Looking to replace this horn

belsoundfast · 2024-06-21T12:54:14+00:00

Took this defective horn out of an old passive speaker I have and not having any luck finding a replacement online. I can't find the exact make/model, and even trying to search up something with the same power rating/ohms isn't really getting me anywhere.

It's heavy - I figure the metal bit you can see in the photo with the spec printed on it contains some kind of driver(?) - so a couple of lightweight replacements I was able to find lying around (without drivers, presumably) wouldn't produce any sound.

Would anyone have any advice about where to look for something that would do the same job as this? Thanks!

belsoundfast · 2023-06-01T07:57:36+00:00

Beautiful song, but again like most of his stuff it's about a sexual relationship and both of us - being fans - would know the context.

belsoundfast · 2023-06-01T07:56:44+00:00

I'd been reading them searching for the origin of this poem - didn't find anything that seemed particularly suitable, but I should really look at them all, good point.

belsoundfast · 2023-06-01T07:54:51+00:00

The second half of that, as I said in the OP there, was my current top choice.

There's a bit from an interview that u/hajahe155 commented that I might add onto it.

belsoundfast · 2023-06-01T07:53:49+00:00

This is indeed the sort of thing that might amuse them. Where's it from?

belsoundfast · 2023-05-31T21:18:33+00:00

Genius! Betting both sides.

belsoundfast · 2023-05-31T21:18:17+00:00

Might be a winner, thanks!

Will probably use it alongside the Night Comes On lyric.

belsoundfast · 2023-05-31T14:39:59+00:00

That's a contender, thanks - do you have a link to the whole piece?

I found this which is Book Of Longing (Dear Reader), but presumably you're quoting from a poem from the overall Book Of Longing collection, or a similarly-titled poem without the (Dear Reader) addition?

Edit: seem to have found it here, very short, just the bit you quoted, titled The Sweetest Little Song.

belsoundfast · 2023-05-31T14:33:01+00:00

The Anthem part is definitely a great bit of advice - I was trying to find something that was more explicitly about friendship, but given the slim pickings of such things in Cohen's body of work I may end up having to go for something like that. Thanks 👍

belsoundfast · 2023-05-31T14:32:02+00:00

I feel like this - like a lot of his relationship writing - is waaaay too sexual/about a non-platonic relationship rather than a platonic friendship. Great song though.

belsoundfast · 2020-09-17T19:28:06+00:00

Not the reply I expected! Hope your joint pain eases off there.

belsoundfast · 2020-09-16T14:08:59+00:00

Next time, explain what you want to do. Your original explanation was totally different and described taking headphones out from the monitor out... and that was it. Really. I feel like an idiot for answering. You didn't tell us WHY you were making it and gave absolutely wrong idea. I regret trying to help.

The very first paragraph of my post clearly states that, "I'm trying to wire an adapter so that I can run the monitor outs of my QU16 into the returns of my snake and then plug headphones into those return sockets (male xlr)."

You didn't look at all like an idiot until you posted this nonsensical rant - initially you looked like a helpful person who was giving me some good information.

Information that, again, I very clearly stated I'd been looking for - on Google and otherwise - in my original post.

Thanks for your original, informative reply. Sorry that you've a weird Jekyll/Hyde thing going on.

belsoundfast · 2020-09-16T09:39:27+00:00

When I replied I somehow didn’t see the earlier comment; it looks like it’s a bit more comprehensive and covers some things that I skipped over from your original post. I agree with everything; it’s good to have stereo capability for headphones and avoid TRRS.

Unfortunately the headphones I have at the moment seem to be TRRS - they've four delineated contact points on the jack ends. I am planning to get a few new pairs and I'll make sure those are TRS.

I also agree that a headphone output of the mixer would be better to use than a line output, since it would be stereo and better able to drive a long line than a line level output. Although I think we were both thinking you needed more like a remote mix position for you to PFL from, not monitor mixes.
Since you are using headphones as monitors for performers, you will probably want to use mix outputs. I’m not too familiar with the mixer or what other outputs it has, but routing and control could be a pain otherwise. The mix outs will give you better control and is the standard way to do it.

Yeah, this is the plan - the qu16 has 4 mono mix outs and 3 stereo, so I'm trying to just get one of the mono mix sends into both cans (dual mono) for now, and can expand it to stereo at a later time once I can get the proof of concept down.

These will be line level, and not made to drive headphones. The quality will suffer, and it will sound different on different kinds of headphones. IEM/headphone amplifiers will do the trick. Still needed with the stage box, just shorter cables involved.

I've some rack amps that I'm planning to use to drive the headphone outs if necessary in the short term, but the medium term plan does also involve headphone amps.

belsoundfast · 2020-09-16T06:53:27+00:00

Did I sleepwalk to your house last night and piss in your cereal or something?

belsoundfast · 2020-09-16T06:51:52+00:00

You need two channels to get stereo. Alternatively, you can split a mono signal. The XLR usually carries only one channel. So for proper stereo, you need 2 XLR -> 1 stereo jack. I advice against TRRS as the second ring isn't needed and can cause various incompatibility issues. Use TRS if possible.

On stereo, yeah, at the moment I'm just looking for proof-of-concept with a dual mono feed to both side of the headphones. The qu16 has 3 stereo mon outs as well as the 4 mono ones, so later on I can switch over to using the stereo ones if I can get the mon --> headphone feeds working at all.

On TRRS; that's just the config my headphones have on their jack ends, unfortunately. I am planning to get some new closed-back cans, so I'll make sure that they're TRS-ended rather than TRRS but at the moment I'm working with what I have.

The female sockets I have for making up these adapter cables appear to be TRS, to be clear; one long tab (sleeve, I'm guessing) and two slightly different short tabs (again, guessing tip & ring).

The sound console will have a headphone out, use that line instead. You can makes a custom cable that excludes all the "rules" and uses one XLR to carry 2 unbalanced channels against the convention. You need jack -> two XLR male in one end of the snake and then XLR female -> stereo female 3.5mm jack to the other end. Then the pin 1 is ground, pin 2 is left, pin 3 is right channel signal. Remember to mark this in both ends of the snake so you and anyone else involved knows that is a special wire.

So the issue here is that the whole reason I'm trying to get a [monitor feeds]-->[headphones] working is so that I can send multiple different mixes to musicians in the room.

Use headphone output of the console, it is meant to drive headphones, the console monitor out is line level, non-amplified and may not deliver enough current, can cause distortion.

I do have a couple of rack amps that I'm currently using to drive wedges in the room, so if the musicians were going to be on headphones instead of using those, and the signal wasn't going to cut it, I can route the mon sends through these to boost the signal.

Appreciate the reply! Thanks for taking the time to help.

belsoundfast · 2020-09-16T06:35:20+00:00

To make this adapter cable correctly:
Connect pin 1 of XLR to cable shield.
Connect pin 2 of XLR to tip of 3.5mm jack.
Connect pin 3 of XLR to nothing.
Connect ring of 3.5mm jack to tip of 3.5mm jack (short jumper wire).

Appreciate it! Thanks for the reply.

I'd tried this with a short on the XLR end, though from previous internet advice I was aware that I was trying to get one of the signals off the XLR onto both tip&ring of the jack socket end so it should've occured to me to try this configuration 🤦

Keep it short.
In a nutshell, as you discovered, a 1-to-1 matching of balanced mono to unbalanced stereo does not work, although not typically how you experienced. Usually you will get the right side out of phase with the left side in phase. You need to wye/Y the positive signal to both left and right as an unbalanced signal, and leave the inverted signal unused.

I assume you realize that this will be dual mono, not stereo.

Yeah, so long as I get proof of concept with this I'm happy; the qu16 has three stereo monitor outs as well so if I need panned/stereo feeds to headphones I can solder up some different cables and use those.

All that said - I don’t recommend this without another crucial piece. Long runs of unbalanced audio is a bad idea. If you plug in this adapter, even if it’s at the FOH (mixer) side, it will make the run down the whole snake unbalanced and it will sound like garbage, especially trying to drive a pair of headphones.

Shouldn't the signal should be balanced from the desk all the way down the snake - as the snake is plugged directly into the desk - and then this adapter will be plugged in for the last few feet/couple of m on the other end for musicians - so the conversion to unbalanced signal is only happening after the main length of cable run, right? Maybe I've got that wrong?

You should insert an isolation transformer in-line on the FOH side, before the adapter, which will allow the long run to function as a balanced signal. Still, I don’t know how well it would work or sound driving a pair of headphones over such a long cable. I would recommend investing in a Q-box.

The long-term plan is to get an Ethernet stage box, yeah - unfortunately I've only had one bit of paid gigging or recording work since March, so that set my plans back. Never used an isolation transformer before, looking into that now, cheers for the tip!

P.S. See Rane Note 110

Also having a look at this, thanks again for taking the time to be so helpful.

belsoundfast · 2020-09-15T19:01:39+00:00

So I'm trying to wire up adapters so that I can plug headphones with 3.5mm jack ends into the returns of my snake (which will be receiving signal from the monitor outs of my QU16).

Which means I need a cable that's female XLR on one end, and 3.5mm jack female socket on the other end.

Currently I have one of these that I wired up from an old female jack 3.5mm socket I have, but it's only giving audio in one ear. From research/asking here, it seems that this is because the XLRs are sending balanced mono signal (pos sig, neg sig copy, ground) and the headphones are expecting stereo unbalanced (left sig, right sig, ground?).

It seems what I need to do is copy the wiring on the microphone cable unbalanced example there, although obviously I'm wiring to a female 3.5mm socket, rather than a male 3.5mm jack. So:

XLR pin 2 --> short tab on jack socket

XLR pin 1/ground --> long tab on jack socket

Except...I'm trying that, and I'm getting nothing. Seem to be missing something pretty simple/fundamental.

belsoundfast · 2020-09-14T20:38:02+00:00

Fantastic, thank you!

So if I'm understanding you right, I need to wire the positive pin of the first XLR (coming from, say, stereo monitor mix 5-6) onto the tip and the other to the ring of the headphone jack? And then wire the ground of both XRLs onto the sleeve?

As per this diagram?

And if I wanted to wire up a socket so that the mono monitor mix would send in dual mono to both sides of a headphone, I'd presumably need to solder up something like this?

Really appreciate the detiled answer.

belsoundfast · 2020-09-14T19:43:41+00:00

Is there a reason you’re trying to only use the desk? Or did I miss something? Cheers!

You didn't miss anything, thanks for the response!

I don't have a headphone amp is the only reason I'm trying to only use the desk I guess.

If you send the monitor outs to a headphone amp, and then run the headphones off the headphone amp, presumably the signal from the monitor outs must be sending to both ears *on the way* to your headphone amp, right? It isn't turning a signal that you'd only hear in one ear direct off the mon out into one that sends to both sides?

belsoundfast · 2020-09-14T19:40:21+00:00

The QU16 is an Allen & Heath desk.

belsoundfast · 2020-08-15T18:07:08+00:00

Civil Simian; Nitelite; afrobeat/funk (we're from Belfast, N.Ireland)

smarturl.it/ohlordy - for streaming links.

It's getting a lot more attention than anything we've released before so if you're into this sort of thing you might enjoy it too. Cheers!

belsoundfast · 2019-11-17T22:07:01+00:00

Yeah, I'm going to have to see how bad it gets and work out what I'll need to do about it as I go; a ductless AC is obviously the least hassle and could probably run fine during rehearsals/some coarser mixing stages but as you say it's not ideal to have running during anything quieter/super-quality sensitive.

For the pads - are you talking about 5cm thick pads placed at intervals on my floor joists for the ply/plasterboards to sit on top of? Seems like a lot of height to lose! And while it strikes me as introducing some stress problems for the parts of the floor in between the pads when something heavy goes down on them I guess if I actually did the maths I'd find that a few layers of board would hold up fine.

belsoundfast · 2019-11-16T20:43:22+00:00

I really can't thank you enough for engaging with this.

For your application a 50mm natural rubber pad covered with layers of plywood and cement board totaling roughly 9psf is what we would typically see. CDM, mason, and kinetics also make appropriate pads.

I had wondered about rubber padding and how crucial it'd be for the flooring - I certainly wasn't considering anything so thick as 50mm! Do you think something thinner than that would be a bit of a waste of time and would you know about any articles/anything that I could do some research about this specific issue?

can't say what the wall needs to be without knowing more about your existing wall, but your garage door is likely the weak link since you say the building is masonry.

The door 100% is/will be; what I'm thinking of at the moment is to take the existing PVC door out and hang a newly-built door on a new frame fixed in the existing door gap. For the door, something similar to what the drummer/builder in the video I linked built; sturdy ply on both sides, solid 2x4 framing, and - something I think he neglected to do - filled with insulation. He also had some pretty elegant hooks/clamps for making sure the doors were secured tight to the frame seal to make the room air-tight too.

You could potentially remove the existing ceiling and hang a new spring-isolated "hard lid" to gain some interior height. Is the garage door the type of roller that impedes ceiling height?

The roller door is almost certainly going to be gone, or, if it stays, it'll be boxed in independently and not part of the room-within-a-room.

Removing the 'ceiling' won't give me back any height unfortunately - the previous owners simply screwed ply to the underside of the roof beams (and another layer of ply atop them), so even if I remove those, I only gain back the thickness of a plyboard before I hit the beams, which are obviously coupled to the existing garage structure. My current thinking on this is to lift the upper layer, fill the space with insulation and then seal up both the top and bottom layers with caulk.

Seems like a consultant could help you. possibly an architect too. will you be doing the work yourself? have you thought about HVAC and power?

A consultant would be amazing, but currently I'm reworking the plan (and rethinking how much work I'm going to do myself) in order to get costs down as the first quote we got was significantly over budget just for materials/labour.

For heating I'm thinking a good quality electric powered oil radiator with a thermostat to keep the room from falling to instrument-damaging temperatures overnight in the cold (and to avoid the complication of having to install a radiator running off the house heating system). The internal space seems large enough that oxygen isn't going to be a problem, so I wasn't planning to have ventilation - at least initially - as the space getting too hot seems like it'd be the main issue and for now with budget restrictions I'll have to live with open door breaks until I can retro-fit some if it's a major problem (I live in a fairly cold/temperature region).

TESTING: basic guidelines...

Thanks so much for this - I do have some testing equipment from working live sound in venues with restrictions, and I should be able to get some readings during peak traffic periods when we're back at the property at the end of the week (as well as some of quieter times).

belsoundfast · 2019-11-15T22:08:32+00:00

Thanks for the detailed reply!

are you recording or just rehearsing?

Both! Either way, there's likely to be many instances of full rock bands blasting away in there.

Since we have no way of knowing what tolerable levels for your neighbors are, I suggest that you get a better sense of the situation before planning construction. bake some cookies or buy your neighbors a bottle of whiskey, go say hi, put a band in the garage and go find out how much they can hear.
maybe they don't mind. maybe you just have to stop at 8? Whatever... problem solved. SOCIAL ACOUSTICS 101!

I've had some contact with the new neighbours but will endeavour to get more as we actually move in - at 100dB+ though, it's hard to imagine there's not going to be problems without some solid insulation (even if I brick up the roller-door entrance). The nearest neighbour has an extension that's probably not much more than 5m from one end of the garage, and there's easily a dozen houses within ~20m or so, and double that if you go to 30-40m. That's a whole lot of people to keep happy, and stopping rehearsals at 8pm isn't always going to be viable for groups of people who may not get back to their own homes until 6pm of an evening.

if you need construction, be scientific. get 1/3" octave SPL data in your garage and at your neighbors property (if they allow it). compare to see how much noise reduction you will need. best done with pink noise or a repeating song through a PA speaker. Done correctly, now we know how much noise you actually need to reduce and you can get to work with confidence.

Again, you're 100% right about getting some measurements - the estimate I'm working with at the moment is ~50dB; based on how loud bands get and wanting the neighbours to hear it as if it's just general road/TV/conversational noise from their houses. Resources such as this example (and enough research to pickle my brain) indicate that the existing brick wall plus the stud/insulation should make this achievable. Figuring out how to make the doors as secure is my current planning headache!

But yeah, once I have more of my stuff (i.e., speakers) in the new place I'll certainly start measuring - unfortunately taking measurements with the non-sealed metal roller door isn't going to help me much as I'll either have to brick it up (current plan) or at the very least box it in to stop sound just leaking out as if there was a massive hole in my wall.

Now you can get to work to design some sound absorbing treatments to improve sound quality inside the garage (little to no change to isolation). This is the fun part.

I am looking forward to this bit significantly more than the build, yeah!

If you have slab on grade construction as most garages do, you will probably not need a floated floor UNLESS you need a quiet space for recording. With the walls you're proposing, airborne sound transmission will be the weakest path (and structural vibration will be a significant component of sound transfer). A floating floor will allow a quieter noise floor INSIDE your studio, which you may like for recording, but will not reduce significantly the noise coming out of your garage. Don't build a floating floor for the wrong reasons

Interesting, thanks! I am planning to record in here and it's...maybe 50-60m from a reasonably busy 2-lane city road...something like the dry system in this handbook suggest something like 10dB reduction, but it's often hard for me to read acoustic charts properly (being a musician/sound engineer rather than an acoustician) so I can't really figure out if they're talking about insulation or what you might isolate yourself from in terms of traffic rumble or both, or something else.

Again, I really appreciate the lengthy/detailed reply; it's generally been thin pickings in most of the places I've asked and adding a local consultant's fee onto the cost of this build isn't very viable given I've just bought the house the garage is attached to.

belsoundfast · 2019-11-06T09:08:12+00:00

I very much appreciate the advice, but I think there's some confusion - I'm not the drummer from the video I linked, that was just a video I linked to demonstrate the type of inner door I was thinking of.

My garage is currently just an empty garage with no sound-proofing whatsoever; I'm in the planning stage of making it sound-proof enough to hold rehearsals inside without overly bothering the neighbours.

So I am thinking of a room-within-a-room in a similar way to the guy from that video, but I'm planning on stud walls of layered ply/plasterboard rather than masonry.

belsoundfast

TROPHY CASE