Any Speakers with sub and horn only?

The most famous of these are the Altec A7/voice of the theater but they are more from the mid 50s. In the early days of Pa a lot of these combo’s were popular. EV eliminator and jbl 4520/2395 come to mind.

If you want mids from a horn it’s going to need to be huge. ‘Sub’ back then was really bass or mid-bass to be more accurate. None of those boxes played low. A modern two way box will be better in almost all ways.

mikehende wrote: I wonder though if any of those were just a regular 2 way speaker or if the woofer was a sub pushing only bass so all mids and highs were coming only from the horn which is what I seeking?

No. You have to realize that music back then didn't have any sub bass, home theater and car audio as we know it today didn't exist. I DJ'd through the '80's with some of these big fullrange speaker systems and never thought the system was lacking any lowend even though there was never any output below maybe 50hz. The better systems had large format compression drivers that crossed at around 800hz, with those it sorta sounds like all the mids and highs are coming from the horn but in reality the low frequency driver also generates a lot of mid output and that requires a driver with smooth and extended midrange response.. something a dedicated subwoofer just can't do. Up until the '80's the low/mid drivers used in pa cabs were often the same drivers that would be used in a guitar cab because that was all that was available.

Edited by Conanski - 11 December 2019 at 7:49pm

You hit the nail on the head! My purpose for looking into this now is to try to replicate or build a system which will give me as close to the sound of neighbor's system back in the mid-late 70s. I "think" that neighbor had only a large horn and a bass cab by the sound it giving out, no mid woofers. 

The multi cell vitavox horn in that link was from their 220Hz range, and were big old things. Ive had a few through my hands over the years, with an S2 on the back they would happily do 220-15,000Hz, with a bit of beaming at the top end

mikehende wrote: Thx. So nowadays is there any horn and driver combo you think would handle all mids and highs effectively please? Or would the peavey MF1-X MKII which goes from 500hz do it?

Google Unity horns, or Coentrant horns. Lots of DIY advice on those. They use multiple drivers tapped into one horn to produce a broader range whilst remaining phase coherent. I'm biased, but they have a much more 'real' sound than anything other than their Synergy horn children.

You can also get midrange performance from modern compression drivers, particularly the coaxial ones. Something like a B&C DXC464 on a VERY LARGE horn will reach 400Hz. Whether you like the sound of a compression driver that low, or you are willing to accept a horn that is well over half a meter in either direction, is up to you.

EDIT: I thought this smelled familiar:
https://forum.speakerplans.com/has-anyone-here-ever-used-only-horns-as-tops_topic100719.html

You asked the same kind of question a couple years back. Did you follow on from any of that? Ignoring the passive aggressive tone at the start of the thread, which I can appreciate may have turned you off, there's some good suggestions in there. If you're not talking about PA / event applications then please be clear.

Edited by toastyghost - 11 December 2019 at 9:32pm