GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's Audio Site

In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: Practicality of paper mache horns.

Post Subject: Chickens, Eggs and Hi-Fi TheoryPosted by Paul S on: 1/3/2016

Gargoyle, I don't know how much experience you already have with this stuff. I want to be clear that I have not played seriously with LF boosting horns since about 1973, and even at that time I was pretty much stuck on copying existing horns, including cellular horns, and re-building old theater systems, mainly because results from "random" experiments were all over the map. It seems likely that the closest thing you will get to "help" with this is to start where someone else left off, and this is why Romy has so many followers, because he has clearly documented and made freely available comprehensive plans for a successful installation. Again, I don't know how far along you are at this point, but I can promise you that if you simply dive in and start mixing and matching horns and drivers, then it will be a very long road, and depending on your living arrangements you may never get good results. Especially with the larger, turned horns, who can afford many mistakes? On the other hand, you might turn out to be someone who will be happy once a substantial effort is made, as long as the sound is big, etc. If anyone asks me these days, I usually "recommend" to piece together and play with an "acceptable" stock system for a few years, and to use that as a starting point. If someone has "already done that", then they "should" have a pretty good idea where they are at now, also what they want to change, specifically, also some ideas about how to make that happen. For me, the old Lamm ML-2 amplifiers were an amazing "short cut", so I still recommend these to anyone who wants to learn about what's possible with hi-fi. As for a big horn speaker system, this subject is very complex, and there are many posts on this site that may speak to you far better than I can. Certainly, I cannot point to my own successful horn installation, nor do any of my old leftovers relate to classic horn systems, such as Romy's.

Best regards,
Paul S

Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site