# New to Horns, any advice appreciated



## torontooddysey (Feb 5, 2011)

I've always been interested in horns but I've never had them in an install. I know that they don't work with every car/dash so I'm hoping someone can take a look at my interior and give me some feedback. 

I'm also looking for suggestions on some 8" mids to match up with the horns well. They'll be going in my doors, but there is a lot of room in there for some deep drivers. 6.5" Component sets are just not cutting it for me, so I'd definitely like to try 8's/horns. 

If anyone has horns/mids for sale offer up as well. Thanks in advance for any feedback. 


The application is a 2005 Honda Odyssey Van


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## minbari (Mar 3, 2011)

check out the HLCD section of this forum. lots of info in there.

that looks like it would work very well. nice flat horizontal line for the horn to mount to. the hardest part of mounting the horns is if you have a fresh air fan motor in the way on the passenger side and on yours, looks like the e-brake might get in the way.


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## torontooddysey (Feb 5, 2011)

Thanks, I knew there was a section on here dedicated to horns just couldn't find it. the ebrake is way down there so I think I can still make it work.


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## Eric Stevens (Dec 29, 2007)

It looks like if you can get the compression drivers into the plastic KP covers you could go around parking brake. Other than that looks like it would work very well. If you can't find a used set contact me I am still selling the horns I developed that launched ID.

There are several 8" that can work well from the Silver Flute from Madisound as the best budget minded to the 18Sound or B&C 8 inch woofers at the higher priced level.

Eric Stevens


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## minbari (Mar 3, 2011)

its hard to tell from that pic, it was the only thing that jumped out at me, since you need to push those horns to the edge as much as you can in most cases.

this is the first car I have hard horns in, and I am sold, lol. very dynamic and take nearly no power to get loud.


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## Pimpnyou204 (Jul 13, 2011)

I just got rid of my ultras I loved the dynamics and clarity of them however I couldn't get the passenger side to fit right. Mounting is the hardest part IMO as it creates the stage. I do have my 8" midbass I used for sale B&C.. Message if interested.


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## thehatedguy (May 4, 2007)

Moving the the HLCD section...


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## torontooddysey (Feb 5, 2011)

Now that I look at the underside of my dash I'm seeing a few obstacles.. mainly the parking brake. Does anyone have some dimensions? Need to know what depth I would require


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## Horsemanwill (Jun 1, 2008)

take some pics of the underside of the dash.


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## fenis (Apr 12, 2008)

From Eric in another thread:



> Dimensions are:
> Full size horns are 23.5 wide with the mounting flanges and can be trimmed to as small as 12.00" if necessary and the mouth opening is 15". the height at the mouth 2.75" and the depth is just under 9.0"
> 
> MH horns are 23.5 wide with the mouting flanges and can be trimmed to just under 10" and the mouth opening is 10" wide. Height at the mouth is 2.25" and the depth is under 5"
> ...


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## MARLEYMARL (Aug 11, 2012)

How does the Beyma 8MI100 8" midrange speaker compare to the 18sound, B&C, or Silver flute 8" midrange speakers when used with HLCD speakers? Which 8" midrange speaker would be the best match for a set of the $499 111db 100w ultra horns? 
The HLCD drivers are 100w @ 8ohms, the 8" drivers are around 250w @ 8ohms. Using 4ohm Rockford Fosgate amps, how strong would the amps have to be if I wanted 50X2 to the HLCDs and 250WX2 into the 8" midrange drivers? Last does this represent a proper balance of power to the HLCD/midranges?


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## minbari (Mar 3, 2011)

You will always be turning the horns down. Even 50 Watts into a 111DB horn is so loud you won't be able to stand it.

Even super efficient mid with 98DB will be more than 10DB down. That means more than 500 Watts to catch up for each mid. 

Best to find a good efficient mid that you like, then match up gains till it sounds good

Sent from my motorola electrify using digital farts


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## thehatedguy (May 4, 2007)

Personally I wouldn't do the MI series for anything other than shear loudness. But if you are into Beyma, I would look at the 8G40...comes in 4 ohm too.


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## Eric Stevens (Dec 29, 2007)

MARLEYMARL said:


> How does the Beyma 8MI100 8" midrange speaker compare to the 18sound, B&C, or Silver flute 8" midrange speakers when used with HLCD speakers? Which 8" midrange speaker would be the best match for a set of the $499 111db 100w ultra horns?
> The HLCD drivers are 100w @ 8ohms, the 8" drivers are around 250w @ 8ohms. Using 4ohm Rockford Fosgate amps, how strong would the amps have to be if I wanted 50X2 to the HLCDs and 250WX2 into the 8" midrange drivers? Last does this represent a proper balance of power to the HLCD/midranges?


That Beyma only has +/- 1 mm of voice coil overhang so it wont handle a lot of power below 125 HZ.

You want a driver with more excursion. The silver Flute is the value leader and represents the best cost versus performance driver I have seen lately. B&C or 18 sound will be able to ultimately play a little louder with improved resolution and lower distortion.

I would go for the Beyma 8P300Fe in 4 ohm if you like the Beyma stuff it is made in 4 ohm but only available in 8 on usspeaker. 

The BC 8NDL51 is one of my favorites

Your power distribution will work well. For 250 watts @ 8 ohms it would need to be 375 @ 4 ohms approximately. 


Eric


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## thehatedguy (May 4, 2007)

When you said midrange...I was thinking pure midrange as in a 3 way front stage. I wouldn't use the 8MIs for anything but.


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## mfenske (Feb 7, 2006)

I've got a set of IDQ-8DVC's that were pretty popular with horns back in the day if you're still looking for mids.


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## Patrick Bateman (Sep 11, 2006)

minbari said:


> You will always be turning the horns down. Even 50 Watts into a 111DB horn is so loud you won't be able to stand it.
> 
> Even super efficient mid with 98DB will be more than 10DB down. That means more than 500 Watts to catch up for each mid.
> 
> ...




















here's a crazy idea that turned out pretty well.

Bear with me, because this post might not make sense.

In the pic above, I've posted a Paraline device that uses a couple of compression drivers.

You guys might look at this and wonder to yourself "why on earth would someone use *two* compression drivers?" Compression drivers have an efficiency in the neighborhood of 110dB; using two of them is just nuts. It's overkill right?

*Well, not necessarily. At it's heart, a compression driver is simply a tweeter. And like all tweeters, it's low end is limited by excursion.*

So your compression driver may have an efficiency of 110dB, but it might not be able to handle more than a fraction of a watt at 500hz.










Basically, the original reason that I built Paralines was to get a unique directivity pattern. But the more i worked with them, I realized they have another benefit:

*Surprising low crossover points.*

For instance, the Dayton D250P needs to be crossed over around 900hz or higher. *But two of them in a Paraline are good to about 675hz, maybe even 500hz.*

I know that doesn't sound like a big jump; it's only half an octave. But it's right there in the midrange, where anything you can do to avoid a crossover point makes a huge difference.

Here's a technical explanation for why/how this works:

Assuming you have sufficient power and voice coil, nearly all speakers are limited by excursion. This is the whole reason you can't cross your tweeters over at 1khz. In a Paraline, we have two compression drivers feeding the same horn.

Here's the tricky part:

In a Paraline, we manipulate the directivity so that they DON'T interfere with each other above a certain frequency. But the DO interfere with each other BELOW a certain frequency.

For instance, in the Paraline pictured above, they DON'T interfere with each other above 1700hz, but they DO interfere with each other BELOW 1700hz. So basically below 1700hz the two drivers complement each other, and you get this gradual 'bump' in output, about six decibels worth.

*This allows for a much lower xover point.*


















You can see this in some measurements. In the red trace in the measurement above (the first one) you'll see the compression driver drops like a rock below 1khz. In my graph, see how there's a lot more output below 1khz? *That's because the drivers are starting to reinforce each other.*


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## minbari (Mar 3, 2011)

I love stuff like this! I have no idea how to design them though, lol.

do you save any space over a traditional horn?


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## Patrick Bateman (Sep 11, 2006)

minbari said:


> I love stuff like this! I have no idea how to design them though, lol.
> 
> do you save any space over a traditional horn?


Yeah, I think you probably could save some space.
Basically there are two things that a horn or waveguide can do:

1) increase on-axis SPL... basically make the driver LOUDER, albeit on only one axis
and
2) narrow the directivity. Basically take a driver and constrain it's radiation so that the energy only goes in one direction

A horn or waveguide performs both of these functions; but not necessarily over the same bandwidth. For instance, a horn that's 15" wide will control directivity down to 900hz, but it might increase on-axis SPL down to 300hz.

So if you have a horn that has a cutoff of 300hz, it might control directivity for four octaves, but increase SPL for five to six octaves.

With a dual driver Paraline, you might reduce the depth dramatically, so that the horn barely 'loads' the driver at all. So basically, the horn is providing barely any gain at the low end.

Obviously, this might seem a little counter-intuitive. *Why bother with a horn that only covers an octave or two?*

But the reason to do this is simple; you're basically using the horns directivity on the high end to set the coverage pattern, and on the low end you're using the 'brute force' approach of multiple drivers to get the efficiency up.


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