Anyone ever try horn loading a soft dome midrange?

[MikeMilliken]

I have some laying around, doing nothing.......

I got a pair of 3" ATC's that I am almost afraid to touch, man these are SMOOTH! But I also got a pair of 3" Morels that are in brand new condition that I could care less about after hearing the ATC's.

Any reason I can't build a horn to get some gain on these Morel drivers? They are pretty, have 92-93 db output as a DR, res is down around 200 as I recall, they got 3" vc's so they can take a pounding. from my rotten memory I think they have good response down to 500HZ and can easily go past 5K.

Idea's? If I can make them work well, I'd do something with those ATC's... that are at 96DB as a DR .

For some reason, I think in theory there is 7 DB's gain to be had in that frequency with the proper horn.. 113 db 1 w 1 meter would be useful

[Guest " "]

With out a phase plug, the dome would be backwards to fully make use of the dia of the dome.

Drivers are pretty cheap if you check parts express....

[MikeMilliken]

I wasn't trying to save money.... The ATC's are about 800.00 each at the moment. Am looking for quality, these are the sweetest mids you'll likely ever hear. They just need more output. I had hoped a horn might be able to do that.

[JL Sargent]

I wonder if a horn driver is that much different than a soft dome speaker really.

[MikeMilliken]

JL,

I just replaced a diaphragm in my Forte II tweeters, and I saw nothing different from any other DR soft dome internally. There was nothing impressive about it or the magnet/gap, pole piece...Heck there wasn't even anything in there to absorb reflections off the pole piece or damp the back wave. They sound fine, in spite of all this.

[Guest " "]

here's a horn driver disassembled....

the actuall horn attaches on the side of the magnet you cant see....

[Don Richard]

Generally, a stiff diaphragm is used in compression drivers. I think this may be because a more flexible diaphragm would bend and wrinkle under compression loads causing distortion.

There are some efforts to use multiple dome radiators coupled to a waveguide in line array fashion for pro sound uses. I don't know if the domes are stiff or soft in this case.

Edit: Here's test results from Zaph using a Seas coated fabric dome tweeter:

http://www.zaphaudio.com/hornconversion.html

This experiment used a waveguide with no compression. Basically, the tweeter would go lower with the waveguide attached.

[ZAKO]

Dr Edger used a 3" speaker on a earlier mid Tracktriks horn that i tested...Sounded terriable.

[boom3]

I used soft dome mids for many years while wandering in the wilderness. They are not suitable for use as horn drivers. Their mass is too high and as noted they are not stiff enough for the air loads of a horn. As direct radiators they tend to overload at anything above moderate volumes, and they have some peculiar directional properties.

I have read some glowing accounts of the ATCs but they cost as much as a pair of used Corns so I never used any.