# Horn speaker building



## edik (Apr 1, 2013)

Hi there,

I'm new to this site. I love woodworking. My particular interest is in designing and building speakers - partucularly horn speakers. So I would like to connect with folks who build horns - all kinds of horn speakers.


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## Airspeed (Mar 11, 2013)

I build a lot of loudspeakers, built a couple of horns but mostly ported three ways. If you want to learn or see other speaker designs you should check out the forum at Parts Express. Lots of great info there. That said I would love to see your speakers! Here's a pic of the cabinets I build.


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## MrRon (Jul 9, 2009)

Find a book by G.A.Briggs. I don't remember the title of the book. He was a speaker designer in England. You might find his book on Amazon. I designed and built a folded horn enclosure over 50 years ago using his book for guidance. I'm sure there are some newer books around that I don't know about. Horn enclosures are not used much these days. They are usually very large and heavy. Speaker technology has evolved to the point where folded horns are mostly obsolete. Back 50-60 years, we made horns with sand filled panels to keep resonance low. Some were even made with bricks and concrete. We used speakers with 20 Hz resonance. I don't even think a speaker like that is available today. They were usually around 12" to 15" diameter with heavy basket frames and huge magnets. I haven't messed with this for a long time, so I really don't know whats happening today.


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## LeeBarker (Aug 6, 2010)

That is one artistic design, edik.

If you needed to test a set, say, for instance, long term? I'd be happy to host them at my house and tell my neighbors (well, not exactly in words) all about them.

Welcome to LJ. You bring a whole new point of view to our discussions.

Kindly,

Lee


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## Ripthorn (Mar 24, 2010)

My background is acoustics from a physics standpoint, so I remember well all the equations, diagrams, etc. used, but have never gotten in to building my own. I have three little kids, so there is no way I would be able to keep them intact for very long! I'm sure you'll find a few more people around here that do that stuff.


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## ChrisK (Dec 18, 2009)

I have built several speakers using Bass Box Pro X-Over Pro and Part express. None of mine have reached 'artistic' yet, just rectangles so far, but they sound good.

http://www.ht-audio.com/pages/BassBoxPro.html

I do need to take the time Airspeed does on my next set.


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## pastahill (Apr 2, 2011)

I posted a pair of my . These are transmissionlines, a sort of horn, i think.


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## Airspeed (Mar 11, 2013)

I used BassBox a long time ago, I used another one later to build these speakers. To design the xovers I used Xoverpro. I have six pair of cabinets left, they are similar to the one above but they're all shaped a little different. I was building and selling these for a while but I stopped when I turned my shop into a temporary body shop to paint my truck. Now I need to finish or sell all the speaker cabinets I have left, they're taking up space in my shop! As for drivers, for horns or otherwise they are still being made, parts express has just about any driver you could want.


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## edik (Apr 1, 2013)

I just need to learn how to post pictures and I will post some of my projects.


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## Airspeed (Mar 11, 2013)

Edik, just clic on the "img" button, then clic "choose file" button and clic on the photo then clic "insert image". Your photo will show up as code until you post your comment.


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## LakeLover (Feb 2, 2013)

Airspeed. Nice speakers.

Can you tell me more about them. Are the sides curved? Sort of hard to see on my small laptop screen.


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## Airspeed (Mar 11, 2013)

Lakelover, yes, they're curved. I built them with an internal frame similar to how an airplane fuselage is built. The frame is interlocking and very rigid, then I bent layers of 1/4" Masonite on the frames. There's about a half gallon of glue in each pair. The front baffle is made up of two layers of 3/4" MDF. These are extremely rigid, much stiffer than a speaker made of just 3/4" MDF. The curved sides keeps the Masonite under tension which makes them even stiffer. They weight between 80 and 120 lbs each depending on the model. I used 4" ABS for the tweeter mount on the top, I then filled the edges with fiberglass filled body filler, primed, sprayed 4 coats of urethane and polished them. When they're running you can't feel any resonance in the cabinet no matter how hard they hit which is a good thing. 


































Sorry about the blurry pics but these are the only ones I could find of the frames. I posted a couple pics of another model I built so you could see the curves. I built many of these and made each pair look a little different.


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## LakeLover (Feb 2, 2013)

Thanks for the Pics and details.

Have you made a boat yet ?


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## Airspeed (Mar 11, 2013)

I've built three boats, a 16 foot ski boat, it was a deep vee hull I used a 60hp outboard. I also built two 10 pickle fork hydros, I have photos somewhere, this was pre digital. I also built a submarine from plans out of Popular Mechanics, I changed a lot of the plans to suit my design. I have super 8 film of all these somewhere, I've been procrastinating getting them converted to DVD. I may have to get it done soon.


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