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In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: Greek Anima Loudspeakers
Post Subject: Ok, let analyze it.Posted by Romy the Cat on: 5/21/2017
Martinshorn , that for feedback, as I always preach:
the bad result during audio show does not mean anything, only good results
count. You see, there are zillion reason why during the show the sound might be
horrible. The inadequacy of the people who host the room usually is the most deterministic
factor. So, in most instances a bed result is accidental and does not necessarily
reflects the design problems. A great result, if it happens take place during
the should is also might be accidental but it also always a reflection of great
capacity of the given audio element.
Anyhow, let analyze what Avaton is and let try to forecast
the sound based upon design. As I said I love the idea to match the dimensions/shape
of upper-bass horn mouth with bass module. I think this is very elegant. However,
the esthetical appeals of the concept does not address the fundamental design problem.
Let pretend that upper-bass horn goes down to 65Hz, it means that bass module
runs up there, with first order filter it much stop much sooner, let say 45-50 Hz.
My initial sentiment was that it would be so fashionable nowadays taped horn
but they did better and made bottom-firing enclosure with whatever Virtual
Mouth technology the claim. There is a problem with this. First of all there is
no way they can get 105dB sensitivity in this design with no equalization, absolutely
impossible. If they had an amp in there properly
play with amp gain, driver load and EQ then they can match the 105dB sensitivity
of the rest channels but they claim that the system is completely passive. In
some cases, if the room is very lucky, you can get some room gain and to get
mold yield from such a bass enclosure but it is very unpredictable. For sure
during the Munich show the “cold, sharp,
harsh sound” you hear was a typical underperformance of the bass channel,
and most likely the bottom end of mi-bass channel. Now is the ugliest thing of
the all: the way how Avaton is designed if you find yourself in the
situation that your room does not work for the speaker there is absolutely nothing
you can do. The mi-bass directly firing in your face will not change
own character of sound and acoustic output. The same goes to the bottom-firing passive
“horn” with no equalization.
The above is very much contradicting
to my principles how I feel the playback should be build. In my view, anything
under 200Hz should be super agile and the sonic out should be shape in accordance
to the room specific. The believe that one could take 2 passive bass horns, dump
them anywhere and to get great sound is just a foolishness in my view.
There is another aspect of
the Avaton that I do not like. The 1” driver for upper range. Most of
the 1” compression drivers are quite bad and they do not have lush and rich harmonics
compare to the larger drivers. In case of Avaton they used 1” driver with a 6dB
crossover, which is very questionable. The horns look like 500Hz it means they
can cross at let say 1000Hz. The 1” drivers like Altec 808 can work at 1K with
first order but not so great. The key of use first order is that driver can
very confidently to work good at least 2 octaves out of the crossover point.
The 808 drives are near OK for second order at 800Hz, so in my view the 1000Hz
and firs order is a bit stretch. They of cause could come up with own driver
that is better suited for the given operation but if I were in this place I
would go for a driver with a larger diaphragm and 2” exit, mounting is outside
of the horn. BTW, the larger driver might be mounted outside of the horn then
there is no problem to slide it back…
Rgs, Romy the Cat
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