compression horn drivers
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From: San Francisco, CA, USA
Re: compression horn drivers (chipoweredcivic)
There are a lot of myths surrounding horns, here are a few of them.
1. Horns sound nasal: They do have a few strange natural peaks in them that will make them sound strange. Also the construction material can lead to resonance. The best horns are aluminum, others are injection molded.
2. Horns need a lot of EQ: This isn't necessarily true...any system can benefit from some EQ, but horns tend to have some high end roll off (some horns are non-existant above 16kHz). This can be corrected with an EQ, but is not necessary, especially with some of the "mini-horns" made by ID. By reducing the size of the body, they have developed greater midrange clarity and accuracy, but have limited low end response. Mini horn designs are good down to about 1.2kHz with steep x-over slopes. Larger horns get down to 800Hz. There are a few (very few) custom bodies that will touch 500Hz.
This myth began when horns first hit the scene. People were taking horns built for home audio or pa systems and were trying to put them in a car, incorrectly. Since then design and installation techniques have developed, providing "car friendly" horn designs.
These are the two biggest sound issues with horns.
There are other issues too!
1. They are EXTREMEMLY sensitive (>100dB) This means that they need little input to get a whole lot of ouput. 20W to a set of horns will tear your head off. This is good, but also bad....definitely have 3x the power to your mids, and they had better be efficient too.
2. Need special install considerations...the area available under the dash of a honda/acura is limited already, ettting horns under there is no mean feat. The puls side, many civic dashs are made for horns...very symmetric with small center consoles. Horns are also very heavy. CD1's from ID are about 6-10lbs each, while CD2 horns are around 20lbs each!!! That's a lot of mass to keep stable. Throw in the need for under dash panels and a dash pad and you have a lot of install to worry about.
3. They must be active...you pretty much need to go all active on horns, they don't like passive crossovers like conventional drivers. This can add some expense to your system.
4. THey can have narrow stage widths. This is often more of a function of your midrange driver, get them in kicks with the motors way back, and your width will improve.
Their inherent benefits:
1. They image very well out of the box.
2. They remove the crossover point from the middle of the vocals and play a wider range of frequencies then a conventional tweeter (most at least - the only thing I can think of that would touch these are a Morel Supremo.) This gives you more of the "point source" feeling that is so important.
3. Dynamics - they are extremely dynamic, and in your face....I can't really describe it.
That's about it. If you take a look at SQ organization, horns are the definite minority. At last years finals, they took the 36 highest scoring cars (maybe 2 from each class/division - I forget the format), threw installation out of the mix, and scored each car individually just on sound...I think the highest placing car with horns was around 7 or 9...the others all ran conventionals. Now one problem with horns and judging is the bias that some competitors feel that they deal with because of some people's predisposition v. horns.
Essentially you are dealing with two totally different animals here. Conventionals and horns can sound just as good, and can be just as enjoyable to listen to....WHEN SETUP PROPERLY. A mediocre conventional setup will sound good, a mediocre horn setup will sound BAD...real BAD (this is most of the reason why horns have a bad wrap).
For some more reading, I suggest you go to elitecaraudio.com - audionutz (Steve Head) wrote an article on horns, their design and benefits. Steve isn't really a horn guy from what I understand, so he may not give the total story. Also seach that forum, and the forum at carsound.com for horns....you will be reading for a while. Of the guys out there competing, Jason Winslow (winslow), Mic Wallace (mic10is), and Jason Ewing (phd12vxx - something like that) all run ID horns. Mic and Winslow are running a set of proto CD2 Mylar drivers, and Ewing runs some CD1 pro titanium drivers (I think). These guys along with Matt Borgart (the tech/horn guru at Image Dynamics) are the people to listen to. Fred Lynch (another ID employee - Image690) runs some in his Passat (the ID demo car). as well.
If you really think horns are something that you want, call Image directly and talk to matt. He will be more then happy to answer a lot of your questions for you. 800-836-3051 x106 or email him at idtech@imagedynamicsusa.com
Hope that helps....
1. Horns sound nasal: They do have a few strange natural peaks in them that will make them sound strange. Also the construction material can lead to resonance. The best horns are aluminum, others are injection molded.
2. Horns need a lot of EQ: This isn't necessarily true...any system can benefit from some EQ, but horns tend to have some high end roll off (some horns are non-existant above 16kHz). This can be corrected with an EQ, but is not necessary, especially with some of the "mini-horns" made by ID. By reducing the size of the body, they have developed greater midrange clarity and accuracy, but have limited low end response. Mini horn designs are good down to about 1.2kHz with steep x-over slopes. Larger horns get down to 800Hz. There are a few (very few) custom bodies that will touch 500Hz.
This myth began when horns first hit the scene. People were taking horns built for home audio or pa systems and were trying to put them in a car, incorrectly. Since then design and installation techniques have developed, providing "car friendly" horn designs.
These are the two biggest sound issues with horns.
There are other issues too!
1. They are EXTREMEMLY sensitive (>100dB) This means that they need little input to get a whole lot of ouput. 20W to a set of horns will tear your head off. This is good, but also bad....definitely have 3x the power to your mids, and they had better be efficient too.
2. Need special install considerations...the area available under the dash of a honda/acura is limited already, ettting horns under there is no mean feat. The puls side, many civic dashs are made for horns...very symmetric with small center consoles. Horns are also very heavy. CD1's from ID are about 6-10lbs each, while CD2 horns are around 20lbs each!!! That's a lot of mass to keep stable. Throw in the need for under dash panels and a dash pad and you have a lot of install to worry about.
3. They must be active...you pretty much need to go all active on horns, they don't like passive crossovers like conventional drivers. This can add some expense to your system.
4. THey can have narrow stage widths. This is often more of a function of your midrange driver, get them in kicks with the motors way back, and your width will improve.
Their inherent benefits:
1. They image very well out of the box.
2. They remove the crossover point from the middle of the vocals and play a wider range of frequencies then a conventional tweeter (most at least - the only thing I can think of that would touch these are a Morel Supremo.) This gives you more of the "point source" feeling that is so important.
3. Dynamics - they are extremely dynamic, and in your face....I can't really describe it.
That's about it. If you take a look at SQ organization, horns are the definite minority. At last years finals, they took the 36 highest scoring cars (maybe 2 from each class/division - I forget the format), threw installation out of the mix, and scored each car individually just on sound...I think the highest placing car with horns was around 7 or 9...the others all ran conventionals. Now one problem with horns and judging is the bias that some competitors feel that they deal with because of some people's predisposition v. horns.
Essentially you are dealing with two totally different animals here. Conventionals and horns can sound just as good, and can be just as enjoyable to listen to....WHEN SETUP PROPERLY. A mediocre conventional setup will sound good, a mediocre horn setup will sound BAD...real BAD (this is most of the reason why horns have a bad wrap).
For some more reading, I suggest you go to elitecaraudio.com - audionutz (Steve Head) wrote an article on horns, their design and benefits. Steve isn't really a horn guy from what I understand, so he may not give the total story. Also seach that forum, and the forum at carsound.com for horns....you will be reading for a while. Of the guys out there competing, Jason Winslow (winslow), Mic Wallace (mic10is), and Jason Ewing (phd12vxx - something like that) all run ID horns. Mic and Winslow are running a set of proto CD2 Mylar drivers, and Ewing runs some CD1 pro titanium drivers (I think). These guys along with Matt Borgart (the tech/horn guru at Image Dynamics) are the people to listen to. Fred Lynch (another ID employee - Image690) runs some in his Passat (the ID demo car). as well.
If you really think horns are something that you want, call Image directly and talk to matt. He will be more then happy to answer a lot of your questions for you. 800-836-3051 x106 or email him at idtech@imagedynamicsusa.com
Hope that helps....
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