Objective: understand the design of the Martion Orgon bass horn

S

simonsig

Audiophyte
Dear Audioholics forum,

I'm looking at the of the Martion Orgon bass and I'm noticing that it is completely sealed. No openings at all.

How can a horn loaded bass be completely sealed? The designer is quoted on saying the design is based on the Klipschorn, so I'm guessing the cabinet contains some horn construction. In the Klipschorn the sound is lead from the mouth of the driver to the back and then released.

What happens if the sound is not "released" via an opening?

What is going on here? Any ideas?

Thank you,
Simon
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Kingnoob

Kingnoob

Audioholic Samurai
Unless that horn is the port itself then I don’t understand how it works ...impossible
A sealed tap horn wouldn’t work either ...
Speakers with big horns like those usually cost a fortune ....



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Last edited:
S

simonsig

Audiophyte
Unless that horn is the port itself then I don’t understand how it works ...impossible
A sealed tap horn wouldn’t work either ...
Speakers with big horns like those usually cost a fortune ....



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If by "that horn" you mean the big front loaded horn on top, then no, it is not a port for the bass cabinet.

How come a horn bass can't be sealed? For example what would happen if you took the Klipschorn bass and sealed it shut?
 
Verdinut

Verdinut

Audioholic Spartan
Dear Audioholics forum,

I'm looking at the of the Martion Orgon bass and I'm noticing that it is completely sealed. No openings at all.

How can a horn loaded bass be completely sealed? The designer is quoted on saying the design is based on the Klipschorn, so I'm guessing the cabinet contains some horn construction. In the Klipschorn the sound is lead from the mouth of the driver to the back and then released.

What happens if the sound is not "released" via an opening?

What is going on here? Any ideas?

Thank you,
Simon
The horn loaded bass uses a compression driver, so there is no woofer behind the bass horn. The diaphragm of the compression driver attached to the horn is producing the bass frequencies down to the horn cut off frequency. The large horn you see is actually the bass horn.

You could possibly obtain some additional info from the manufacturer.
 
S

simonsig

Audiophyte
The horn loaded bass uses a compression driver, so there is no woofer behind the bass horn. The diaphragm of the compression driver attached to the horn is producing the bass frequencies down to the horn cut off frequency. The large horn you see is actually the bass horn.

You could possibly obtain some additional info from the manufacturer.
The large visible horn is not the bass horn. The bass horn has an 18" driver which is mounted inside the cabinet. The bass horn is not visible.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
The large visible horn is not the bass horn. The bass horn has an 18" driver which is mounted inside the cabinet. The bass horn is not visible.
Looking thru their photos hard to see details of this particular speaker cabinet, or is it a separate unit like this?
bass-480.jpg
 
John Parks

John Parks

Audioholic Samurai
From the (not very informative) drawings, it appears to be two with a demilune top.
1611423382665.png
 
S

simonsig

Audiophyte
What in your opinion is the best bass design, to reach as far down as 20hz?
 
ski2xblack

ski2xblack

Audioholic Field Marshall
What is going on here? Any ideas?
It's a three way fully horn loaded speaker, using a corner horn for the bass module, a la Klipschhorn. It has a conventional woofer, a sealed back chamber, with the front horn loaded, where the very rear of the enclosure is an opening partly along the horn path. It must be placed into room corners (or faux corners) so that the walls complete the end part of the horn, thus increasing the effective length and size of the horn mouth, lowering it's effective frequency.

Take a look at the links lovin' posted, particularly the third one, page three, and look at the illustration on the lower right. That's a top-down view of the bass cab as it's intended to be positioned into the room corner. The narrow flattened off apex of the cab closest to the corner is open, firing into the corner.

Since it's derivative of the Klipschorn, the speaker that's been the longest in production in the history of audio, I wouldn't consider it a lunatic design. It is an odd-ball, though, where extreme sensitivity is the overriding design consideration. This is the sort of speaker that the First Watt and SET crowd would aspire to have to use with flea watt amplification. Gotta have extreme speakers to go with the weirdo amplifiers, it's like chocolate and peanut butter, and helps make OCD fun!
 
S

simonsig

Audiophyte
It's a three way fully horn loaded speaker, using a corner horn for the bass module, a la Klipschhorn. It has a conventional woofer, a sealed back chamber, with the front horn loaded, where the very rear of the enclosure is an opening partly along the horn path. It must be placed into room corners (or faux corners) so that the walls complete the end part of the horn, thus increasing the effective length and size of the horn mouth, lowering it's effective frequency.

Take a look at the links lovin' posted, particularly the third one, page three, and look at the illustration on the lower right. That's a top-down view of the bass cab as it's intended to be positioned into the room corner. The narrow flattened off apex of the cab closest to the corner is open, firing into the corner.

Since it's derivative of the Klipschorn, the speaker that's been the longest in production in the history of audio, I wouldn't consider it a lunatic design. It is an odd-ball, though, where extreme sensitivity is the overriding design consideration. This is the sort of speaker that the First Watt and SET crowd would aspire to have to use with flea watt amplification. Gotta have extreme speakers to go with the weirdo amplifiers, it's like chocolate and peanut butter, and helps make OCD fun!
Thank you for this answer, made my day. What do you mean when you say it is 'partly' along the horn path?
Again, thank you.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
What in your opinion is the best bass design, to reach as far down as 20hz?
It is not just reaching 20 Hz, but the quality of the bass also.

Sealed. Very inefficient and power hungry. The only advantage is small footprint. All downhill after that.

Ported Helmholz resonator, that is the commonest. This is an easy build and moderately efficient. Reproduction however will always be resonant to a degree. There is a narrow range of support to the driver.

Pipes, especially the TL. Larger space requirement, with more complex design and build. Advantages are a wide range of driver support. It allows for aperiodic damping, for high quality low Q bass. Roll off is second order 12 db per octave rather then fourth 24 db per octave. Efficiency is high and there is very good driver control.
My preferred design for the bass frequencies.

Horn loading. Very large, although tapped designs reduce size. Can load driver front and back. In a traditional horn the mouth has to be very large, as that determines the lowest frequencies. They are highly efficient and in theory excellent. They are not really practical under domestic conditions, unless you want to build the expansion under the floor, and have the horn mouth take up a whole end wall. This has been done! Design and build is complex.

I do not recommend the infinite baffle approach or open box designs.
 
Verdinut

Verdinut

Audioholic Spartan
The large visible horn is not the bass horn. The bass horn has an 18" driver which is mounted inside the cabinet. The bass horn is not visible.
If the enclosure is sealed, then it's not a real horn.
The large visible horn is not the bass horn. The bass horn has an 18" driver which is mounted inside the cabinet. The bass horn is not visible.
Sorry about the confusion. I hadn't read the full description of the system. By the way, it is not very well explained in the text and misleading.

The woofer enclosure is not sealed and is designed to use the adjacent walls in a corner to form the real extended horn.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
The quality of the website is pretty poor, the way they mix photos on the product page with photos of other gear. Be nice if they had 360 degree photos of this speaker....
 
Kingnoob

Kingnoob

Audioholic Samurai
The quality of the website is pretty poor, the way they mix photos on the product page with photos of other gear. Be nice if they had 360 degree photos of this speaker....
Probably one of those super expensive custom build speaker sites ...
Modern Klipch horns cost as much as some certified used cars wow !!
They must been cheaper originally

I don’t see how a sealed folded horn works but it does
Somehow I’d imagine you lose a ton of output .


Sealed subs work
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ski2xblack

ski2xblack

Audioholic Field Marshall
Thank you for this answer, made my day. What do you mean when you say it is 'partly' along the horn path?
Again, thank you.
The bass bins themselves contain only the first portion of the horn, with the walls/corners of your room forming the terminal end of the horn, thus where they interface is "partly" along the horn path.
 
ski2xblack

ski2xblack

Audioholic Field Marshall
1611449589310.png

Here's a few cutaways showing the guts, @Kingnoob. Look at the lower right image first, it's a vertically sliced in half corner horn. The triangular area is the sealed back chamber the woofer is loaded into. The woofer is oriented toward the front of the speaker, and completely concealed within the enclosure. Immediately in front of the woofer is the compression chamber and beginning of the horn. From the front of the woofer you can trace the horn path, of which you can see the expansion as you travel around the sealed triangle portion and towards the rear of the enclosure, where the actual opening of the bass bin is. At that point it helps to switch to the bottom middle image, a top-down view of the bass bin placed into a room corner. The sound exits the rear of the enclosure, the walls of the room (which could be faux corners for free standing bass bins) forming the final portion of the horn.

They may not dig the deepest (k-horn bass bins don't offer much below the mid 30's) or be the most linear, but they have super low modulation distortion and pant flappin dynamics on just a watt or two.
 
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TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
View attachment 43937
Here's a few cutaways showing the guts, @Kingnoob. Look at the lower right image first, it's a vertically sliced in half corner horn. The triangular area is the sealed back chamber the woofer is loaded into. The woofer is oriented toward the front of the speaker, and completely concealed within the enclosure. Immediately in front of the woofer is the compression chamber and beginning of the horn. From the front of the woofer you can trace the horn path, of which you can see the expansion as you travel around the sealed triangle portion and towards the rear of the enclosure, where the actual opening of the bass bin is. At that point it helps to switch to the bottom middle image, a top-down view of the bass bin placed into a room corner. The sound exits the rear of the enclosure, the walls of the room (which could be faux corners for free standing bass bins) forming the final portion of the horn.

They may not dig the deepest (k-horn bass bins don't offer much below the mid 30's) or be the most linear, but they have super low modulation distortion and pant flappin dynamics on just a watt or two.
I'm going to stick to my opinion it is a lunatic design.

A sealed enclosure needs a driver Qts, of above 0.5 and a horn below 0.5, preferably below 0.3. So a low Q driver sealed at the back will have a high F3, and a high Qts driver will not properly load the horn.

That speaker makes no sense to me at all.
 
Kingnoob

Kingnoob

Audioholic Samurai
View attachment 43937
Here's a few cutaways showing the guts, @Kingnoob. Look at the lower right image first, it's a vertically sliced in half corner horn. The triangular area is the sealed back chamber the woofer is loaded into. The woofer is oriented toward the front of the speaker, and completely concealed within the enclosure. Immediately in front of the woofer is the compression chamber and beginning of the horn. From the front of the woofer you can trace the horn path, of which you can see the expansion as you travel around the sealed triangle portion and towards the rear of the enclosure, where the actual opening of the bass bin is. At that point it helps to switch to the bottom middle image, a top-down view of the bass bin placed into a room corner. The sound exits the rear of the enclosure, the walls of the room (which could be faux corners for free standing bass bins) forming the final portion of the horn.

They may not dig the deepest (k-horn bass bins don't offer much below the mid 30's) or be the most linear, but they have super low modulation distortion and pant flappin dynamics on just a watt or two.
It’s a real shame K horns cost a small fortune they should make a lower budget version ... sounds like they are incredibly efficient!!! Using little wattage
So horn is open in back ???not sealed ?
O well I couldn’t imagine how big a room you need for them to sound well .




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