Well done! Looks gorgeous too. How efficient are horns? Do you run just an 80W tube amp or does it require megawatts to power cleanly? And how much does a set of those cost should someone commission you to build a set?
BTW, they remind me a lot of the Avant-Garde Acoustic line: www [dot] avantgarde-acoustic [dot] de/hornlautsprecher.php?lang=en
Cheers,
Hedwig
hello Hedwig
the efficiency of the satellite is 109db/wm. The valve amp to drive the horns has 18w, but i never listen with more than a few watts.
The basshorn has ~ 104db/wm, and is driven by a RAS 300 plate amp from Inosic, with 300Watts at 8ohms.
The difference to the Avantgardes is big. While Avantgarde uses ABS plastic for their horns, and a metal frame, my horns are entirely hand made of MDF, in a very time consuming work. Actually, it took about ten month to finish the whole system. While i use rare, vintage and carefully selected alnico horn compression drivers, Avantgarde uses modern , off the shelf, easy commercially available drivers.
Speaker building is not a pro work for me, i do it just as a hobby. I have taken orders in the past, and still do. But i discuss with each client extensively the wished configuration, and price depends on that. The price i ask is however far less than Avantgardes, and others, since the speakers are sold direct, and not through usual commercial channels, where the markup is finally as high as 500%, or even more. Just to give you a idea. For the present setup at home, 4 way full horn loaded system, i ask us$ 25.000,00.
A comparable system like Cessaro Beta does go for as much as us$ 120.000,00
Many horn speakers have a typical horn coloration, honk, and do not sound natural , specially in the midrange. My speakers are practically free of any coloration, since the LeCleach midrange horn with its spherical shape avoids distortion, the throat passage from the driver to the horn is very smooth, and the round mouth edge avoids diffraction to a high degree. Combined with the choosen compression driver, which is regarded as one of the best ever made, the result is a surprisingly natural, full bodied tone, texture and timbre of the instruments without coloration , highest dinamic contrast, exceptional wide and explosive dynamics with lowest distortion are the result, clean sound, lifelike dimensionality, stunning realism, and a perfect, holographic stereo image. What contributes to this result is also the very short signal path through the single ended valve amp, and the choice of a very simple first order crossover, with just one highest quality, german vintage oil in foil cap for the midrange and the tweeter.
Angelo
