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Tapped horn sub for Belle’s


Vince1966

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Looking for recommendations on a good tapped horn build to augment the bottom end of the Belle’s. I have been reading a lot of forums looking for some builds others have tried. I am leaning towards the LittleMike's Anarchy design that I can tuck behind or to the sides of the belle, Would like to see if anyone has built one with a 10” or is the 6 1/2 the better way to go? Any one have a good set of plans they have used personally?

 

My space is 25x30 with flat ceiling, no treatments and am using the short wall. Currently the are 18” off the wall and 3 feet from the corners.I'm running the Belle’s with my pioneer SX 1050, I only use it for music and never above 5-6 on the volume. I have some Huge Kadair EV loaded corner horns for the loud stuff. Also wondering on a good active crossover to run them with, adding subwoofers is a new thing for me. Thanks for any advice and help.

Regards.

Vince.

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Several forum members, including @CECAA850, @rockhound, @MookieStl Have experience with the Lil’ Mike designed Reed Exodus Anarchy TH sub.  One member uses a pair on their sides to support and augment a pair of Belles.

 

I built five of the Lil’ Mike Reed Exodus Anarchy TH subs.  Four were flat packs from DIY Sound Group (I’m unable to access their site today.  Is Erich still in business?).  The fifth was built from scratch using a Tang Band neo magnet driver that was NIB on eBay and too good to pass up.   I believe I still have the plans I used on another computer.

 

Regarding whether to use a 6.5” or 10,” only a 6.5” will work with Mike’s deign for the Reed Exodus Anarchy TH sub.  Mike designed it for the Exodus Anarchy woofer, but I recall him saying the Tang Band woofer was an acceptable substitute.  If you want a larger driver, I suggest starting with a sub designed, modeled and tested for a specific 10” driver.

 

Feel free to PM me if you want to discuss this in greater detail.

 

The first photo shows the Tang Band neo driver used in the scratch built TH sub.

 

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The photo below shows the four subs built from DIY Sound Group flat packs. Each pair is powered by an iNuke 1000dsp which handles the crossover issues.

 

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The photo below shows the inside of a Reed Exodus Anarchy TH sub.  Truth be told, it’s not a photo of one of mine, although numerous similar photos of mine exist on another computer.  I do not recognize the garage or the banana peel.  Perhaps someone here will recognize this and claim credit.

 

FEFA2A61-F3CE-49CA-84D6-0F7F0EA9FD0E.thumb.jpeg.534d90884e13ed77fe01e9aa1f3d98ae.jpeg

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I am the guilty party using the Lil' Mike's on their side under my Belles. They work out great with them. My room is about half the square footage as yours so the two can easily keep up for me. I am not sure if two would be sufficient for your size room but at the listening levels you describe, they should. Where are you located? There are a handful of us here with them and most of us would audition them for you. I use an outboard amp. Small Dayton SA230. It does all I need it to do.

Plans can be found on line. Google images is where I found mine.

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I'm running a pair of DIY th spuds, great sounding sub. Problem is no exact plans available and the Tang Bang drivers are only available of order qtys of 50. The subs can be had commercially from Danley or maybe one for sale on the used market.

 

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

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Am I missing something, or doesn’t the output from the rear of the driver conflict or interfere with the front output coming down the horn?  At the very least, it would be pretty far out of synch, and would it be louder, because it still has the benefit of part of the horn?  The output from the rear side of the driver is also several feet closer to the listener than the output from the front side, so that would also make it seem louder.

 

Okay, these are total noobie questions, but I’m sure I’m not the only person who has wondered about this.

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Thanks for all the recommendations. TheDude, I have read your build for the TH Spuds. I’m leaning in that direction, but plans are hard to find.

Mookie, I like your approach, if I go your route I can veneer the subs to try and match the Belle’s, wonder how that would look?
 

DizRotus, I’m on the Alabama Gulf Coast, not a lot of Klipsch owners down here. I’m looking into the Flat packs from DIY, no luck yet.

 

I have some drivers I hope may be useable for a build, not sure what design they would work in.
Focal 6.5 woofer Audiom 6MW.  
scan speak 6.5 woofer 18w/8434g00.    
 

a Friend has some Tang Bangs he may let go of if I give him my speakerlab3’s. 
 

Im hoping Mrs. Clause brings me a new Trac Saw for the Cabinet builds, my table saw is not the best and my skills make it perform worse. 

 

 

 

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You will definitely need to run two of them so you may want to consider what amp to use when picking out drivers. I already had my SA230 so I went with two 8 ohms 6.5 drivers available from Anarchy at that time. I love those Tang Bands and have used a dozen or more in different applications but they only come in 4 ohm and that amp cannot handle driving two 4 ohm speakers at the same time (2 ohm load). Diz's inuke has no problem with the lower impedance. 

Re veneer, I have made some out of birch ply and they were stained to match the existing speakers and turned out nice. I would imagine a nice veneer job would look even better.

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6 hours ago, Islander said:

Am I missing something . . .?

 

Yes.  

 

A properly designed tapped horn maximizes the combined output from the front and rear of the driver.  I’m no theoretical expert, but it’s my understanding that tapped horns are not true horns.  Tom Danley perfected a design that has been around for some time.  A well designed tapped horn sub pairs well with horn loaded speakers.  One limitation is a very narrow range of useable output.  All speakers work best when the driver specifications are optimized for the enclosure and vice versa.  Apparently, tapped horns demand precise computer modeling.  They’re less forgiving than bass reflex or sealed subs, but when done properly, they work well with efficient Klipsch speakers.  Another advantage is a relatively small footprint compared to a true horn-loaded sub.

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4 minutes ago, DizRotus said:

 

Yes.  

 

A properly designed tapped horn maximizes the combined output from the front and rear of the driver.  I’m no theoretical expert, but it’s my understanding that tapped horns are not true horns.  Tom Danley perfected a design that has been around for some time.  A well designed tapped horn sub pairs well with horn loaded speakers.  One limitation is a very narrow range of useable output.  All speakers work best when the driver specifications are optimized for the enclosure and vice versa.  Apparently, tapped horns demand precise computer modeling.  They’re less forgiving than bass reflex or sealed subs, but when done properly, they work well with efficient Klipsch speakers.

@ClaudeJ1 has explained this several times on this forum. Some of it even made sense to me! All I know is that they sound nice together.

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6 minutes ago, DizRotus said:

I’m no theoretical expert, but it’s my understanding that tapped horns are not true horns.  Tom Danley perfected a design that has been around for some time.

 

Tapped horns, transmission line enclosures, and TQWP (tapered quarter-wave pipes) are all variations on the same theme. The back wave is separated from the front wave by the enclosure, such that it adds to the output over a small range of frequencies. But at higher frequencies it interferes.

 

Not sure who invented the tapped horn, but here are a couple of links: 

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?31499-Jensen-s-own-Transflex

http://www.cowanaudio.com/images/air_coupler.jpg

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10 hours ago, Islander said:

Am I missing something, or doesn’t the output from the rear of the driver conflict or interfere with the front output coming down the horn?  At the very least, it would be pretty far out of synch, and would it be louder, because it still has the benefit of part of the horn?  The output from the rear side of the driver is also several feet closer to the listener than the output from the front side, so that would also make it seem louder.

 

Okay, these are total noobie questions, but I’m sure I’m not the only person who has wondered about this.

 

 

 

You are 100% correct on this and this is the reason I do NOT like Tapped Horns.... Tapped Horns are more efficient but the wave from the back side of the driver exits almost immediately, while the waves from the front of the driver exit the horns mouth milliseconds later. This is 100% distortion and it cannot be time corrected because of the two separate wave fronts. An F-20 is a true Horn Sub and Can be time corrected to match  with the lower frequencies individually time delayed to match and is a much preferable solution in my opinion.

 

Roger

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22 hours ago, DizRotus said:

 Truth be told, it’s not a photo of one of mine, although numerous similar photos of mine exist on another computer.  I do not recognize the garage or the banana peel.

My photo.  That's not a banana peel, rather the rope to pull the garage door down in case the motor goes bad.  The floor has since been epoxyed.

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9 hours ago, twistedcrankcammer said:

. Tapped Horns are more efficient but the wave from the back side of the driver exits almost immediately, while the waves from the front of the driver exit the horns mouth milliseconds later.

The exact placement of the driver dictates that both waves will be in phase with each other though.

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17 hours ago, DizRotus said:

I too defer to Claude and Tom Darnley.

I used to own serial #0001 of the Danley DTS-20 sub, after I owned a pair of DTS-10's in Indy whose 22-24 foot length easily went down to 10 hz. but would rattle stuff 3 rooms away in the house. They were somewhat overkill in the range of 10-50 Hz.t I've decided TH-50's are the best compromise of "tapped horn length), which are flat to below 20 Hz. up to 70 Hz. in my room (crossed at 40 Hz.). This winter, I'll be doing final assembly on a 2nd TH-50 and my own version of a DTS-10/miniGjallarhorn for the rear of the room. The 2nd TH-50 is a DIY copy of my other one, which is protoype #3. #1 and #2 are still owned and used by Tom Danley himself, and he assured me that the prototypes measure identical to the 2 production versions I had in my loft (3 total at the time). I have 4 MTX drivers total, so I may eventually end up with 4 TH-50's, just like the IMAX Theater in Chicago has, but might be double overkill, since just one of them in my little house does flex the structure (and the people in it) quite a bit during demos. LOL.

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On 12/20/2020 at 12:26 PM, Thaddeus Smith said:

I use two Danley TH-Spud clones behind my La Scala bass bins with great results. Nice thin profile and they blend really well as part of an active 3-way XO configuration.

For those of us who had DTS-10 "Super Spuds" all these miniature subs are really quite CUTE, I must say. LOL.

 

As the horn gets longer they dig deeper, so the only limitation of their smaller size is maximum acoustic output below 40 Hz....................which is still amazing in so many ways. Yes I heard the DizRotus subs in his house and they certainly do the job.

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On 12/20/2020 at 1:25 PM, Vince1966 said:

Im hoping Mrs. Clause brings me a new Trac Saw for the Cabinet builds, my table saw is not the best and my skills make it perform worse. 

 

That would be a very cool gift indeed, especially when you can built Spuds with it. I modeled the Neo version of the Tang Band 8" driver from parts Express. It works the same as the mud magnet version, FYI.

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