Synergy style horns

[NBPk402]

all pics are fun

LOL... Hopefully we will make some good progress this weekend, and have lots of pics.

[NBPk402]

First page now has pics of our speaker progress. Next weekend we will work on getting the angles to cut the top, and bottom of the horn. Once this is completed we will be making a flared horn extension to the front of the horn. This will extend the horn to 46-48" in width, and 32-32" tall. Last will be installing the speaker hookups, and wiring the speakers in place. Once I get these bad boys home I need to figure out what height they sound best at and make/buy something to mount them on.

[bmoney]

First page now has pics of our speaker progress. Next weekend we will work on getting the angles to cut the top, and bottom of the horn. Once this is completed we will be making a flared horn extension to the front of the horn. This will extend the horn to 46-48" in width, and 32-32" tall. Last will be installing the speaker hookups, and wiring the speakers in place. Once I get these bad boys home I need to figure out what height they sound best at and make/buy something to mount them on.

AWESOME JOB!...see i couldn't visualize it at all....now!  man thats a huge speaker...gonna be awesome!

[NBPk402]

I can't wait to get it finished so I can get it tuned as my center channel! Then we will try and make 2 more. Cash is the issue right now. I have the front 3 channels to sell and a ELK M1 gold alarm/home automation setup to sell (that I never got installed). If I can sell either one it will pay for the rest of the front channels to be built.

[NBPk402]

When we make the next set... I am thinking an easier way would be to make the horn pieces about 1/2" larger and then route a groove into the cabinet top and bottom If we do it this way I think it will be stronger, and seal even better. Then we could do the upper and lower pieces of the horns with out having to worry about the angle of cut. Another advantage is that we wouldn't have to keep realigning the panels when we glue and nail.

[NBPk402]

Well I just sold my PS3...more cash toward MDF for 2 more speakers!

Hopefully I can sell the horns and Bass Bins fast as that will pay for the rest of the wood, and woofers needed.

[NBPk402]

Well we have a little setback on the speaker building project. It appears our ports are off by about 1/8", and will be blocked by that amount by the top and bottom horn boards. I need to see if we can come up with a way around this problem.

I have a couple of ideas but I am not sure which way is best. One is to notch the top and bottom boards to clear, and the other is to use a 1/4" board instead of a 3/4" board and then angle cut it. Once it is angle cut, we would than cut another 3/4" board the same size, and angle cut it so we would end up with what appears to be a 1" thick (which it would be) board, but it would (in theory) lower the board by 1/2" vs the original 3/4" thick board. This might work, but it might not as the ports are very close to the horn area and there is not much room for the thinner board, and angles to make a difference. In addition to this we also have the holidays coming up so progress might be halted until after the holidays. I will continue to update the build as we make progress.

[NBPk402]

What we decided to do was use 1/2" MDF for the top and bottom sections of the horn shape. The part that we were dreading is finally completed. Making 2 pieces for the horn took 6 hours...the angles were not easy to figure out even with a digital angle reader. We made small pieces to get started, and then eventuall got a piece that was just about perfect. Once we got that far we duplicated it for 3 more pieces. Now we have an extra set of top and bottom horn pieces for templates for the 2nd speaker. Here are to pictures of what we completed. I still need to use some filler for the horn transition, and for the seams.

What do you usually use for a transition? Bondo, wood putty?

Synergy style horns

Synergy style horns

[NBPk402]

Today we got it to the point that we only need the following:
1: fill holes with wood putty
2: mount speaker wire jacks, and wire speakers up
3: sand speaker cabinet
4: install weatherstripping for sealing cabinet

Hopefully next time we will be to fire it up to see how the compression driver sounds, and then also how the woofers sound. At that time it might be ready to take home, and set up the crossover...for some real serious listening.

[NBPk402]

Sorry for the delay in posting pics of the one speaker we have completed. My theater is currently being torn down due to our moving . I will post up some pics of  the speaker, and testing results hopefully before I get the room completely torn down. Currently I am waiting for the new amp to be completed.

[NBPk402]

The synergy speaker has taken a bit of a turn... I am going the route of using a Klipsch k402 horn, and making it into a synergy horn. Today my k402 arrived. The original synergy we were building was going off of estimates of a k402 horn. Now I can make it closer, and still be out of wood. Another thing is I will be able to compare this horn with the klipsch driver, and the EV driver before synergy conversion. I haven't decided if I will cutry up the Klipsch or just use it for my measurements yet. I am thinking that one made out of wood could sound even better than the fiberglass horn.

[AVSMike]

I looked on line and see that several people have used this horn to make a synergy horn. I have always thought that speaker looked interesting, being point source. You can always apply damping material to the fiberglass horn.

[NBPk402]

I looked on line and see that several people have used this horn to make a synergy horn. I have always thought that speaker looked interesting, being point source. You can always apply damping material to the fiberglass horn.

I am going to try and use it as a model to make a horn out of MDF, and then make the mdf one a synergy horn. Once that is done...if it sounds better than the Klipsch horn, I will then have to decide if I want to cut the factory horn to make a synergy horn or just make 7 more out of MDF.

[NBPk402]

Today we listened to the k402 horn in its new cabinet with the EV DH1a driver, and it sounded great. We compared it to a smaller EV horn with the same driver with both horns being crossed over at 500hz to LA Scala bass bins. The k402 horn sound much fuller on the bottom end than the smaller EV horn driver combo. The EV horn sounds excellent, but the k402 horn takes it up another level. I want to say it sounded even better than the JBL 2360a horn did with the same driver, but that is going by how the JBL sounded in my room, and tune a few months ago. We used the same settings for the MiniDSP that we used on my JBLs,  and on the smaller EV horns.

My friend, and I now know why people make the really big horns! BIGGER HORNS SOUND EVEN BETTER! Next we will be tuning the DIY Synergy horn we made, and see how it does compared to the K402, and the EV horn.

I am hoping it sounds better than the EV/LA Scala bass bin combo...if it does I fully expect the Klipsch 402 wood version to sound even better than the K402/LA Scala bass bin combo does. I will post up how the first Synergy compares hopefully in the next week.

[NBPk402]

Today I listened to the v1 all mdf that we built...I was very surprised as to the bass output, but something didn't sound right.the horn sounded like there were veils to be removed. My friend and I listed to various songs, and sometimes it sounded great, and at other we heard resonances. On one song we heard things that we have never heard before on that track. The song was Luka by Suzanne Vega.What we both heard was best described as her smacking her lips when she speaks. Has anyone else ever heard this(we did not hear it on the other channel with LA Scala bass bins, and EV horns with EV DH1a drivers)?

When it came to the bass it appeared to go much deeper than the La Scalas setup and having a much warmer sound compared to the La Scalas.

My friend is going to run REW on it again to see he can see what might be causing it to have this effect. We are thinking part of it might be we need to turn the gain down on the woofers as there are 2 compared to the La Scalas 1.

Conclusion so far is when it does something right it is really right, but at other times it needs something...