Horn Theory Made Simple

The very use of the words simple and horn in the same sentences is an oximoron, not that horns do not have simple basic principles unpon which they are based, but that there is nothing about horns that is simple really.  The very fact that some argue over how horns work is a testimony to this fact.  Some say horns are broadband resonators, and others argue that they merely couple the driver to the room in a better fashion, and still others feel they are merely wave guides.  It has been my experience that they all of these things The type of horn you have will determine how it handles sound, a tractrix horn like the one above does not resonate like say a exponential horn, it is more of a coupling devise, and less of a broadband resonantor.  Tractrix horns were based on a thought an ancient philosipher had while watching something being dragged on the ground by a rope.  If you take a stick and tie one end of it to a rope, and start off with the stick and rope at right angles to each other, and start pulling the rope, if they were lying in sand you would notice the trail would have a curve to it that would start at right angles to each other and end on the same line.   This is a tractrix curve, hence the name tractrix, the root word being tract, like a tract left in sand.  Other types of horns are conical, and hyperbolic.

Then there is all the small things that effect horns greatly, not the least of which is resonances.  Resonances on many different levels, material resonances, rear chamber resonances, compression chamber resonances, diaphragm resonances, and the list goes on and on what can resonate effecting and horns performance. Unfortunately many have made horns with great compromises, and horns have thus been labeled as being inferior to other types of  loudspeaker enclosers because of appearant colorations.  These colorations unfortuantely were because of poor designs, using poor quality materials, not horns themselves.  Likewise many have not known how to use horns in many applications.  It is our goal to help clear some of these things up.

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Above, is the basic idea of a bass horn plan.  Bass horns typically are hyperbolic curves, and quite large to obtain the lowest of frequencies.