# Monitor horns



## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

Building some 15" floor monitors. 
Anyone tried something like this
http://cgi.ebay.ca/Pair-4x10-Horn-T...ryZ47092QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Quality isn't that important. 

A source in Canada would be cool too 

thankx


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## washburned (Oct 13, 2006)

You might get better luck with piezos. These will require a X-over and, at 40 watts RMS might blow drivers pretty easy. CTS makes piezos rated at 100watts for about the same price and without the need for a X-over. Thers's a good discussion and plans here: http://www.colomar.com/Shavano/floor_monitor_concept.html


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## suttree (Aug 17, 2007)

edit* after reading the actual auction, if those are in good shape, you'll want them. horns are much nicer on the ears than piezo tweeters, and higher power, so more louder 

you will need a crossover though, that is true.


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

Paul said:


> I disagree.....the flatter response you can get out of your monitor rig, the easier it is to control feedback, and get a decent sound at strong volume levels. Poor quality will tend to equal loudspeaker boxes with a freq response curve like day 3 in the Alps in Le Tour de France.....that's tough to work with.


Yeah I realize what you are saying. A couple of things though. These are extra side washes. We a good main system and won't have to drive the monitors too hard. We play small rooms under 100 people and are miking only and organ and vocals. 

Oh and we have no money. :smile: The biggest thing is I would get the plastic horn and could replace with a better driver later. The woofers aren't that great either. But when I look at what's available most of the lower end use a 1" throat . The better ones use a 2" throat. I see very little out there other than buying a full wedge. For $30 is it not worth a try? 

Thanks Washburned I have been there already.


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

Paul said:


> Small rooms under 100 people and you need side washes????


Well ... I guess that's what I am describing. The Bass player sings backup but gets shoved into a corner because of the stage arrangement. He is pretty tight in between heavy handed drummer and the lead player. 

Right now we use 1 12" monitor for me up front. One 12" monitor for the drummer who sings lead. We have one P.A. type speaker that washes his way but the lead player stands in front of it. We replaced the 15" main bass bin speakers with better speakers so I built two floor monitors for the old speakers. 

Oh and we actually have the monitor signal split up so the drummer has his own mix and I and backup's are in the front monitors. It's that signal that the bass player is lacking. 

One new speaker will go to him directly and one will go for the organ player where it's kind of a dead zone.


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## Hamm Guitars (Jan 12, 2007)

If you are looking to make a pair of monitors on a budget, and you are using something like a 15 inch stamped frame speaker, then the piezo horn will work just fine.

Foldback monitors won't have a flat response, they are usually EQ'd to your vocal mics, and only need to fill in what you are missing from the mains (ie, they usually don't have to produce subsonics).

If your 15" driver rolls of at around 3KHz, then a piezo with a cap that rolls off below 6Khz will work pretty well. This will give you a natural 'dip' in frequency between 2.5KHz and about 5Khz, which is a hot spot in most mics. You won't be missing that frequency range, it will just be attenuated by 3db or so - which is not too much as it is not uncommon to carve out 3db or more in that range on a graph for monitor applications.

Monitors don't have to sound fantastic on their own, if they can just augment what you hear from the mains they will work. The exception is really loud monitors, which pretty much drown out the mains, and have to sound good as you can hear them out front.

If you don't have a dedicated amp, and you will not be running the monitors off its own send (i.e. you plan on connecting them in parallel with the mains), then make sure you get some L pads so you can turn the monitors down independantly of the foh. The ability to reverse the phase (ie a banan plug connection at the amp) will also come in handy, as in some cases it is benificial to have your monitors out of phase with the mains.

Q Components (www.loudspeakers.ca) is a good source for components.




shoretyus said:


> Yeah I realize what you are saying. A couple of things though. These are extra side washes. We a good main system and won't have to drive the monitors too hard. We play small rooms under 100 people and are miking only and organ and vocals.
> 
> Oh and we have no money. :smile: The biggest thing is I would get the plastic horn and could replace with a better driver later. The woofers aren't that great either. But when I look at what's available most of the lower end use a 1" throat . The better ones use a 2" throat. I see very little out there other than buying a full wedge. For $30 is it not worth a try?
> 
> Thanks Washburned I have been there already.


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

Thanks Hamm. We are using the 200w on the board to power them monitors now. We have the mains on two seperate amps With the possibility of using one side of one of the amps for monitors if there isn't enough power for the extra amps.


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## suttree (Aug 17, 2007)

Hamm Guitars said:


> If you are looking to make a pair of monitors on a budget, and you are using something like a 15 inch stamped frame speaker, then the piezo horn will work just fine.


now don't you prefer a horn, even with a stamped frame speaker? much nicer to listen to in my experience, piezos are pretty shrill, especially cheap-o ones. the horn is more money, but the OP had horns there for $20 a pop, pretty tough to beat that... rustle up some x-overs on ebay for cheap and you're off to the races..


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## Hamm Guitars (Jan 12, 2007)

I would definately prefer a real driver over a piezo, but I find that the cheap drivers sound - well pretty cheap. I like Foster horns for a small monitor, but there are allot of other brands (like MG, Sammi, etc) that make a product that looks exactly the same, but are miles apart when it comes to how they sound. Matching an unknown horn to a 15 in a monitor with an unknown crossover can be a crap shoot - you might get lucky, you might not.

Piezo's on the other hand, generally all sound pretty much alike. The 400 watt ones might sound a little better, but not drastically better. This makes them easy to work with. as you pretty much know what you are going to get. I always cross them high (~6K), as they sound really bad producing anything much lower than that. A stamp frame 15 will usually go up to 3K or so and then start rolling off, so the 6Khz high pass on the piezo crosses over nice and smooth in that situation.

So, first time building, using what you got and on a budget, I would put my money on the piezo.

If money wasn't an object, I would go another way.


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## suttree (Aug 17, 2007)

interesting. i've never been one to make my own speakers, so i don't know much about making them from componentry... i have heard "good" piezos (typical entry level peavey/traynor/yamaha/ what have you), and "bad" horns (same brands, the cheap horn-loaded stuff), and i'll take the bad horn anyday, i find the sizzle of piezos can be very distracting.. anyways i know from our chat previous that you know more about this side of things than i do, so i'll gladly second your advice.. cheers.


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## shoretyus (Jan 6, 2007)

thanks boys. Time to confer with the guy in the band with degree in acoustical engineering. He said that he would just make a crossover.
I still may go with that cheap horn just to get the plastic part.


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