Convention Paper
Limitations of Single-Surface Horns for Directivity Control
AES Convention 148 · Paper 10334 · May 2020
Abstract
From the early days of cinema sound and sound reinforcement, the directivity of loudspeakers has been an important problem. Early solutions to this problem was clusters of exponential horns and multicell horns.
Multicell horns are expensive to produce, and therefore other solutions were developed, like the radial horn, the EV CE-horn, Altec’s Manta-Ray horns, and the JBL Biradial horns. These horns are what can be called single-surface horns.
However, such horns have severe restrictions on what is possible in terms of upper and lower break frequencies and acoustic loading. In fact, given the throat size, upper break frequency and coverage angles, the design is ?xed, and only the mouth size can be varied. This paper will explain why.
