Synergy / MEH horns a new system

I’ve had a mind to make a Danley alike Synergy horn system for a while.

After much research I settled upon the Danley SH50 type.
The main reason was I could use some of the drivers I already have, and a wedding (eldest daughter) is in the offing at some point and it would be cool to rock that with my own pair of PA horns.
I have enough PA Amps and a Behringer DCX to control it for that too!

Research done, readings about folk swapping out expensive hi-end systems etc spured me on, and when done fiddling with Hornresp I was ready to chop wood.

There really is a wealth of info on the internet about them. Quite a bit of input from Mr Danley himself too.
He’s a very nice guy from what I’ve read.
Genius design!
The patent is great info. Long since expired.

Using cheap chipboard I already had.
.

The large holes are taps for the LF driver.
The ones around the sides are the ports.
This works as both horn bass a bit and ported bass reflex cab.
I would only use 1 x 12" Eminence Kappa 12A. Two would be good for PA duty!

The small taps are nearer the throat are for the mid Freq closed back drivers.
I used 2, again 4 for PA round be prudent.

The drivers test fitted.
I used cheapish Celestion mids. Nothing very special about them.
They only do 1 octave.

The HF compression driver is the same that Danley sound labs use…
That can cross as low as 800Hz and plays Upto 18K.

More to follow…

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I decided to sheet the thing with sound deadening bitumen…

More work smoothing the flare mouth and filling the corners. Something the PA SH50s don’t have, but the more hifi oriented SM60Fs do and the hi-end HRE1 absolutely have.

I made sure the horn throat was good and smooth in transition from 4 sided square top perfect round for the all important compression driver mount.
Took me back to making 12 sided conicals in a similar manner! :slightly_smiling_face:

I reasoned that with only 1 X LF driver the cab back reflex enclosure should be half the volume of the commercial cabs.

This was a bit tricky to make, but hay ho.

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First horn / cab ready for a test.

Lifted into place.
She ain’t light!

One square replaces 3 rounds and a tweeter😂

I started measuring and out of the box the clever design with it’s 1/4 wave spacing between the drivers and cutoffs etc mean that you only require an XO on the compression driver to protect it.
BW 1st order.
The lack of phase fooking XOs mean a flattish phase plot can be achieved.

The phase thing and the single point source are the whole point of the Multi Entry Horn / Synergy design.

With some trepidation and interest I ran it up against the existing 5 way I’ve had and refined for years.

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Straight off didn’t sound great.
The HF was rather course and grating.
New drivers needed running in…

Immediately the ability to fill the room with even sound no matter where you are in the room, including sticking your head right into the thing😂

Over a few days the drivers freed up and sounded better bit by bit.

I was busy measuring and PEQing away to create a controlled sound.

I hit gold with the size of the rear reflex cover.

The LF, I’m getting flat to 60Hz!

Some plots

All three drivers

LFs only

MF only
.

HFs

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It was really hard to tell much with one old side and one new side.

Both had their charms, mono single side listening is not much fun

Second cab building.

This one, I made with without the sound deadening sheet.
Made a full rear cover ala SH50.
Double the volume. Could always mod if no good

Here in place.

Also didn’t bother dishing the MF driver taps, just to see…

The pair

More later…

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Bit of background

The SH-50 in its natural habitat




Some home use



The Danley passive crossover work of art!

Just plug your 1000W continuous in, and go😀

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Interesting notes on EQ and potential AMP requirements - What are you using here Steve?

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Dreadful video, no jazz.

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Here there is complex Jazz for us both - The Lopwell sampling will be blistering this year.

Yeah, seen that vid and pretty much all the others / pics and reading out there :slightly_smiling_face:

I’m using active 4 way setup.
Controlled by Najda DSP Pre DAC.

Big beefy Cewin Vega silicon amp on the tapped horns (also Danley design)

Fairly beefy but sweet sounding Crown amp on the Synergy LF (Kappa 12A)

Icon Audio SET amp on the twin MF drivers (Celestion TF0510MR)

Ditto on the BMS 4550 compression driver HF

To do it with passives would be a nightmare! / you’d need to be really clued up on speaker XO design -That I ain’t😀

Some wisdom from a MEH user on DIYaudio.

"The good thing about MEHs is that a simple set of first order crossover filters–that uses the first cancellation (notch frequency) of the lower frequency drivers as the low pass crossover frequency–will always provide time-aligned settings that is a hallmark of the MEHs that Tom Danley promotes (“unity summation aperture”).

First order MEH crossover settings produce a quasi-linear phase response (or should I say “minimum phase response” in the case of MEHs) of the lower frequency drivers mounted to the horn (midranges, woofers) without the creation of significant excess phase (all-pass) or large spikes and delay offsets in the excess group delay plot–all of which are audible. They actually need the 90 degrees of phase shift of a first order set of filters to time align the lower frequency drivers, which are closer to the listener, to the higher frequency driver." - Chris

A how to guide I got help from

It’s also possible to use FIR.
Najda can do 1024 taps only.
However this could well be enough to use instead of IIR on the higher frequencies.

For my Synergys it was really only the LF 400Hz and up that needed knocking down.

I’ve always found not using PEQs (or using very sparingly), best on the HF.

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Loving this thread Steve, even tho I don’t understand a single fucking word of it…:joy:

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Would have been fun

I now understand that MEH horns are not Meh horns

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…unlike meh jokes :unamused:

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There’s a place in Bristol you can hire Danley gear from!
Prices from £50 a day. Not sure about delivery prices…
Guess that’s for one cab, good value for 96dB constant, 126dB peak!:scream:

The wood to make one cab cost me £30😀
The first one was wood I had cluttering up the place.

How do they sound?

Pretty good actually.

Leaner / less horny than the 5 way.
I did miss the Vitavox S2 magic for a while, but they win back on the presentation and overall easy listening ability.
They are effortless and have lower (to my ears distortion / room reflections?).
There’s the phase timing thing, but I’m still working on perfecting that

Toed in as Danley prescribes for home use - he prototyped them at home in his long narrow room (as he put it) - American rooms tend to be bigger than UK rooms though!

Much more kick bass and mid bass get up and go than any of my straight mid bass 15" and 12" variants.
The drive and oomph is great.
The MF tone is different to the JBL2482s but it’s not bad at all.

It’s taken ages for the new BMS and Celestion drivers to run in.
They are just starting to perform after days and days…
They are nearing the S2 clarity and liveliness actually! But might never quite get there?

There’s lots of reviews and info on good compression drivers at 1/10 the price of TAD etc - they are not 1/10 as good…

I’ve also got back almost 1m of my room. They are much more compact! Room friendly even🙂

Yesterday our daughters came over for a listen.
They grew up with my hifi DIY.
They’ve taken an interest and enjoy music and SQ.

He’s what I remember if what they said.

The younger ears listened to lots of material they like.
Streaming is great for that. Not a song they wanted that Qobuz didn’t have!

They noticed some missing top freq ‘snow’ as PA boys call it.
It doesn’t bother me, but of course the Raal Lazy Ribbons I was using gave up to super tweeter frequencies, if the gear I use actually passed that on?
I EQd it to their taste…
They described the sound as direct but tonally pleasing.
Compared it to the 5 way system favourably, commended the wider listening presentation than just the lightening spot (the 5 way, with it’s phase alignment and wide driver spread was the listening chair or nowhere!).
The wander about the room anywhere and get even sounds thing impressed.
As did playing it silly loud :sunglasses:
They liked the bass shove.
They thought it was a keeper as a system.

Didn’t miss the 5 way sound!

They are very honest about these things.
The youngest would like the Raal ribbons playing over the top…
I might try that… ruin the Synergy though​:scream::scream:

I’m already working out how to make a pair of SM60Fs!
Quite a bit smaller, more room friendly, use a commercially available BMS coaxial and 2 X Beyma 8" drivers. They don’t reach down that low (67Hz), but the tapped horns each up to 100Hz anyway.
The BMS coaxial is quoted at 22KHz!

The design of the acoustic path for the 1" central compression driver HF, and the cone coaxial 5" MF is the tricky part.
Danley uses cad designed injection moulding - I will be turning and milling wood by hand :joy:
I reckon 2 or 3 pieces will do it.
That will then mate to square 60° horn for the 2x8" drivers.
Retaining the 1/4 wavelength distances all the way😉

That design is used with the $23,000 each Danley HRE1s home cinema / listening room flagships.
They have a twin woofer bass unit too.

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TL;DR

Your loss.
I’ll put some more pictures up for you soon

For MG0wner

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