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Tools

Tapped Horn Design Utility

I used this spreadsheet recently to design some tapped horns. Basically it helps you to calculate the parameters to be entered into the wounderful Hornresp program by David J McBean. Updated version with estimation of double folded tapped horns (as for example the mini Tangband tapped horn)

Tractrix Horn Calculator

Tractrix Horn Calculator v1.3a, 321KMB
Tractrix Horn Calculator v1.4b ⇐ Beta Version! with some new features, 372KB

Here is a (at least for me) very helpfull tool to calculate and design straight round and rectangular Tractrix horns as well as Hypex Horns. A "filter section" is currently under construction.
It's throat calculation is based on the "Show Horn" article and the tractrix formula is from the Edgar Midrange Horn article. Both articles written by Dr. Bruce Edgar for the "Speaker Builder Magazine" (articles see below).

I included some helpfull functions to easily create script files to draw the tractrix curves in AutoCAD (TM). You just have to copy a column to a test file with the extension *.scr. Then execute the so called script file in AutoCAD. Be shure to swich off "ortho" and "osnap" before. This sometimes causes strange results.

If you have problems understanding what I did or what this spreadsheet is able to do for you don't hasitate to contact me.

Plans

Eminence Tapped Horn

Plans of the Eminence tapped horn, AutoCAD 2000 format, 110KB
Plans of the Eminence tapped horn, PDF format, 70KB

It's a large 20Hz tapped horn for 15" drivers. Suitable drivers are the obsolete Eminence EPS15-500 and the current Kappalite 3015LF, DEFINIMAX 4015LF or MTX Audio T7515-04 (many others will work as well).

Alternative plans: 230m version of the Eminence tapped horn, AutoCAD 2000 format, 80KB
Alternative plans: 230m version of the Eminence tapped horn, PDF format, 170KB

It's almost the same horn with little less height: 230cm compared to 244cm. The low end extension is just a little bit compromised. Check the PDF for Hornresp parameters.

30Hz Tangband Tapped Horn

Plans of the mini Tangband tapped horn, AutoCAD 2000 format, 200KB
Plans of the mini Tangband tapped horn, PDF format, 130KB

It's a small tapped horn for a 6.5" Tangband W6-1139SC or W6-1139SG.

38Hz Tangband Tapped Horn

Plans of the mini Tangband tapped horn, PDF format, 310KB

It's my second Tapped Horn for the 6.5" Tangband W6-1139SC or W6-1139SG. It goes less deep but extends further up.

38Hz double folded Tangband Tapped Horn

Plans of the double folded mini Tangband tapped horn, PDF format, 310KB

It's my latest Tapped Horn for the 6.5" Tangband W6-1139SC or W6-1139SG. It uses the same parameters as the one above. The only difference is that it is double folded and therefore less tall.

How to design a double folded horn

Tapped Horn folding sceme, PDF format, 80KB

This is a simple way for double folding a tapped horn into a box of a quarter of it's length. Altough not a 100% precise, very quick and quite acceptable in accuracy.

Conical Midbass Horn

Plans of my new conical midbass horn, 488KB

It's a 77Hz Conical Midbass fronthorn designed for the Electrovoice EVM15L.

Tractrix Midbass Horn

Plans of my Midbass Horn v1.3a, 138KB

It's a 150Hz Tractrix Midbass fronthorn designed for the Electrovoice EVM12L. Now, the dimensions of the curved inner parts are given as well.

Tractrix Midrange Horn

Plans of my 300Hz Midrange Horn for Dynaudio D54, 22KB

This Horn is based on Dr. Bruce Edgar's Midrange Horn article. It covers 500Hz to 5KHz. It's also suitable for the JBL LE5-2 with a speaker offset of 1/4" from the baffle. Fill the gap with air pervious foam rubber (as pointed out in the article). Use my Tractrix spreadsheet to calculate the flare!

Klipsch Corner Horn

Plans of my Klipschorn Sub, 66KB

I build the Klipschorn back in '95. After some research on the net, I decided to draw my own plans for two reasons: The plans available that time were either known to be with errors or they apply non metric board thicknesses, which are not available in Germany. So I started to draw a real 3D model of the horn based on the dimensions of the original. This way, I could assure, that the measurements are correct. At least it worked out fine for me.

10" Lascala Midbass Horn

Plans of my downscaled LaScala for 10" drivers, 77KB

Based on the original LaScala, this horn is shrinked down by factor 0.67 to fit a 10". In the beginning I used them as part of my main (front) speaker. Now, since my Tractrix midbass horns are set up, I take them for the two rear channels of my surround system. Due to its small size this is more a midrange than a midbass horn.

Please Note: All Plans for non comercial use only!!

Spec Sheets

Fostex D582 2" Compression driver, PDF ⇐ thanks to Eric Minardi, 4MB
Fostex FD200 (also sold as D800 under the label of ACR) 2" Compression driver, PDF, 0.5MB

If you should have some other interesting documents, send them to me, I'll add them here!

Articles

By permission of Dr. Bruce Edgar and Audio Amateur Corporation, I'm very happy to have these valuable articles available for download. Without a doubt, they are a 'must-read' for everybody being interested in Hornloudspeaker design.

The Edgar Midrange Horn

Page 01, JPG, 226KB
Page 02, JPG, 352KB
Page 03, JPG, 302KB
Page 04, JPG, 207KB
Page 05, JPG, 255KB
Page 06, JPG, 297KB
Page 07, JPG, 280KB
Page 08, JPG, 298KB
Page 09, JPG, 291KB
Page 10, JPG, 280KB
Page 11, JPG, 324KB
Single file, all pages, PDF, 9.6MB

Reprinted, with permission, from Dr. Bruce Edgar and Speaker Builder, Issue 1, 1986, p.p. 7-17, of Speaker Builder magazine.
© Copyright 1986 by Audio Amateur Corporation. P.O. Box 876, Peterborough, NH 03458, USA. All rights reserved.

The Show Horn

Page 01, JPG, 314KB
Page 02, JPG, 281KB
Page 03, JPG, 314KB
Page 04, JPG, 235KB
Page 05, JPG, 335KB
Page 06, JPG, 140KB
Page 07, JPG, 361KB
Page 08, JPG, 373KB
Page 09, JPG, 356KB
Page 10, JPG, 404KB
Page 11, JPG, 377KB
Page 12, JPG, 310KB
Single file, all pages, PDF, 11.9MB

Reprinted, with permission, from Speaker Builder, Issue 2, 1990, p.p. 10-12, 14, 16-20, 22-23, 75, of Speaker Builder magazine.
© Copyright 1990 by Audio Amateur Corporation. P.O. Box 876, Peterborough, NH 03458, USA. All rights reserved.

The Monolith Horn

Page 1, JPG, 254KB
Page 2, JPG, 282KB
Page 3, JPG, 245KB
Page 4, JPG, 387KB
Page 5, JPG, 396KB
Page 6, JPG, 323KB
Page 7, JPG, 271KB
Single file, all pages, PDF, 6.9MB

Reprinted, with permission, from Dr. Bruce Edgar and Speaker Builder, Issue 6, 1993, p.p.12-14, 16, 18, 24-25, of Speaker Builder magazine.
© Copyright 1993 by Audio Amateur Corporation. P.O. Box 876, Peterborough, NH 03458, USA. All rights reserved.

The Edgar Interview

Edgar Interview, PDF, 330KB

An interview that "Audio Minister Plenipotentiary" Dave Glackin did with Dr. Bruce Edgar. Even though it's pretty dated it's also a must read.

What is Q?

What is Q, PDF, 36KB

An explanation by Dick Pierce from a posting of his posting on AA.

The Dinstale Horn Loudspeaker Design Articles

Three articles summarizing the development of the design theories and concluded with two systems for construction by J. Dinsdale. Reprinted from Wireless World, March 1974.

Also an interesting article to read which is being refered to very often. However, as Dr. Bruce Edgar already pointed out on AA, it's loaded with wrong headed ideas. He wrote me that he will perhaps write an critique which I will add here.

Here is the link to his posting on AA. Or read this quotation:

The first wrong assumption is the use of any old driver in a horn. He used KEF drivers which are mass loaded. If you place these drivers on a horn, you lose bandwith. Notice that he does not present any frequency response plots.
The second wrong assumption is the design of a tractrix bass horn. It's an contradiction in terms. You can't get bass out of a tractrix design.
The third wrong assumption is bad things happen at the flare cutoff so Dinsdale says to back off by 20% the flare frequency. Some software out there uses this assuption. You plug in a frequency but you end up with a horn of lower flare frequency (20% below) that is longer than you need. But even worse, the mouth size is calculated for the input frequency, not the lower value. So the end result is a lower flare rate and a longer horn than you need with a too small a mouth. I always do my own horn flare calculation.

Horn Loudspeaker Design Part 1, PDF, 881KB

Horn Loudspeaker Design Part 2, PDF, 1426KB

Horn Loudspeaker Design Part 3, PDF, 971KB