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Round Tractrix


Guest David H

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  • 2 weeks later...

The listening test on the Eliptrac 400 horns has begun. I cut the frames down to fit my Belles just in case I decided to actually install them. UPS busted the sides off of both of them in shipping, so I had to do some hacking anyhow! Initially, I am only using the low frequency half of the B&C DCX50 drivers to listen to just the horns as a mid-range. I am still working on the LR24-9000 crossovers to move to the full coaxial configuration. Right now the ES5800 networks are running Beyma CP25 tweeters.

Al K.

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A while back I took the folks to see a Grammy Award winner in a jazz quartet (un-amplified) in a 3,500 seat hall.

I couldn't even hear the bass player most of the time.

My mother thought it was too loud.

Some people just don't like music.

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Al, I built a room so my wife could stick me in there and she could walk around the house without fingers in her ears. BTW have a look at these horns.

http://www.azurahorn.com/index.html

He is 10 minutes from where I live. I bought the 425hz, added an adaptor then hooked up the K55X...result was a much more believable tone and texture as well as hearing more from other instruments. In general terms things seemed more natural and less strained than the std 401 and a tractrix I had built...go figure?

Cheers

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What I meant to say was this, plain and simply, TUBES are it....straight up....it took me awhile to adjust....but it is it, with HORNS, I now realize. I now get the concept of bloow and lush. I hate the metallic taste left in my mouth... I just bougth my QuickSilver Full Preamp. I am soon to buy my Quicksilver Horn Mono Amps, to soften to make horns do it detailed and delicious.


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After a day or two of listening to all my recordings that I know well and that I consider well recorded, I have to say that the results are not what I expected. I am used to the JBL 2426h drivers on 1-inch Bruce Edgar type wood tractrix horns in my Belles. These are the original Martinelli Trachorn 400 prototypes. I expected the elliptic tractrix 2-inch horns to sound better. The fact is, I can't hear any difference! The Elliptic tractrix sounds fabulous and so do the 1-inch Edgar type horns! I think this has simply not been a fair test. The Elliptic 2-inch horn and B&C DCX50 driver is intended for the 400 Hz crossover of the Khorn, not the 500 Hz crossover possible for the Belle or LaScala. I have always said that 2-inch horns are for movie theater volume levels. Even the levels considered high for home stereo use are not high enough to cause significant distortion in the throat of a 1-inch horn. The JBL 2626 driver simply will not go down to 400 Hz. Distortion rises quickly below 500 Hz. This is the fault of the driver, not the horn. The only 1-inch driver I know of in current production that will go down to 400 Hz without distortion is the stock K55 (Atlas PD-5vh). I made the move from the K55 to a better driver, the JBL, years ago. There was definitely an improvement there. To make the same driver upgrade, a Khorn owner needs to move to a driver like the B&C DCM50 or DCX50 which was designed for a 400 Hz crossover. The 2-inch horn simply comes along for the ride! This test only compared the two horns and drivers in mid-range (squawker) service between 500 and 5800 Hz. Instrument tests showed that the off axis high frequency response of a 2-inch Edgar type horn was degraded when used with the DCX50 coaxial for a full range top end. The elliptic horn was much better off axis. This is the next thing I plan to listen to. I expect to get the last parts I need to finish building up the 9 KHz crossover properly this week. This will let me use the internal coaxial tweeter of the DCX50 driver rather then the ES5800 network and Beyma CP25 combination I have been using. Operating full range with the tweeter time aligned to the mid-range is where the Elliptic Tractrix should show it's worth. I expect to move future comments about that test to the other thread, "A time-aligned top end - Part II".

Al K.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's the polar plots on the Eliptrac 400 horn using the B&C DCX50 driver. It's the same horn as in the picture of it sitting on top my Belle Klipsch. With thanks to Lee Clinton.

I am no expert on this sort of thing, but I think this is typical of using a big horn to go wide range. It's going to beam the highs. I suppose I just like 3-way systems! The dispersion is very smooth at 8000 Hz and not too bad at 12K. I don't think there is much doubt it will make a super mid-range horn with a separate tweeter.

Al K.

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