True Horn
A thing of beauty…
While the horn is in itself a thing of beauty giving unique form to our loudspeakers, it also performs a highly technical role. As you may have read elsewhere on our site, we refer to our speaker as a ‘true horn’. What exactly does this mean?
Horn loudspeakers were originally produced to maximise the output of a loudspeaker from modest, tube-powered amplifiers. Pioneered by companies such as Western Electric to provide sound for large movie theatres, horn loudspeakers were the norm from the 1930s to the 1960s, providing the fidelity and volume required in these applications.
Unlike the domestic loudspeakers of today, horn speakers used compression driver technology to maximise the output of the speaker. (Essentially, the horn captures the acoustic energy of the compression driver and couples it with the air in the horn, focusing in a specific direction to produce much higher volumes).
Compression drivers vs modern speaker drivers
So, what is the difference between a compression driver and a modern speaker driver?
Basically, they operate on a similar principle, with an electrical current moving through a coil within a magnetic field. However, unlike modern drivers, the surface area of the compression driver is much smaller and the coil assembly is on the outside of the membrane, rather than in the middle. This translates into a lower moving mass and thus into faster transient speeds with a potentially greater retrieval of detail.
Compression drivers are also able to handle greater power, giving lower levels of dynamic compression than their modern equivalents. Besides efficiently coupling the air, horns are very sensitive, so that the diaphragm needs to move much less, dramatically decreasing distortion.
The horn realises the potential of the compression driver
In order to fully liberate the potential of the compression driver, the horn must be crafted in a very accurate fashion to reflect perfectly the hyperbolic (mid) and exponential (high) curves required to couple them together.
It is vital that this be done perfectly so as not to introduce any frequency aberrations, especially in the mid-range where the ear is most sensitive to inaccuracies. At Seawave Acoustic we sculpt our horns from the highest grade white birchwood in multiple 20mm layers. This produces the ideal rigidity and dampened laminate structure, to create its beautiful sound. The horn is hand-finished and painted by master craftsmen to produce our gorgeous, iconic conformation.
Unlike other manufacturers, Seawave Acoustic’s horn speakers utilise compression drivers with an ideal horn structure that fulfils the design specifications of the originators so many years ago, thus making it a modern ‘true horn’.
