How come Horn + woofer designs are not more popular?

I’m not being facetious guys. I am trying to learn here. Way back I had Heresys and I loved them. In 1970 we did not have much for power. With a Dynaco Stereo 120 these things would rock. No deep bass but then nobody knew about sub woofers. They were three way. So let’s assume we are using a 12" woofer infinite baffle and cross at 1000 Hz to a horn, what does it take to make a horn go from 1 to 20K with reasonably even dispersion and not sound like a goose honking. Duke’s Speaker has multiple other drivers including three tweeters firing out back along with whatever is in the LCS box. It is anything but a two way hybrid horn speaker which to me means one horn and one woofer. I have never heard Duke’s speaker and I am making absolutely no comment on their performance.

@mijostyn Thermal distortion caused by instantaneous voice coil heating is why horns tend to be more dynamic than regular box speakers- horns are really the only way to keep up with ESLs in this regard.

Regarding your question above- cross the horn at 500Hz and you have no worries with the woofer doing everything below that. Duke’s speakers are usually two way designs; the other drivers you see in the online photos are the late ceiling splash drivers. So concentrating only on the two-way aspect, Duke has often used a wave guide horn that looks a bit like a trumpet mouth giving even forward dispersion in both vertical and horizontal planes. I don’t know where Duke crosses his speakers over but I do know he spends most of his time sorting out the crossover to deal with the peculiarities of the drivers themselves- this is the thing at which he excels.


At any rate, modern horns are pretty well sorted and have been for at least the last 20 years. The real trick lately has been getting the driver to interface properly to the horn- so throat designs have improved simply through computer optimization, and after only about 60 years driver manufacturers sorted out that if they had a better surround than just the material of the diaphragm itself, that they could get wider bandwidth and less breakups. Its these latter two things that have caused modern horns to be as smooth as any other loudspeaker technology.

@mijostyn --

Phusis, all that is nice but relative to what? We are not trying to blow up the Empire State Building.

I believe you missed my point. It’s not about loudness per se, but for loud to be effortlessly loud when needed, emulating to a certain degree a live performance here, and for the overall listening experience at levels relatively "normal" to gain from sufficient headroom as well; headroom defined as a requirement not only necessary, but "sufficient" re-defined as that which raises the bar to an at least ~15dB headroom requirement - not easily attainable when you need, say, 105dB’s peak with low to moderately sensitive speakers. This level of headroom may seem crazy to many, unnecessary indeed, and plant associations relating to structurally unsound, ludicrous-level (nice Tesla-coined term) playback that you’re clearly getting at, but I hope you know by now what I’m trying to say.

If you like pea watt amplifiers then you need all the efficiency you can get but in real life you can get all the volume and dynamics you need with dynamic drivers and good powerful amps.

You could certainly get along much more easily or fittingly with "pea watt" (2-5 watts, I take it) amps such as SET’s with very high sensitivity speakers, a rather obvious pairing, but going by my own usage I’m not necessarily an advocate of such with a 30 watts pure Class-A solid state amp for 105dB sensitivity main speakers. Very low powered amps do have their merits for sure. I can tell you this though: I’d much rather have 105dB sensitivity speakers with a real-life 30 watts Class-A amp than an 85dB ditto paired to a 3 kilowatts amp..

I am a linear array ESL fan and I guarantee you will never get as realistic a presentation out of a horn system all that rubbish aside.

"Fan" being the operative word. Granted, I just like horns.

That is why Howard Johnson made 28 flavors. But, too bad we could not hear each other's systems.

Hi folks I supplied some long term user information regarding horns. What about some others, not just opinions - ?

The Audiokinesis Jazz Modules were are good example of a well done two way horn. I owned one for several years before going over to ESLs. Given the chance I'd own them again but they are no longer made due to the TAD 1102 drivers being unobtanium. I was just in Long Beach for the audio show and Duke displayed his new Gina satellite speakers (using custom Emminence drivers made for him) which were demoed with his Swarm. A very nice set up using the round wave guide the Jazz Modules featured in a two way stand mount design.