I had a number of discussions about ribbons loading into horns and I generally do not welcome this idea. There are a few reasons why it never work properly and one of the most convincing is that in order to develop enough output from a ribbon you need to have some ribbon radiation surface that usually larger then a desirable throat size for a proposed horn rate. If one need to EQ a few DB with horn with upper ¾ of the ribbon response then it is OK. However to make a fully functional horn for a ribbon is not fruitfully thing to do.  There are many other complications with no gain, so why to bother?

What however I very much object is a need to cure limited Ribbon’s vertical dispersion with horn – why would anybody need to do it? Second is the curving of throat. The throat curving is absolutely not necessary; in fact it is even ridicules. You can curve ribbon with DC but what the purpose of a curved ribbon if it sits behind a  virtual  back chamber (chamber is always there) of a horn, the back chamber that has no geometrical dimensions but only pressure dimensions? It feels that you did not experiment with speakers yourself. I do not know who you are and what you do but I wonder – are you just talk about speakers subject or you actually practice some kind of sound and some kind of objectionable playback?

Vasyachkin wrote:

expertise = experience X intelligence a cockroach needs millions of years of evolution worth of experience to have the expertise necessary for it to be able to do find food. leonardo da vinci didn't need to experience flying in a helicopter in order to invent it. of course it is important not to overestimate your abilities but i don't think i am overestimating mine. i need very little experience to be right when others with a lifetime of experience are wrong. to answer your question no, i don't have experience horn loading ribbons and the only horn i own is the HF section of some JBL DJ speakers that i have ( 1.75" titanium tweeter ). but i do have an EE degree and i have been involved in DIY audio for about 10 years. knowledge is impossible without experience but in this day and age the experience doesn't always have to be your own. if that wasn't the case technological progress would have been impossible as every generation would have to start from scratch. i think i have more than enough second-hand experience to talk about the things i talk about.

Vasyachkin wrote:

i will give you this much - horn loading ribbons is fundamentally not as advantageous as horn loading dynamic drivers. this is because ribbon mass is already close to airload mass (in theory could even be less) and little extra efficiency can be extracted by means of an acoustical impedance transformer as the impedance is matched to begin with.

Well, in most of horn to accomplish effective EQ the virtual dynamic mass of the driver need to be co-measurable with horn’s air-mass applied to the throat surface (let call it throat’s reactance). That is why the very-very-very shallow horns might be used with ribbons (like the Water Drop tweeter) but as soon you need to EQ with horns lower frequencies then you are in troubles.

Vasyachkin wrote:

my ONLY motivation in horn-loading a ribbon is directivity control. perhaps i should have used the word waveguide instead of horn. i would not use any kind of compression ratio. the horn could be almost a constant directivity or with some mild progressive rate of expansion. again it would not be used to boost any frequencies but merely to shape directivity.

Why would you need it? BTW, I generally do not undesired the whole idea of waveguiding… I think it cames from people who practice too wrong science…

Vasyachkin wrote:

you say that extra vertical dispersion is BAD. yes it is. but that entirely depends on what you call extra ? if you have 3 inches of vertical sweet spot at first and you expand it to 3 feet then i don't call this extra. i call this just enough.

I do not call extra vertical dispersion is BAD but I was asking why do you need it. Conventional ribbons  have 30-40 degrees, even the Water Drop that insultingly tall and thin has 20 degrees. If you are at 8 feet for instance then what 3 inches of vertical sweet spot are you talking about? Do not bend the axis of your drivers and you won’t have any “3 inches of sweet spot”. BTW, the dimension of sweet spot has nothing to do with dispersion patters of a tweeter.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Vasyachkin wrote: expertise = experience X intelligence a cockroach needs millions of years of evolution worth of experience to have the expertise necessary for it to be able to do find food. leonardo da vinci didn't need to experience flying in a helicopter in order to invent it. of course it is important not to overestimate your abilities but i don't think i am overestimating mine. i need very little experience to be right when others with a lifetime of experience are wrong. to answer your question no, i don't have experience horn loading ribbons and the only horn i own is the HF section of some JBL DJ speakers that i have ( 1.75" titanium tweeter ). but i do have an EE degree and i have been involved in DIY audio for about 10 years. knowledge is impossible without experience but in this day and age the experience doesn't always have to be your own. if that wasn't the case technological progress would have been impossible as every generation would have to start from scratch. i think i have more than enough second-hand experience to talk about the things i talk about. I see, you are the guy who is in own crusade against wrong application of science and who feels that you know right scientific ways. You are certainly free to have this point of view, however I would like to remind you that this site is centered around the subjects of advanced audio and evolved music reproduction techniques and if you do not mind I would like to keep it this way. If you recognize audio as a modeling playground for your scientific superiority then you are in a very wrong field. There are very many limitations in scientific applications, as least in the way how science understood commonly, and something does suggest me that you do not have the grasp how to apply the “other rules” to your audio views. Yes, there is a very weak, completely unknown but slowly growing and exceptionally successful community of people who practice the “thin side of science” in audio but looking at what you advocate in audio as a solution I conclude that you are not one of them. (I am not one of them but the 7th Macondo channel will be designed by those rules). So, I would propose to stick to more applied audio repodaction content if you have any interest in it. <BR><BR>The Cat

Vasyachkin wrote:

waveguides as far as i can tell are designed to equalize the power response. for example if we are talking about a typical 2-way speaker with a 7" midbass and 1" tweeter then there will be a discontinuity in the power response around the crossover. because just below the crossover the woofer is quite directional and just above the crossover the tweeter is radiating in all directions.

Well, Vasyachkin,

I did not say that I do not know what waveguides are I said that I do not understand it and I said that people who pitch it in my view practice what you call “wrong science”. The wave guiding ideas have in my view absolutely no correlation with auditable experiences and explain absolutely nothing. The wave guiding is sell-serving idea for speaks theorists to think and to talk about speakers and nothing else. With my exposure to the subject I have mane a rule: as soon people begin to talk about waveguiding, power response, and management of speaker’s “energy” then I lose interest and walk away. I know what will following next  – the sonic nothingness.

Vasyachkin wrote:

when you say conventional tweeters have 30 - 40 degrees - at which frequency is that ? probably not at 20 khz. sure at some low enough frequency a ribbon in effect becomes a point source. but at higher frequencies it should become more and more directional. at around 20 khz it seems as if the response should quickly fall off as you begin to move off-axis vertically ( as you move either above or below the top or bottom of the ribbon ). i mean at some high enough frequency the ribbon should be launching a cylindrical wave front so if you're either above or below this cylinder your treble should be attenuated. and this cylinder may only be a few inches tall. obviously depending on how much treble attenuation you're willing to accept you can say it has more or less dispersion but what if i don't want to accept ANY attenuation ? what if i want to have absolutely flat response at any angle ? i believe that with my configuration that is exactly how it would work.

Well, you were pontificating about wrong application of science and suffer from the very disease that you were warning against. Why do you feel that your brain is a spectral analyzer and that you need to have 20kHz and 0dB at your “3-inch sweet spot”. Go to live consort in the very best hall and in the very best sit and run spectral analyses from there. You will have -3dB at 6-7 kHz but you am sure will not be complaining about a lack of HF. Partially (only partially) what you say about the cylindrical nature of HF coming from ribbons is true (but there are cases where it is not is true) but so what? People who want are looking for motivations to do their things; people who do not want are looking for excuses not do the things. Try to find out what you are looking. If you are willing to use ribbon, know what you would like to get as a result then there are ways to accommodate ribbon, hiding its problem and capitalizing on ribbon’s benefit. If you use nothing and have no well-defined objectives then what is the point to chew over empty recitations of rumors about technologies? I do not mean to sound rude but I see no tangible practicality in your commentaries.

drdna wrote:

I will hope to hear Vasyachkin make some comments on the problems he was encountering with the sonics that may be solved with this novel solution of waveguides.

drdna wrote:

After all some people proclaim there is no difference with different wires; clearly not true. BUT, it is a difference that is important to only some people. Is it possible Romy cannot hear the sonic problems that are solved by the waveguides?

Vasyachkin wrote:

without having a solid grasp of theory you cannot INVENT NEW technologies.

Romy the Cat wrote:

I see some kind of so called “transmission line” that is fractured from multiple labyrinths where each of section acts as different resonant chamber… then I do not want to hear about “energy releasing and the rest crap.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Romy is trying do not create problems that need to be addressed by the ideas of waveguides.

Vasyachkin wrote:

Romy the Cat wrote: Romy is trying do not create problems that need to be addressed by the ideas of waveguides. well the way not to create problems is have a giant electrostatic panel. starting from that point we create problems in an attempt to make the speaker smaller and more practical. certainly i am creating problems by curving the ribbon and loading it into a waveguide - but it is not without a reason. it allows for a smaller ribbon. if cost was no object i wouldn't do it. i would simply run a ribbon from 1 foot above floor level to about 8 feet above floor level. i hope you agree that a ribbon that is maybe 6 inches long is potentially cheaper than one that is 7 feet long. i definitely believe that line source will always outperform a point source ( and a plane source will outperform a line source ) but point source is just CHEAPER. my idea of a curved ribbon is intended as a COMPROMISE between a point and a line source which allows for a certain degree of optimization via differeing degrees of curvature as well as different shapes of waveguide.

horny wrote:

I believe Romy`s Macondos are the closest to the perfect horn loudspeaker.

horny wrote:

Mentioning line and plane sources (and dipoles) at Romy`s site is sort of forbiden.

Vasyachkin wrote:

horny wrote: I believe Romy`s Macondos are the closest to the perfect horn loudspeaker. is there a definitive description of what these Macondos are? pictures? i duno. i asked for a link already so far nobody wants to help me.

Vasyachkin wrote:

horny wrote: Mentioning line and plane sources (and dipoles) at Romy`s site is sort of forbiden. thanks for telling me. i don't care about dipoles though. i understand that they have advantages but to me that's not good enough. things should be PERFECT at least in theory. dipoles aren't perfect even in theory so i don't like them. also while i think that Linkwitz is a good designer i also believe that many of his designs are motivated not by performance goals but by desire to make use of "his own" technologies - namely active filters, linkwitz transform, and dipoles. of course Linkwitz is not the only one suffering from this syndrome. as the saying goes "to a man with only a hammer every problem looks like a nail"

Vasyachkin wrote:

things should be PERFECT at least in theory.

horny wrote:

Don`t be so lazy, it`s all laid before you: http://www.goodsoundclub.com/MacondoAcousticSystem.aspx