer more punch. I have the idea that in the subwoofers, the cuestion may be an inertia problem. It seems to me, that the mass of the subwoofer cone, requires a lot of energy from the amplifier to accelerate and brake, so, the compression of air in a small chamber followed by a horn should work as natural suspension, making the cone to produce more pressure, instead of just gaming self inertia
That is why i replyed in the comments section. It is a very interesting issue
Thanks
Hi there Paul congratulation for your channel. I find it very useful. would you recomend me a pairs of loudspeakers? I know there's not such a thing like the best speakers. I don't know whether I am an audiophile but I'm for sure a music lover. I love classic, Jazz, Rock, almost all metal( Heavy, Thrash,Power,new,nu,ect) also some opera and of course I'm totally nuts about the blues, so is probably hard to find a pair of speakers which fullfill my expectations for such a vary tasre for music. I own an old Marantz as a preamp and one power Emotiva. As you can see I'm not rich so I'm not able to afford Mark Levimson, McIntosh( one of my favourite),or Krell but my old vintage Marantz has gave me a lot of hours of satisfation. I also own a pair of old 3way 15" National speakers which have made the job pretty well. I actually replaced the High horns and the mids speakers because the original died. So I decided was the time to boost my system so I bought a pair of JBL ES90 .They sure can handle the Emotiva Power but I got tell you the sound is not what i expected. you won't believe but I found my old National a little better . The bass is more deep. even the highs sound louder. the JBLs sound better when the mids are the subject. So i think is time to change again. I was thinking of Fluance Signature , Klipsch r625 or some Polk. what do you think?
Your information on horn speakers is 50 years out of date. It sounds like you have not heard a modern horn design like the Klipsch Palladium's. You can exaggerate and cup your hands close together all you want and talk about Thomas Edison but that is NOT how modern horns sound! If you OPEN your cupped hands wider the shouty sound GOES AWAY which is how modern horns are designed. Please try it for yourself, modern horn designs do not sound like that exaggerated closed hand demonstration you gave.
Try listening to the recently re-designed Klipsch Forte III by Klipsch's brilliant engineer Roy Delgado and get back to us with your opinion of that horn sound. I don't care if a person does or does not like the horn sound, but it's not helpful to disseminate information from 2 centuries ago and omit up-to-date 21st century technology information. Respectfully.
I have heard great sounding horns of all types. Yes the match impedance too. Most theaters use horns and sound fantastic.
The more you watch his videos, the more you realize he is not really and audio engineer. He has a team doing the dirty work, he is just the face of PS audio
Michel Linschoten Nothing wrong with that. This is how a successful business is run.
Michael Linshoten Can you please tell us just one of your competences in audio engineering so that we can take your opinion seriously?
Voice of Reason can you pin point which part of this video that is not correct in explaining how horn speakers work?
I own 4 pairs of Klipsch and JBL horn loaded speakers ,I got into a 3 day argument with a kid on audioholics who said I was a liar when I said I had to rebuild the 12" woofers in my K-Horns, the " horn loaded bass " spec meant he thought the speaker had a 12" bass horn lol
Anyhow I've never found any pair of horn loaded speakers that weren't too bright and didn't need the horn damped ,I damp all my horn systems to get away from that metal twang brightness I'm sensitive to.
K- horns have 15" woffers don't they ?
iconic thumbnail
Hi Paul, the horn is not an amplifier though it is it, being it doesn't add energy to the equation. It just stops the energy loss through efficiency right? Anyway, thanks for the vid!
I had attended a yearly "Tube Tasting" gathering for some years awhile back and in one, there was a speaker engineer who demonstrated horns. He demonstrated them by talking into them. For the same reasons, I originally did not like horns, they were too peaky and did color the sound some. However, he demonstrated one horn that was an almost perfect acoustic amplifier. I was very impressed. I still prefer the direct speaker also however. And for those who are complaining, I pretty much believe that horn technology was perfected a looong time before Klipsch formed his company... so... unless that one (the one proclaiming foul) works for Klipsch, well, this video is sufficiently educational and accurate with regards how horns work and what they do. The physics behind them can take much more time than he had here to explain, as well as the geometry of the horn shape, length, diameter of the opening, etc. etc. etc.
I ahve never heard one but I understand that they collor with the klipsh and so on but what about avant garde ????
A really nice and informative Little Video..again!
Thanks for all the Time and Efort answering all These questions.
Really enjoy watching them.
Best Regards From Germany
Thank you!
Hi Paul. Thank you for your interesting content. I know this is an old video but I wanted to ask you:
Can one via a dedicated pedal (high pass filter?) Manipulate a “normal” speaker to act like a horn speaker?
I’m interested in having my guitar amp produce a “horn” sound of my guitar.
thank you
No, but I think with DSP a horn's signature sound could be emulated. I'll bet there's someone who's done this already if you search.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio what do I look for e aptly (terminology) ? Thanks
Horn speakers have no equal for transient response. The reason is their highly effective energy-coupling into the air, which provides a very high damping factor for the driver's diaphragm.
The difficulty with horns - and the reason why some designs sound colored - is that they have very abrupt cutoff at their low frequency limit. Crossovers need to be designed so that their output is attenuated by a significant factor before cutoff is reached. That is difficult to do with passive crossovers, so as a designer I would much prefer to use horns in multi-amp applications with active crossovers.
I couldn't agree more, Marianne. I'm a DIY speaker guy and my active horn-based system is the best I've ever heard... anywhere.
@@naturalverities
It would be nice to know more about your system. Ever heard of Speakerlab? They were a Seattle-based speaker design company in Seattle back in the 70's and 80's. I own a pair of Speakerlab 7's which have an E-V T350 tweeter and a large horn midrange, and originally, a 12" and 10" set of woofers electrically and acoustically in parallel to make a 4 ohm speaker. The original woofer surrounds rotted away, so I changed over to a single 4 ohm 12" woofer and sealed the 10" opening.
They still have passive crossovers. Some day I may go active, and align the drivers. Currently the midrange driver is too far back and the frequency response is all over the map. But they still produce fabulous detail in the highs.
@@marianneoelund2940 Hi! Yes I have definitely heard of Speakerlab. I used to lust after Sevens back when I was young and broke. K's too. My light-years-best system (I also own 7 pairs of Klipsches) consists of 18" ported sub (B&C pro cinema driver), 2x 15" midbass drivers (TOA Altec clones), 2x 22" wide radial mid horns (University comp drivers), and 2x ring/slot tweeters (TOA, very like the famous JBL 2403/2405). Crossover is a Dayton DSP-408, inexpensive and very capable, including time compensation and massive parametric EQ capabilities. Super easy to use! Amp is an Onkyo AVR with 7 analog multichannel inputs/amps. Total system cost less cabinet materials and streaming source (phone/laptop) is about $600 (thanks, Craigslist!); once tweaked-in, sound quality is an epiphany, especially with classical music. DSP active multiamping is a game-changer!
Best transient response? NOPE. That goes to electrostatic loudspeakers. nearly massless driver.
They may add a slight coloration - to very little if done well, and benefit will be lower distortion
If horns cut off all the high frequencies then why do people so often accuse Klipsch of being too bright??
Loving the thumbnail
I think "amplifies" is used incorrectly in this discussion. The horn does not amplify the sound, it directs and focuses the sound so it's not attenuated and dispersed when it gets to the listener. "Amplification" implies that the sound pressure wave is somehow increased over the original wave. The total sound pressure wave is still the same with or without the horn, it's just more focused and therefore louder when it gets to the listener's ears.
Hi Mr. Rogers , Paul, what you say about Horn Speakers is 99% correct. I had over20 different huge horn speakers in my 75 years stay on earth now. Because you are a curious guy, check out my Casta B Horn Speakers from Milan Italy , colour and musicality is a factor of taste. One searches ,if money is available for one’s hobby needs, it is still difficult to come to the point when one conclude his or her taste. My kit now just moves me to nirvana. A tube Preamp 4, 6SN7 tubes, 90 watt linear Power Amp. And Casta Speakers do it for me today. Love your CD player and saving up for it now. I have learned all the good stuff to improve my music playback .Wish we lived closer to have a coffee and listen to a few tracks.
Best Regards
Johnnie
Also love Red Book quality CD digital music playback form Spotify and Tidal. Keep up the great information come Paul
I like the Mr Rogers image. You have a calm demeanor.
Thanks for the photo, Paul. I just spit my coffee out!!!
having the option to control directivity is a good thing.
maybe not every setup calls for it. my mains do have large waveguides and are very lovely.
A wave guide is much different than a horn. The former is largely an issue of perfecting dispersion, while the latter is poor man's amplification device.
Anything which resembles a horn too much doesn't create a sound I prefer.
Paul, you are not old or corney, however, you are wise, loveable, and as Mr. Rodgers was, he was wise to the imagination of children. You are wise and a master of the explanation and realization of what an audiophile is looking for. Thank you!
I agree. I have a Klipsch Palladium as well and there is that very slight horn coloration which is most apparent in its reproduction of a human voice. It's great speakers though, very clear and transparent. Great for jazz and orchestra type music.
A true master in his trade..... much respect.
I guess you think he’s an expert because he charges 100,000 dollars for an amp.
Paul, I wonder if the same applies to horn loaded tweeters. Do those become colored because of the horn too? Or maybe they tune the frequencies accordingly in the factory to compensate? Just curious...
Horns need to be designed correctly and built accurately, any errors are magnified.
if you dont need spl, then why not just get ribbons? They sound better than any horn.
Two things...
First, I think you sound much more like David Letterman than Fred Rogers!
The expression "put a sock in it" is usually used when someone wants another person to be quiet. Originally, however, it referred to literally putting a sock inside the horn of a gramophone, as there was no other way of controlling the volume.
Not my favourite PS topic but definately my favourite PS video
Love the thumbnail
The acoustic horn is not an amplifier it is an acoustic transformer that basically matches the high acoustic impeadance of the source driver to the low acoustic impeadance of free space in an a analogous way to an electrical transformer matches different electrical impeadances. Read up on Harry F. Olson and Leo Beranek.
i was one of the guys who said your Mr Rogers of audio lol. glad to see you read comments. Anyhow what is your take on dome mids? Thanks and keep up the great work.
Hi
Anyone know the name of the instrumental music at the end of Paul's videos?
Speakers are the "clay feet" of audio. Every speaker design is a compromise. You choose what's important to you whether it be price, flat frequency response, efficiency, imaging, etc. Most important is that you derive pleasure from listening to your system. I like systems that sound musical, have good imaging, and lack obvious coloration. I don't really care how the designer achieves my objectives.
This a correct comment. 100 percent true.
How to tell difference between Midrange horn vs Tweeter horn speaker?? they look same to me. the capacitor? the driver?
@@offthecuff6352 Thank U
Listen to them both and make your own decision. I would like to audition the Klipsch forte III. 99 SPL. I love very High efficient loudspeakers.
Most of the comments for this video seem to be very much in favour of horns. I really have to agree with Paul on this topic. I have never heard a horn I thought was listenable and I've heard a lot of horns in my time. They can only shout, they can't whisper. IMO The reason people like horns is that they are good at dynamics. They hear a horn and say "that's got great dynamics, I want more of that". They then chase designs with more and more dynamics that have less and less of everything else. The horn loaded speaker is a one trick pony.
Up until about a year ago, I would have agreed with you. That's when I built my speakers using Altec theater horns. When a designer is freed from the limitations of what will fit in and look good in a living room, a horn can be properly designed. Before the 1980's, just about every movie theater in the world used this technology, and sometimes the movies got very quiet. Horns can whisper, they can produce a deep and defined image and they do not have a "horn" sound if designed properly. The downside, the good ones are huge. Like any other driver, they are not full range. They are unattractive, I keep mine in the basement. Unlike Paul's requirement of 130db, I find 95db to be loud. My midrange horns (Altec 203b) will do that with 10 milliwatts. They will hit 130db, and will do it with 15 watts. A "normal" speaker of 90db sensitivity would require 10,000 watts to do the same thing. While I also dislike every commercial horn I have ever heard, Avantgarde included, this isn't due to inherent faults in horn technology.
@@johnlebeau5471 I'm glad to hear that you have built a great sounding horn. As so many people like horns there must be something good about them. Everytime I get a chance I listen but still haven't found the magic for myself.
@@johnlebeau5471 thanks... that makes sense
Thanks, Paul. The most impressive speakers I have ever heard were Altec-Lansing A7500s. A large exponential horn with back-loading, a 12" Altec woofer and an Altec compression horn driver (similar to Paul Klipsch's driver in the Klipschorns) for the highs. They were made for movie-house sound reproduction, like Cinerama. They were driven by massive Altec tube amps. Nothing had the power and majesty of those monsters. No other speaker (although better in frequency-response) could even touch them. It would be like comparing Pete Townshend and his stack of Hiwatts to a tone-deaf busker with frozen fingers. They were so efficient they could be driven by a 20 watt Bogen PA amp and rock the house! They were the PA speakers for my band (we had champagne tastes) and we filled an abandoned torpedo hanger with incredible sound from them. They don't make speakers like that anymore, alas...
Klipsch has been trying for decades to make their horns sound like domes whereas other manufactures just decided to make domes from the get go.
Horns don't amplify anything; their efficiency comes from impedance matching.: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_(acoustic)
From the same wikipedia article - "Acoustic horns are found in nature in the form of the burrows constructed by male mole crickets to amplify(!) their song..."
"This has the effect of maximizing the efficiency with which sound waves from the particular source are transferred to the air."!
“Speaking horns are known to amplify sounds because they match the acoustic impedance between sounds emitted through the horn's narrow end and the air at the wide end of the horn”
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2013.2362#d3e758
“The Horn amplifies the sound to an impressive level. Opening or closing the wood doors on the front controls loudness by blocking the horn inside.”
edisontechcenter.org/speakers.html
“A horn funnel effectively guides the motion of sound waves and thus substantially increases the sensitivity and effectiveness of sound radiations. A horn is the most natural and powerful way to amplify sound.”
www.avantgarde-acoustic.de/en/horn-technology.html
“The reason as to why a horn amplifies sound is its funnel shape. A horn is typically slim at the end and grows larger as the diameter goes towards its hollow opening. Their capability to amplify sound is actually what inspired sound engineers to manufacture horn loudspeakers. Horn loudspeakers are basically the oldest type of loudspeakers.” audiomention.com/types-of-loudspeakers/
I wish I have some of your equipment in my home theater.
The dynamics of KLIPSCH is incredible…sound is incredible! But I understand you want to push your product…
Horns don’t just amplify by concentration. They give the driver a mass of air to move.
I remember JBL founder John B Lansing saying ,,,Do horns coloring the sound???.Well that doesnt matter as long it is a nice color.
Paul, no offence, but stick to power amps and AC generators. You don’t know much about speakers.
He doesn't know a lot about them either. He is a salesman.
I'm a fan of horn loaded speakers, specifically Klipsch and in my opinion sometimes the coloration you talk about actually can improve the the overall sound of a speaker.
Been running my La Scalas on flea watts for years. The soundstage is simply magnificent.
They LOOK GOOD but I prefer the dome for sound
Lovely CEO ❤
Greetings from #Algeria 🇩🇿