# Cheap Horn Options



## Patrick Bateman (Sep 11, 2006)

A forum member had emailed me, asking about how to try horns without blowing a bunch of money.

Here's my advice:

First off, if you can afford it, buy a set of Eric's horns. They're designed for a car. The only reason I'm not running them myself is because I like to tinker and design my own stuff. Having said that, a lot of my designs look a lot like Eric's designs, because his designs are really well thought out.

But if you don't want to spend money on that, here's another option:


















The JBL Progressive Transition waveguide perform ridiculously well, and they're so cheap, anyone can afford these. You can buy them from JBL directly, but the easiest way to get them by far is to buy one of their clones. The Pyle PH612 (https://www.amazon.com/Pyle-Pro-PH612-Screw-Constant-Radiation/dp/B0013CH6SS) is a clone, and so is the Parts Express H6512 (https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-h6512-6-1-2-x-12-waveguide-1-3-8--18-tpi--270-318)

A pair of waveguides will set you back a whopping $28

Because the JBL waveguide is symmetrical, you'll need to aim them. The easiest way to do this is to stick them in your kick panels. Aim the passenger side waveguide at the driver's head, and vice versa. The JBL PT Waveguide is 12" wide and four inches deep, so it's easy to fit these in the kick panel.

If you're adventurous, you can also mount them on your dash, but in order to do that you'll have to chop them up. Basically cut them into a triangular shape so that they fit in the corners of your dash.

Something like this:




























Once you've purchased your waveguides and decided where to put them, you need to pick out a compression driver. This is fairly straightforward and has been discussed ad infinatum.

And last but not least, you have to EQ the combo to achieve flat response. This is a fundamental aspect of constant directivity waveguides and horns; they require EQ to measure flat.

Hope that helps.


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## Focused4door (Aug 15, 2015)

I spy what looks like a dome tweeter in the last picture.

Ever run a full range to try and load these low down? I would imagine in the kick panels they should load lower than the horn itself would.


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## zscarlson1 (Nov 11, 2014)

I'm selling a pair of full body ferrite horns if youd be interested in the next couple of weeks.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk


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## Patrick Bateman (Sep 11, 2006)

Focused4door said:


> I spy what looks like a dome tweeter in the last picture.
> 
> Ever run a full range to try and load these low down? I would imagine in the kick panels they should load lower than the horn itself would.


It's tricky but it can be done. The SB Acoustics 2.5" driver works nicely on horns and waveguides. There's a thread on diyaudio where XRK___ did that. (I can't recall his entire pseudonym.)

I've generally shied away from that, because horns and waveguides don't horn load the diaphragm above about 10khz. Basically the wavelengths are so short, they sail right *through* the horn/waveguide.

Due to this, you really want to drive a horn or waveguide with something that has a lot of output up high. Unless you plan on listening at very polite levels.

Basically if you put a full range like the SB25 on a waveguide, it CAN work, but then you wind up with a speaker that has an efficiency in the neighborhood of 80-84dB at 10khz. And these tiny drivers can only handle ten watts or so. So you wind up with a maximum output of around 95-100dB above 10khz, which isn't much.

There's three solutions:

1) drive the horn with a compression driver

2) drive the horn with a dome tweeter with high efficiency

3) Use an array on one axis, and a waveguide on the other : https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/mul...totype-waveguide-cbt-shading-post5474933.html


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## Tgangsta (Jan 20, 2009)

Hey Patrick do you have a pic on how we aim the waveguides vertical or horizontal then aim towards opposing heads


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## christinarnieves (Jan 29, 2020)

looks cool


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## imickey503 (Dec 16, 2015)

I have this limit where aesthetics kind of matter. Otherwise? Horns? HECK YES! 

I wonder if you can use Horns in a line array?


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