Two-way speaker system, WAY horn-loaded

My two cents:
The woofer looks like a good value, and could be used with hornloading.
But... IMO, the only kind of bass loading worth doing is the extreme kind, where you supplement the falling response at the low end, rather than just add to the rising response portion... Forget the scoops and A7 clones, and the Tannoy GRF-R is okay but still too small.

In my view, if space and other considerations rule out the giant solution, go with a 5-6 cu ft box, the best woofer you can afford, and the waveguide solution above it. In other words, save money and time on the cabinet construction (over a horn cabinet), put it into something like Lambda TD-15Ms (about twice the price of the Daytons, and worth every penny), and you'll still have tremendous bass, with 98+db efficiency! I'm talking from experience on this one. A very sturdy box is key.

^This.

I pretty well steer away from hornloaded bass altogether unless it's something like tapped horn subbass. For the most part, as soon as you hit 40-50hz in most rooms, there is little horn loading going on, anyway. I don't see any real advantage at that point to take up massive amounts of space for minimal gain. I'd follow Rick's recipe and add some distributed bass. I have no problem with 3 10" woofers getting that last octave out of my system with the TD15Ms falling off around 35-40hz.
 
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I’ll agree with Rick and Dave – real horn-loaded bass with any kind of extension is just not domestically do-able unless you have a huge room where you can live with a couple refrigerator (literally) sized bass bins, take advantage of corners and/or roll some kind of built-in horns. And even if you go to those extremes, you’d still have to deal with the bandwidth limited nature of horns and have to build large horns to get from the upper bass to where a ‘waveguide’ or some such can take over. Fully horn loaded just isn’t practical IMO.

Compromises must be made and I like the ones mentioned above where a very high-quality/highly efficient woofer is mated to a good horn with a carefully designed passive crossover incorporating horn compensation – this might be do-able with an active but I haven’t heard it done better than a good passive yet.

I personally like the Tannoy/Altec 604 approach even more, where you get the great imaging and regular-size room friendly nature of a point-source driver combined with the high-efficiency horn dynamics and wide-band performance of a 2-way. I find you have to get pretty far away from conventional horn above woofer layouts to get anywhere near the same imaging you get with these driver layouts.

I also think actively crossed & EQ’d sub-systems absolutely have their place below 40-50Hz as Dave mentioned - fast slopes, big SS power, distributed bass modules and room tailored EQ can do wonders for getting the bass just right – without having to compromise what you can do from 50Hz on up in the high-efficiency world.

This has become my favorite audio formula for regular sized rooms – high-efficiency point-source drivers behind SET amps that run full-range and almost get there except for the lowest octave – then throw in SS power, an active crossover/EQ and multiple woofers to fill in the bottom.
 
My advice is a 15" that is efficient and performs well across a wide range. TD-15M is great. Put it in a 5-6 ft box. Put a 1.4" compression driver on top. Experiment with crossover point, 600 to 1600, whatever within the range of the waveguide and driver.

Lots of subjective variation on that.
 
I think I am typical here. We marvel at the projects many create and secretly wish we could do the same. For me the biggest barrier is time and money is a consideration in that this project, for me , represents an experiment.

I am happy with what I have but just sitting on my system is boring : I want to try new equipment. Spending $300-$500 per woofer on something that is primarily entertainment (not it's use / but keeping me entertained doing it) is a healthy chunk of change for something that may become a dead end.

I thought that the Dayton driver was cheap enough as well as close enough specs-wise to get me into this ballpark of speaker (again : my interest in it was spurned by my first foray into pro drivers / pro sound : and really liking what I heard).

So let me ask for advice from a different angle.

1) If I build a scoop using the Dayton as well as a Zilch-inspired waveguide will the Dayton behave like most of the pro drivers used for that purpose (ie : is it a decent enough replacement for experimental use if I'm trying to see what that "scoop" sound is like? )

2) I'm getting that horn loading in a common consumer application is not really worth the size of the cabinet required. So : if I don't like the "scoop" sound is the Dayton a candidate to do a "poor man's" model 19 with?

3) People's reaction to active crossovers is interesting : the OB guys seem to swear by it : here it seems people swear at it ! ;) I want to continue to design and build .......... It makes sense to me to go active so I can use it for design, at least, and maybe go passive once things are "decided" (and then save component money in future designs)

Completely different question : In following this thread it seems that some of the peoples thought's at the outset and the roads they traveled in their journey would not be the same roads chosen for another go-around. It seems that some enthusiasts for the big "loaded" designs have changed their mind over time : why is that ?

Lastly : does anyone here have experience with OB's ? Right now I do want to try to try something new and am wondering if anyone here would recommend OB instead of what I am proposing.

Thank you for your time and opinions.
 
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Experimenting is great, but I thought you were asking for a winning path to a high-efficiency fullrange speaker. What I was describing above is a two-way speaker system with a reasonable footprint that absolutely stomps pretty much every commercial offering short of $20k. It may be an experiment, but it may lead you to toss out whatever you have now if you like effortless dynamics.

2) I'm getting that horn loading in a common consumer application is not really worth the size of the cabinet required.

You have to distinguish between hornloading FULL RANGE vs a compression driver + guide that can cover from 800 (or lower) UP. With beryllium diaphragms and the right guide you can go as low as 400hz (!!!), so that DEFINITELY qualifies as a horn system.

3) People's reaction to active crossovers is interesting : the OB guys seem to swear by it : here it seems people swear at it ! ;) I want to continue to design and build .......... It makes sense to me to go active so I can use it for design, at least, and maybe go passive once things are "decided" (and then save component money in future designs)

Active crossovers are wonderful, if you don't mind the complexity, the additional amps etc. It makes a huge difference, but ... it's a lot of additional hardware.

Completely different question : In following this thread it seems that some of the peoples thought's at the outset and the roads they traveled in their journey would not be the same roads chosen for another go-around. It seems that some enthusiasts for the big "loaded" designs have changed their mind over time : why is that ?

Huge loaded systems like the one I started this thread with are as much fun as ever. Most systems sound constipated by comparison. I just wanted to point out that if you want a very successful fullrange two-way that is 98+db/1w/1meter, you can do it without a true hornloaded bass, and it can still deliver great solid bass, but with 5-6 cu ft (rather than the 30 cu ft of the backloaded horns).

I happened to get lucky and was able to buy the Jensen design cabinets for less than it would cost to build them, then discovered what they can do. I love them, but my living room is much too small for them. Alternatives are needed!
 
Experimenting is great, but I thought you were asking for a winning path to a high-efficiency fullrange speaker. What I was describing above is a two-way speaker system with a reasonable footprint that absolutely stomps pretty much every commercial offering short of $20k. It may be an experiment, but it may lead you to toss out whatever you have now if you like effortless dynamics.

I get what you are saying now. It does answer my question. Using the Daytons as the basis of a two way system experiment saves me $500 on LF drivers alone...... if I like what I hear then I can either keep them or see it as reason to go to $300-$500 a piece LF drivers / likewise with the upper : I plan to implement the seleniums Zilch used in the econowave..... if I see room for improvement, I can upgrade ...... at the end of the day my experiment should give me either some answers as to where I need to go or it , may in fact, give me a solution for $500-$600 all in versus $2k-2.5k for something I've never heard (unfortunately "like minded" enthusiasts are pretty rare where I live : so hearing anything like this before I begin is pretty remote) ....

Thanks for all of the suggestions.

Inasfar as xover is concerned ....... I want to continue to build speakers and like the idea of active..... so I can create xovers without buying components that will not end up being used ...... and for this build I know a passive will need to have some correction in it (like Zilch's model 19 xover) and I am heading down a path for which I have no data ....... I think dialing in the values will be easier with a Behringer
 
Using the Daytons as the basis of a two way system experiment saves me $500 on LF drivers alone...... if I like what I hear then I can either keep them or see it as reason to go to $300-$500 a piece LF drivers / likewise with the upper : I plan to implement the seleniums Zilch used in the econowave..... if I see room for improvement, I can upgrade ...... at the end of the day my experiment should give me either some answers as to where I need to go or it , may in fact, give me a solution for $500-$600 all in versus $2k-2.5k for something I've never heard (unfortunately "like minded" enthusiasts are pretty rare where I live : so hearing anything like this before I begin is pretty remote) ...

Much more rational than I ever was, so I think you're doing GREAT. Very easy to swap out 15" drivers later if you want. Also easy to swap out compression drivers later if you want. Even wave guides are easily changed out.

Conclusion: Build a very stout 5-6 cu ft box, and you won't regret it, because you can't swap that out easily later. Make the vents easily variable using standard tubes, and you won't regret it.

I guess I sorta went the long way... I had a pair of JBL 3677 4-cu-ft boxes, and used JBL 2226 with 1" compression drivers (B&C DE250 with various guides, including econowave, and also martinelli horns). Later I put 2" drivers (borrowed Great Plains, bought some JBL 2441s) with various guides, also tried Edgarhorns, and finally yuichi wood horns. Later I got TAD 1601 drivers and TAD 4001 compression drivers with yuichi horns and decent boxes that I modified... That's getting seriously good! Then I bi-amped with active tube crossover and SE 845 amps-- outrageously great! Also put AE TD-15M's in the same boxes, so I know what they can do... Experimenting is great, but I might have saved some time and money with a straighter line... but maybe had less fun? Here you can see the history in photos:

http://tubino.smugmug.com/Audio/Ricks-DIY-Speakers
 
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Have any of you had any experience with the Electro-Voice Regency back loaded horn. I Built one several years ago using plans I obtained on Terry Gesualdo's TRXB website, and using an EV SP15 it easily keeps up with one of my Speakerlab Ks on the low end. I managed to score the factory grill on epay. I need to build another one but I need to get myself motivated first as it wasn't a simple project. JOHN
 

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