Meet Joe, and his amazing DIY horn speakers

uglymusic

This may help with our thinking about DIY horns.

Or maybe not

phorize

Actually there’s a point in here. I have been looking into various designs. It’s going to be impossible to do a true horn (ie where the entire range is horn loaded) an enclosure small enough to fit in my room. There are some nice quarter wave and folded designs but it’s only really the bass that is produced by horn loading. 

I’m just being finicky really, which is not unusual, once I get an idea in my head I tend to get all purist about it. Mind you I was looking at a quarter wave horn with the seas exotic f8 driver- tempting but couldn’t push myself to spend that much for something that isn’t really all horn speakers. If I move house I’ll do a pi speakers 7 for sure-fantastic speakers and well priced. For now I may do a pi 4 which has a horn tweeter. There’s always the option of doing it with a tad compression driver if I want to be silly about it, which I do!

uglymusic

In my limited experience, this kind of speaker, with all these different components sounds as disjointed as it looks.
 

But what do I know about this one without hearing it?

I’ll be doing some Googling about the stuff you’ve mentioned. 

phorize

http://www.pispeakers.com/Products.html

Worth looking here.

phorize

IMO these are some of the best thought out diy speakers  I’ve come across. I’m DIYing to build some. Did you see what I did then?  DIYing, it’s a play on words. I’ll get my coat. 

uglymusic

That's the level of humour we like here on Chews!

Docfoster

uglymusic said:

This may help with our thinking about DIY horns.

Or maybe not

Well, Joe certainly leaves me feeling less guilty and ridiculous about the amount of time and energy I’ve spent obsessing about my home build speakers.

Tweeters on adjustable sliders to match time delay...?!
What a legend!

uglymusic

Those sliding drive units were the thing I liked about his speakers.

Go Joe !!!!!

uglymusic

phorize said:

Actually there’s a point in here. I have been looking into various designs. It’s going to be impossible to do a true horn (ie where the entire range is horn loaded) an enclosure small enough to fit in my room. There are some nice quarter wave and folded designs but it’s only really the bass that is produced by horn loading. 

I’m just being finicky really, which is not unusual, once I get an idea in my head I tend to get all purist about it. Mind you I was looking at a quarter wave horn with the seas exotic f8 driver- tempting but couldn’t push myself to spend that much for something that isn’t really all horn speakers. If I move house I’ll do a pi speakers 7 for sure-fantastic speakers and well priced. For now I may do a pi 4 which has a horn tweeter. There’s always the option of doing it with a tad compression driver if I want to be silly about it, which I do!

The 7s wouldn't work here. I don't have any suitable corners.

So you're going to be looking for a house with nice big rectangular rooms and no chimney breasts?

uglymusic

Docfoster said:

uglymusic said:

This may help with our thinking about DIY horns.

Or maybe not

Well, Joe certainly leaves me feeling less guilty and ridiculous about the amount of time and energy I’ve spent obsessing about my home build speakers.

Tweeters on adjustable sliders to match time delay...?!
What a legend!

I take pleasure in letting you work through your guilt, Ben.

And even your worst efforts have a greater WAF than Joe's. I can't see much evidence of a significant other Chez Joe.

phorize

uglymusic said:

phorize said:

Actually there’s a point in here. I have been looking into various designs. It’s going to be impossible to do a true horn (ie where the entire range is horn loaded) an enclosure small enough to fit in my room. There are some nice quarter wave and folded designs but it’s only really the bass that is produced by horn loading. 

I’m just being finicky really, which is not unusual, once I get an idea in my head I tend to get all purist about it. Mind you I was looking at a quarter wave horn with the seas exotic f8 driver- tempting but couldn’t push myself to spend that much for something that isn’t really all horn speakers. If I move house I’ll do a pi speakers 7 for sure-fantastic speakers and well priced. For now I may do a pi 4 which has a horn tweeter. There’s always the option of doing it with a tad compression driver if I want to be silly about it, which I do!

The 7s wouldn't work here. I don't have any suitable corners.

So you're going to be looking for a house with nice big rectangular rooms and no chimney breasts?

At least one with a room with a large rectangular room and a lock on the door. Won’t be moving for now so the 4s it will have to be. Quite excited about the possibility of running those with the jbl woofer and b and c tweeter and the 20 watt seca that Colin posted to me today. Mind you with gardening and what not I won’t get this done until autumn now. Wayne parham has some interesting attitudes to the use of flanking subs to deal with room reflections so I may give that a shot. He does some nice horn subs.

uglymusic

It's decades since I last had a sub in my system.

In every case, they messed up the timing and I never liked them. I'd be very interested in hearing Wayne's multiple subs to see if they solved the problem.

Without having any theoretical basis for my assertion, I believe that multi-box speakers - including Joe's - struggle to keep the music together.

cj66

I agree with your aversion to sub woofers!

They either make things blurred or too separated, no matter how much you tune them and certainly never natural sounding.

In an AV system they're fine and worth having for bowel stirring SFX.

I'd rather miss out on a few Hz than have a sub throbbing along, out of step.

uglymusic

Amen!

ian

uglymusic said:

It's decades since I last had a sub in my system.

In every case, they messed up the timing and I never liked them. I'd be very interested in hearing Wayne's multiple subs to see if they solved the problem.

Without having any theoretical basis for my assertion, I believe that multi-box speakers - including Joe's - struggle to keep the music together.

I can tell then that you have never heard the Vox Olympians.   Just occasionally one discovers that the hype is justified.

uglymusic

ian said:

uglymusic said:

It's decades since I last had a sub in my system.

In every case, they messed up the timing and I never liked them. I'd be very interested in hearing Wayne's multiple subs to see if they solved the problem.

Without having any theoretical basis for my assertion, I believe that multi-box speakers - including Joe's - struggle to keep the music together.

I can tell then that you have never heard the Vox Olympians.   Just occasionally one discovers that the hype is justified.

No, I haven't.

ian

If you ever get the chance then don’t pass it up.  They are the most realistic sounding speakers I’ve ever heard.  

uglymusic

Audio bucket list time :-)

phorize

ian said:

If you ever get the chance then don’t pass it up.  They are the most realistic sounding speakers I’ve ever heard.  

They look like a work of art, although it’s a shame they a 4 way doesn’t achieve full range. I’m sold on horns, space is my problem so I’m stuck with small inefficient monitors for now.