moray james Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Did Klipsch ever release a discription of this or is there an interview or article on it? Can any of the Klipsch Tech people jump in here? What are the differences and what are the similarities? If anybody knows I woul d like to hear. Best regards Moray James. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkytype Posted December 12, 2012 Share Posted December 12, 2012 Moray, There are perhaps a half dozen names for what is commonly called a "constant directivity" horn. Dozens of patents have been awarded to individuals who have purported to improve on the "prior art" surrounding loudspeaker horn directivity design. While I don't normally use Wikipedia as a source of technical info, the link offers a quick and dirty overview and history of horn design. See if you can spot the error in the horn animation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_loudspeaker Charlie Hughes' patent is well worth reading as he describes other past designs. http://www.google.com/patents/US6059069?dq=6059069&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Og_JUJXmJIrJqQHpx4CoBA&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA A true constant directivity horn requires special EQ. This Peavey Tech Note gives a good description of CD horns. http://www.peavey.com/support/technotes/soundsystems/horn_eq.cfm Currently the so-called tractrix horns have found favor among audiophiles and Klipsch even got the word "tractrix" copyrighted! If you do any research or reading, you'll quickly learn there is no one design goal that all designers will agree on that would create the "perfect horn". Controlling dispersion/directivity is an elusive goal but one worth pursuing. I think Dave's Eliptrac 400 would be (to my ears) hard to improve on. Lee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moray james Posted December 12, 2012 Author Share Posted December 12, 2012 Thanks Lee: I cannnot recall where I read it but there must have been some discussion about what Klipsch described as constant disperison. It might have been in that Speaker builder interview years ago. I will take a look at your links. Much appreciated. Best regards Moray James. Ps: re the horn animation, they are showing much more wavefront curvature than actually takes place. There is a very small amount of drag on the walls of the horn against the wave front due to friction but horns don't generate the large spherical wave fronts shown. Not sure if that was what you were looking at but it jumped out at me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arkytype Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Richard Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 I haven't heard of Kilpsch using the term "constant dispersion" but I have seen them use "controlled directivity" several times. Controlled directivity seems to refer to high frequency exponential horns where the acoustic energy is directed forward with collapsing polars giving "flat" on-axis response. Constant directivity devices give "flat" frequency response over a 10:1 to 20:1 range across it's nominal polar pattern when EQed. EQing also corrects the phase response of a CD horn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schu Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 good article www.decware.com/DCHorn_whites.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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