Is it possible to cover the whole spectrum, high SPL, low distortion with a 2-way?

If the horn or waveguide is the bottleneck in terms of bandwidth how much sense do the modern coaxial drivers make in this case ?

Regards

Charles
The extended LF magnitude response should also push the resonance in the same region lower in frequency. This might enable the use of shallower high pass slopes or lower corner frequency, or just allow for a higher distortion-limited max SPL.

As ever though, it's traded off against something else.
 
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I think the new Klipsch flagship, the 75 anniversary Jubilee is a two-way system with a AXI 2050 in a K402 horn crossed around 300Hz!
The DSP crossover frequency is listed as 340 Hz in the 2-way Heritage Jubillee "preliminary specs", the single 12" horn loaded, bass reflex ported low frequency section also pushed to the limits of it's usable bandwidth.
 
I think that 1 decade is a bit conservative for waveguides. With a good design it is possible to extend this by an octave (and sometimes nearly two.) Surely in days past a decade was the norm.

I should have been more careful to say why i think a decade or so is the limit for best SQ.
Because it's nothing to do with horns or waveguides....i'm not really qualified to assess those ..and quickly defer to you and other horn experts.

My opinion is forming with regards to piston drivers...cones or CDs .....be they direct radiating, or in horns/waveguides.
I think it's the piston drivers themselves that get marginal past a decade or so.
Planars, ESLs, are the exception i think.
 
I am not sure that I follow the "bottle neck" issue. Nor what this has to do with coax drivers.

To me waveguides are ideal in that they can control the directivity down to a frequency where directivity is less of an issue for imaging. This can then be mated with a woofer of the same directivity at the Xover (remembering that the direct radiator will have a falling DI with lower f. thus extending the CD down below Xover.) and then that down to multiple subs. Where is the "bottle neck"?
 
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My opinion is forming with regards to piston drivers...cones or CDs .....be they direct radiating, or in horns/waveguides.

Now I agree completely. A two way DR speaker system, 50-10kHz is going to be pretty bad. No way that I can see to get that to work.

What makes a horn/driver system more effective than DRs is the fact that the diaphragm is better loaded, i.e. sees a higher impedance mainly through the compression potion of the system. This increases the natural Efficiency-bandwidth-product limitations imposed upon all radiating sources. Better power transfer occurs because of better impedance matching at the mechano-acoustic interface.
 
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I am not sure that I follow the "bottle neck" issue. Nor what this has to do with coax drivers.

Earl

I fear that my question wasn't too clear. What I wanted to know was whether those really wideband coaxial compression drivers like the ones from BMS and B&C really make sense when it is not advisible to use a horn or waveguide over much more than a decade wide frequency range.

Regards

Charles
 
The DSP crossover frequency is listed as 340 Hz in the 2-way Heritage Jubillee "preliminary specs", the single 12" horn loaded, bass reflex ported low frequency section also pushed to the limits of it's usable bandwidth.
It’s been a while since I looked at that product, but I seem to remember reading that they’re using FIR processing & very high order filter slopes to achieve that.

I also remember not being clear whether they were talking about the acoustical crossover or the electronic filter point.

There’s a curious coincidence between that crossover frequency, and the onset of very high latency for FIR filtering below that point.

I can’t tell for sure but the ported LF rear chamber seems to go into the horn, rather than to the outside world. render of the LF section, with helpful arrows so we know where the sound goes 😅
50DF8A60-9952-4566-B436-8ACD0A825342.jpeg


the central section is covered with a solid piece, no vents.
 
Earl

I fear that my question wasn't too clear. What I wanted to know was whether those really wideband coaxial compression drivers like the ones from BMS and B&C really make sense when it is not advisible to use a horn or waveguide over much more than a decade wide frequency range.

Regards

Charles
Hi Charles, like said earlier, i don't think horns or waveguides are what limits to much over a decade.
I think the limiting factor is the transducers. And transducer limitations is why are coaxial CD's....to spit the 4-5 octave bandwidth of a single CD into two pieces. We all know the tug of war between getting a single CD to go lower and still keep its VHF.

On my current synergy which uses two 10" low-mids, four 4" mids, and either a BMS or B&C coaxial CD, I can run it with or without the 4" mids.
The 10" reach up to 500-600Hz, and the CD's down to 500Hz. Or i can insert the 4" mids to handle bandwidth anywhere in the 250Hz to 1100Hz range.
It works just fine either way, from an on-ax and off-ax measurement perspective.
Both ways sound very good too....but inserting the mids simply adds a remarkable layer of clarity. Same horn....

That's the basis of my opinion about a decade per driver section..
I know that's not alot of evidence.....
And maybe I'm searching for bias confirmation, but watching stuff like the B&C vid about transducers useful range adds to "what i'm thinking"
(One of my other 'beliefs' is what is good for high SPL is also good for lower distortion, unclipped, uncompressed normal listening...)

Oh, and just for fun...totally unrelated...check out this crazy sub-driver experiment from B&C's Bennett Prescott
 
Hi Mark

Did I get it right - your 4" mids offer more clarity than the midrange driver of the BMS ? Or did I misread something ? I am just wondering what gives more signal quality in a four way power hifi application: The use of a coax compression driver or the use of a 1" driver on a small horn/waveguide combined with small direct ratiating mid-highs (4" to 6").

Regards

Charles
 
Hi Mark

Did I get it right - your 4" mids offer more clarity than the midrange driver of the BMS ? Or did I misread something ? I am just wondering what gives more signal quality in a four way power hifi application: The use of a coax compression driver or the use of a 1" driver on a small horn/waveguide combined with small direct ratiating mid-highs (4" to 6").

Regards

Charles
Yes, you got it right. The 4" mids add clarity vs using the BMS CD without them (or B&C)
I don't use the CD's below 750Hz anymore.

Comparing CD alone vs using mids with various xover points:
at anything below 750Hz, using mids is a clear winner,
at 900 Hz it seems like a breakeven,
and by 1100 Hz (max the mids reach to) the CD wins.

Here's the raw on-ax responses using the BMS that i have to work with:
The traces will be obvious to you, but for clarity to all...
Blue: two 10pr320" low-mids
Green: four 4ndf34 mids
Red: bms 4594 he HF section
Orange: bms VHF section
syn10 raw set 1-3 oct.JPG
 
Mark, isn't it clarity (also) due to added 'weight' or 'body' to the midrange?
In most music the (low) midrange contains quite a bit of low frequency spectral content, this is especially noticeable with acoustic instruments.
Those 4" mids only operate in their optimum range, and there's 4 of them, thus minimizing artefacts.
 
Mark, isn't it clarity (also) due to added 'weight' or 'body' to the midrange?
In most music the (low) midrange contains quite a bit of low frequency spectral content, this is especially noticeable with acoustic instruments.
Those 4" mids only operate in their optimum range, and there's 4 of them, thus minimizing artefacts.
Hi Roland, I'm not sure what you mean by added weight or body.......

I guess my thinking is that I'm operating the speaker well within its fully linear range, in any configuration.
Tonality doesn't seen to vary between configs....and it shouldn't I think, since all configs have the same mag and phase traces.
Clarity, and its associated properties like timbre, transient detail, etc, are mainly what varies.....
(By configs I mean with or without the mids, along with trying various xover points.)

I could have used only two of the 4" mids, given these boxes are definitely for home use, but I wanted four to try to make a ring around the CD and help with off-axis polars. Also wanted to be able to take them as low as possible for experimentation.
They only cover about an octave and a half....and you're so right, talk about some loafing drivers.

In a way that's my whole strategy with a 4-way main for > 100Hz duty.....keep every section loafing throughout its entire operating range.
Iow, if IMD matters, I want none of it from having a driver try to reach too low, when pulling significant duty higher up.
Back to keep it under a decade i guess... (that said I'm getting awfully fond of 2 octaves per section)
 
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