The second part of this article series deals with 1in4 (1.4 inch) William Neile ALO horn. This is the next logical step on my agenda. Also because the new 1in4 William Neile ALO horn is supposed to replace my current TH4001 which is a good sounding horn so the expectations are set quite high. The category of the so-called fin horns seems to me to be quite popular and their good sound properties are usually reported. However, I am of the opinion that the known underlying assumption for the construction of fin horns, especially the fin shape and arrangement, does not lead to a coherent wavefront over all frequencies at the exit of the individual channels. I have developed an improved version of different  curved fin arrangement which implements equal path lengths of each channel together with the right and exact opening angle for proper exponential acoustic loading, but this is another story. So to speak the TH4001 is a good performer but has some serious design issues. The William Neile ALO horns use what I call natural dispersion instead but with it’s own limits one has to accept. What I want to say is that it is not possible to achieve such wide radiation for a very low-loading horn similar to a fin horn. In my opinion, this is not necessary at all for use in normal listening rooms. But many are somehow still of the opinion that some kind of cinema horns with extremely wide dispersion should be set up at home but these were intended to reach hundreds of people in a large cinema hall with evenly distributed sound impressions at every single seat. A slightly narrower dispersion can definitely be an advantage, especially in smaller listening rooms and when only a few listening positions in the room have to be considered. The intrinsic problems of fin horns, which are related to the the individual channels (shape, length, arrangement), such as cavity resonances or excitations or the suboptimal addition to a coherent wave front, cannot occur with a natural dispersion horn. For example, anyone who doubts that e.g. 30 degrees of even radiation can be sufficient should mark this angle with two strings on the floor from each loudspeaker to the listening position and preferably with the loudspeakers angled slightly inwards and then look at the area of even radiation delimited by the strings on the floor. My 1in4 William Neile ALO horn will achieve about twice as wide dispersion in the horizontal plane.

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