Horn type

Back-loaded horn

How it connects

The rear face of the diaphragm feeds the throat through a throat chamber. The horn’s mouth and the front of the cone are two separate outputs.

Because they are two outputs, they add with their phase. Where they arrive in step, the horn reinforces the bass; where they arrive out of step, they cancel.

When to use it

Good for

• Full-range and wide-band drivers that need help in the bass.
• Designs where the direct radiator carries the midrange and the horn only has to cover the bottom octaves.

Watch for

• The two outputs can cancel just above the horn’s working band. Check Horn Radiating Outputs, not only the total SPL.
• There is no sealed rear chamber in this type: the throat chamber is the only chamber.

What you set

Set the enclosure type to Horn, then choose Back-loaded under Horn type, in the enclosure panel or in the Horn Editor’s path bar. These controls then appear in the horn card:

The rear-of-driver marker is fixed at the throat. Drag the arrows and the dividers between spans to reshape the path, or click a value to type it. How the Horn Editor works.

What the horn length does

Only the horn length changes. The shortest horn adds little below 150 Hz, and each longer horn carries the output lower. Its peaks and dips start lower too, because the path’s resonances move down with its length.

How the outputs add up

The dashed lines are the horn mouth and the front of the cone on their own. The solid line is what you hear: the horn dominates the low end and the direct radiator the top, and they interact where they overlap.

Diagnostics and stuffing

Horn Radiating Outputs shows the Main mouth and the Direct radiator separately, with their coherent total. When the throat chamber has both a volume and a cross-section, the coupling path shows as Main coupling. Reading the horn diagnostics.

Any span of the horn can be stuffed. How stuffing works.

Folding and Hornresp

Folding

Available. The Fold tile mounts the driver on an outer wall facing out, opens the throat into the dead space and compares the throat chamber the fold leaves with your target.

Hornresp export · Nd

Up to four spans export as a native record. Hornresp needs the two diaphragm faces at opposite polarities, and the export notes that absolute phase may be inverted and that you should use its combined acoustic output with Path = 0 cm.

Checked against Hornresp

13 native Hornresp cases of this type are re-simulated in the regression tests. 13 of 13 agreement checks meet their tolerances.

Folding a horn into a cabinet · Exporting to Hornresp

Try it

There is no example for this type yet. Open the simulator, add an enclosure, set its type to Horn and choose Back-loaded under Horn type. It starts from the default horn path.

Open the simulator