Horn coloration?

[steamer]

Guess I dont have to worry about starting an us vs. them debate here because we all own horns...at least I think we do?

The question at hand is what is HORN coloration,what are the reviewers and rags talking about when they refer to horns as colored?

To this day I dont understand that perception,is it related to tone?

greg

[DrWho]

Horn coloration is that same sound you hear when someone cups their hands over their mouth to shout. Sure it makes it louder, but it also alters the timbre of the voice.

This change is mostly due to reflections throughout the horn...but there are also some horn throat distortions which have to do with non-linear pressurization of the air (due to the moving diaphragm).

Horn research has come a long way since the early days where this was a most audible and awful sound. But even though it's much less apparent, it's definetly still there. Some are more sensitive to it than others, but you will find that many here find it an allowable sacrifice for the other benefits gained (less FMD, less power compression, and greater sensitivity).

[mungkiman]

For the most part, my horns are black. []

[jdm56]

Take any driver and put a horn in front of it and it will sound different than it did without the horn. Just like the cupped hands analogy. I don't think anyone would argue with that. But that doesn't mean it can't sound better with the horn than without.

As is the usual case with loudspeakers, the success of the design has more to do with the execution than with the design itself. I've been bowled over by horns, electostatics, planar magnetics and conventional cones and domes; two-ways. three-ways and one-ways; big ones, little ones and everything in between...and so on and so on.[:|]

[sfogg]

You know the difference in sound you heard between the K400 and the 511B...........

Shawn

[3dzapper]

You know the difference in sound you heard between the K400 and the 511B...........

Shawn

If you heard AL's trachorns, you'd turn those 511s into beer cans.[]

Rick

[Daddy Dee]

That's what I hear trachorn owners say.... the 511 beats the K400.... the trachorn beats the 511.

I'd like to do some a/b comparisons so I knew what the difference sounds like.

one comment I've heard from several folks is that the trachorn doesn't have the nasal sound of the k400. I suppose Lee Clinton characterizes what one would want by saying, you don't "hear" the trachorn at all.

I listened for a couple of hours on Lee's system and it is very good with trachorns and ES crossovers.

[sfogg]

Rick,

Those would be some pretty big beer cans.

Just think how many the 805s could make......

Shawn

[Al Klappenberger]

Guys,

The Trachorn is a Bruce Edgar design. When he give seminars he actually speaks to the audience through a tractrix horn and then through an expnentical horn just like they were megaphones. The demonstration is quite dramatic as I understand. I did something similar with my wife when I made the first Trachorn prototype. I made the typical "Brrrp" sound like you would do with your lips through a trumpet into the Trachorn and then into the Klipsch k500 horn (Belle squawker) at her. Then I asked which sounded better. I actually had intended it as a joke but she quickly pointed at the Trachorn! I expected some sarcastic comment rather than a truthfull answer.

Al K.

[steamer]

Oh great,

Now I have to get some Trachorn's.

Think I will wait until someone familiar with 511's posts an a/b comparison.

I believe I read in an earlier thread that Al K.said they were very simular in sound.

Greg

[BiggerIsBetter]

But did you perform the test twice, was your wife blind, and did you have an A/B switch on your back... []

I WILL have some of those fancy things when I get around to building something Epic....after I complete the "best" heritage Klipsch speaker (short of the Khorn for now) for my speaker museum

[Al Klappenberger]

"But did you perform the test twice, was your wife blind, and did you have an A/B switch on your back..."

NO! The test was as UN-scentific as you can get! Itr wasn't even a test. It was supposed to be joke! I didn't expect here to actually take it seriously.

Al K.

[Seadog]

My 511b's are black, but some were green. Most T-35s were black, but I have a pair that are green.

So it seems that black and green are most popular horn colorations []

[BiggerIsBetter]

Sounds like a realistic and valid test to me, one that I take as valuable input. I was poking fun at those that discredit any test unless it is double blind, etc., etc.

I look forward to checking out those horns when I get around to building a new pair of speakers.

[WMcD]

On a serious note:

Horn loading introduces some very well recognized issues which have to be addressed.

The cutoff of the horn introduces some very rapid rolloffs.

Horns become directional too. This can be good or bad.

These are different from direct radiators. Hence in comparison to direct radiators they do sound different and have different problems to solve.

The detractors would have people believe there are problems with horns which can't be solved by good design. I think that is not so.

Gil

[pauln]

Maybe part of what influences people to invent this description of the 'horn sound' is the need to account for the real percieved difference the limited reflection of high frequencies from the side and back walls makes when the horns are toed in properly at 45 degrees in corners.

This is a more direct sound. Perhaps the additional reflections from direct radiators lend an ambience to the room to which folks get familiar to the point where they believe it is normal and natural. Then, hearing a properly placed horn deprives them if this artifact in the presentation and it is interpreted as a relative comparitive 'flaw'.

The extreme example would be one's Bose owning visitors thinking your Klipsch sound different, funny, too forward, just not what they are used to hearing.

An interesting test comparison might be to place horns and Bose outside in the middle of the back yard (to control for the ambient reflections) and see if Bose owners liked this sound. This would at least demonstrate the diferential dependence on the proportion of direct and reflected sound between the two approaches.

This is not meant to be a Bose bash - just using it as the extreme example of the different approach.

I prefer a more direct presentation of the music and minimal room loading, but that's me.

Pauln

[DrWho]

There is a whole school of thought and reasoning behind using the room as part of the entire sonic experience - which is why there are dipole and 360 degree dispersion speakers out there. And when you start to delve into the psychoacoustics they have an even more valid argument. I also don't care too much for that sound, but I don't completely discard the approach. It certainly is a different way to go about listening to music...and if it means more enjoyment then all the more power to them. However, I don't think most of these people are disregarding horns on the basis that they are incapable of providing their dispersion pattern needs. In fact, I don't think it'd be too hard though to create a hornloaded speaker that projects in a 360 degree pattern - though I know of no currently existing product.

I guess my point is that there really are sacrifices being made to the sound when you start introducing horns. Or another way to think about it - you are introducing other sacrifices when you don't use horns (afterall, horns were around long before direct radiators came about).

[pauln]

I have seen designs where the driver faces up into a solid exponential cone to put the sound out 360.

o o

o o

o o

o o

o o

o

============

= =

====

Bang & Olufsen has a high end system like this - it uses a computerised peice to acommodate for the placement effects

[OrsonGarnsey]

Don't know if this has been covered, but here goes:

To me, horn coloration is "live" music. Anyone who has witnessed music played live through a sound system can relate: those large speakers that project the band invariably have large horns. Why? Because only hornloaded speakers are dynamic enough to reproduce live sound.

So, do horns color music or do they accurately reflect live sound?

I say it's the latter.

[D-MAN]

When one forms a horn with their hands over their mouth, it very roughly correlates to a parabolic horn of a very short wavelength (from Everest).

Parabolic horns have an extreme amount of distortion associated with them and outside of a few specific-to-the-task applications like fog horns and some bull horns, they are not used at all for high fidelity use.

Different types of horns have different abilities to influence the direction and dispersion of soundwaves. The specific type of horn (wavelength, expansion rate, mouth shape and size) also produces differing degrees of distortions. However, a well designed horn will undeniably produce LESS distortion than ANY OTHER type of loudspeaker. Period.

Which type of horn "coloration" are you specifically referring to, and what type of horn structure? Are you talking midrange horns - I'm sure that your Daddy can buy you some TAD's that will far exceed you expectations.

I have heard horns that had NO noticable 'coloration' at all. So I find you opinion to be over generalized to the point of having no point, except to express your distaste for horns.

DM