Tom Danley and Yorkville offer more...

maybe, the c'haracteristics of a deeper horn' are just refering to the way sound becomes more omni directional as the frequency decreases,  but using this slit and a lot of pressure created by the dimensions of the waveguide, the sound will perform as a 'deeper horn' and spread out a large amount more? Sounds quite wrong.
I guess that a non variable path length would just be like a straight tube, so maybe adding a few 90 degree corners creates lots of disturbance in the path taken by the wave and consequently creates a continuously varying path length. maybe this unstability in the path taken by the wave causes a higher pressure inside the wave guide, hence they said, 'such that the high frequency......'

thats not what I'm on about , just gaining the same performance of a conventional throat horn from a smaller design is not all that this thing does apparently. I was refering to  a similar effect of the spreading out/diffraction displayed by light as it passes through a slit, or water through a hose pipe when you squeeze the end.
And, a conventional throat horn would not have a variable path length, or would it, what is the meaning of a continuously variable path length?

I'm doing an experiment on fresnel diffraction at a slit next week for my course, sounds relevant, best have a look at that!

A company I work with has 12 of these cabinets, and 8 of the double-12" subs.
So far, I have not heard them out in the field, but we did listen to a few of them in the shop.
They definitely need some eq (apart from the processor settings initially on them). For the most part they come WAYYY too bright. Cutting between 4-8db (depending on taste, etc) from 6.8k> smoothes them right out. They are also slightly harsh in the mids, but a couple of db down at 600-800hz fixes them right up!  Apart from that, these are GREAT SOUNDING boxes!  They do throw VERY FAR (we walked out of the warehouse and a good 50-75 feet with lots of pressure of in-your-face clean sound!) Theres a few downgrades to using them in the field (at this time you cannot groundstack and point the bottom cabinets at a downward angle,  without "figuring out" how to), and the finish is kinda "cheesy" and looks like it will easily scuff or even break!

The double-12" subs are SIMPLY AMAZING (well, for 12" subs anyway).  The amount of pressure that comes out of these cabinets is nuts!  Groundstacked subs made a huge difference over flying 2 subs with the fullrange cabs underneath.

My boss is a distributor for these boxes, and although I don't know the numbers, they are supposedly really cheap, in comparison to other similar cabinets!  They are priced low because of some of the "weaknesses" like the painted wood, and a few other very little complaints.

These boxes are currently in Boca Raton, FL if anybody wants to demo them. Saturday we will be using 1 sub and 2 tops per side as sidefills for kc and the sunshine band. If anybody is interesting I can let you know how their engineer likes them.

ps Their processor (4-in, 8-out) is SIMPLY AMAZING for the price! Each output has 8 parametrics + low/high pass filters on each output, as well as up 50 650ms delay (in .01ms steps), full limiter, phase, and a matrix mixer to send any input to each output at whatever level you want. Each INPUT has phase, gain, delay, 8 parametrix, lp/hp, compressor, AND a 31 band graphic EQ (you can use all the eq's at once, not just parametric or just graphic)!!! Every port (input, output) can be named. Theres 30 presets to store your settings! The system has usb, serial, AND ethernet connections to the computer program, but ALL functions can be accessed from the front panel! Also, it is 1 rack space!  VTC gets these from another manufacturer (whose name I forget) but they sell CHEAP (well under $1000 for all this!) I think the manufacturer has other units, with up to 8 in, 16 out if I remember right!!!!


Edited by AshayinFLA - 22 August 2008 at 9:26am

Interesting stuff.

Possibly a bit of a basic question, but the two "holes" across each 10 inch driver - are they there to act as an acoustic low pass filter?

I've noticed quite a few line array boxes have their mid drivers partially covered up by some solid material and was wondering why this is, as opposed to just a standard metal grille....I did wonder whether it was to move the point of radiation closer to the HF in order to give more coherancy when the wavefronts combine?

Cheers,

Chris.