I'd never even heard of horn speakers in a car before 6 weeks ago. I have a fully active HAT L8 door-L4 kick-L1 pillar setup in my '92 Cadillac with a 15" AE IB sub firing through the arm rest in the back, all tuning being done with a Pioneer P800prs deck and a bevy of 600Wrms RF 25th anniversary amps.
I had a killer for the day setup back in the 90's but didn't get back into things until 2008 for my Cad, and I have never been to competition and have never even heard a "reference" car before. But I know what I like and I have spent a lot of time tuning my Cad. I mostly listen to bebop era jazz and the Grateful Dead, with some classical.
So I get a new to me Dodge truck, and although the cad is my daily driver the truck is where I do most of my road tripping and my old rig wasn't worth building up, so I was excited to do a new system. I continued with HAT because that's what I knew and I hadn't seen anything online that made me think they had quit producing a nice product. L3SE's in the dash to start with running tweeterless (i found I can't hear above 10k anyway). I spent 3 weeks putting L8's in the kicks but it was a disaster, even with a 2" venting hole there wasn't enough airspace and the bass was muffled and worse the resonance in the upper pillar where I couldn't dampen was terrible. So I spent another 2 weeks prepping the doors and moving them there. I put a 12" type R Alpine sub in a sealed console box.
It sounded okay once I adjusted some things - I mean, it sounded pretty good - definitely not better than my Cad but okay.
But during all this I had stumbled on the "HLCD" forum. My first thought was that these horn things were just another audio tweaker subculture where weirdos
like Patrick Bateman conducted strange and incomprehensible experiments. But then I noticed a lot of people whose opinion I respected on this site had very favorable opinons on these things. I thought I liked a warm sound and I favor tonality over imaging, and didn't think I would like anything that was "forward" or "loud in the midrange" and I don't listen at what many would consider loud volumes. But one word kept coming back to me - "horns sound DYNAMIC".
Anyway I was intrigued enough to inquire further, and found it kind of strange that you could only buy them from some obscure guy on the forum named Eric Stevens. The price was low enough though, after spending $500 on two little 3" speakers, so I ordered up a set after Eric spent a generous 45 minutes with me on the phone answerinq questions. I had been buying a lot of other used gear on the forum and it felt like I was just getting some more stuff so I was actually a little surprised when they showed up very professionally packaged (and were shipped the very next day after I sent the money).
So I tune up my system with an 800Hz high pass and using my new p99rs deck and an extra amp (same style Pioneer D800prs amp on both sets), I can mute and switch instantly A/B between the two setups. Again, my standard setup was sounding pretty good to me, enough that I was spending some extended listening sessions in the driveway.
Well slap my ass and call me Sally, I turned on those horns, spent 5 minutes tweaking gains, and fell in love.
AUDIO CLICHE ALERT
I really felt like someone had washed my soundstage with windex-I don't want to say I heard things I'd never heard before, but they were so damn clear and so clearly placed on a much larger soundstage. Probably the greatest praise I can give is that the one weakness of my Cad is I've never felt like it really reproduced classical music all that well. This was the first time I really felt like the system was doing a symphony justice.
It truly fulfilled that promise I'd heard of "dynamics". I'm actually a bit concerned that my Cad will now sound a bit lifeless (although the bass is much better in the very low end).
And the improvement from the original setup in the truck was even more pronounced. Now, I think the dash location is far from the best, but I've also seen more than one guy on here win competitions or praise from those who know using these locations.
The whole point of this long winded post is for those who are new to horns or might be wondering whether to give them a try is to go for it !
System is P99RS -> Pioneer p800prs 2*125rms@4ohm into Eric's large body horns from 800Hz up, old Rockford Fosgate 4004 amp bridged giving 2*270rms into the L8's from 120 up, and RF amp putting 1000wrms into the sub. Tons of deadening all over the truck, etc.
I'd also point out that my L8's seem to keep up fine to me, pro audio drivers are not required as much as everyone makes out, but who knows I plan to try them at some point as well. Maybe I'll have a "dynamic" wake up call there too. I don't run super loud though, but definitely loud enough. Haven't RTA'ed either setup, but only took out about 0.5-1.5 dB between 2k-4k for the horns so far, and it imaged better with the driver horn phase flipped. Still a lot of tuning to do and need to get some deeper subs bass going somehow,but I'm extremely happy with horns. Not to mention, no one ever rides in my Cad but I often am driving groups of people in my truck and the clarity and dynamics of these things will be perfect for showing off just a bit not to mention cutting through the higher road noise of this type of vehicle.
I had a killer for the day setup back in the 90's but didn't get back into things until 2008 for my Cad, and I have never been to competition and have never even heard a "reference" car before. But I know what I like and I have spent a lot of time tuning my Cad. I mostly listen to bebop era jazz and the Grateful Dead, with some classical.
So I get a new to me Dodge truck, and although the cad is my daily driver the truck is where I do most of my road tripping and my old rig wasn't worth building up, so I was excited to do a new system. I continued with HAT because that's what I knew and I hadn't seen anything online that made me think they had quit producing a nice product. L3SE's in the dash to start with running tweeterless (i found I can't hear above 10k anyway). I spent 3 weeks putting L8's in the kicks but it was a disaster, even with a 2" venting hole there wasn't enough airspace and the bass was muffled and worse the resonance in the upper pillar where I couldn't dampen was terrible. So I spent another 2 weeks prepping the doors and moving them there. I put a 12" type R Alpine sub in a sealed console box.
It sounded okay once I adjusted some things - I mean, it sounded pretty good - definitely not better than my Cad but okay.
But during all this I had stumbled on the "HLCD" forum. My first thought was that these horn things were just another audio tweaker subculture where weirdos
like Patrick Bateman conducted strange and incomprehensible experiments. But then I noticed a lot of people whose opinion I respected on this site had very favorable opinons on these things. I thought I liked a warm sound and I favor tonality over imaging, and didn't think I would like anything that was "forward" or "loud in the midrange" and I don't listen at what many would consider loud volumes. But one word kept coming back to me - "horns sound DYNAMIC". Anyway I was intrigued enough to inquire further, and found it kind of strange that you could only buy them from some obscure guy on the forum named Eric Stevens. The price was low enough though, after spending $500 on two little 3" speakers, so I ordered up a set after Eric spent a generous 45 minutes with me on the phone answerinq questions. I had been buying a lot of other used gear on the forum and it felt like I was just getting some more stuff so I was actually a little surprised when they showed up very professionally packaged (and were shipped the very next day after I sent the money).
So I tune up my system with an 800Hz high pass and using my new p99rs deck and an extra amp (same style Pioneer D800prs amp on both sets), I can mute and switch instantly A/B between the two setups. Again, my standard setup was sounding pretty good to me, enough that I was spending some extended listening sessions in the driveway.
Well slap my ass and call me Sally, I turned on those horns, spent 5 minutes tweaking gains, and fell in love.
AUDIO CLICHE ALERT
I really felt like someone had washed my soundstage with windex-I don't want to say I heard things I'd never heard before, but they were so damn clear and so clearly placed on a much larger soundstage. Probably the greatest praise I can give is that the one weakness of my Cad is I've never felt like it really reproduced classical music all that well. This was the first time I really felt like the system was doing a symphony justice.
It truly fulfilled that promise I'd heard of "dynamics". I'm actually a bit concerned that my Cad will now sound a bit lifeless (although the bass is much better in the very low end).
And the improvement from the original setup in the truck was even more pronounced. Now, I think the dash location is far from the best, but I've also seen more than one guy on here win competitions or praise from those who know using these locations.
The whole point of this long winded post is for those who are new to horns or might be wondering whether to give them a try is to go for it !
System is P99RS -> Pioneer p800prs 2*125rms@4ohm into Eric's large body horns from 800Hz up, old Rockford Fosgate 4004 amp bridged giving 2*270rms into the L8's from 120 up, and RF amp putting 1000wrms into the sub. Tons of deadening all over the truck, etc.
I'd also point out that my L8's seem to keep up fine to me, pro audio drivers are not required as much as everyone makes out, but who knows I plan to try them at some point as well. Maybe I'll have a "dynamic" wake up call there too. I don't run super loud though, but definitely loud enough. Haven't RTA'ed either setup, but only took out about 0.5-1.5 dB between 2k-4k for the horns so far, and it imaged better with the driver horn phase flipped. Still a lot of tuning to do and need to get some deeper subs bass going somehow,but I'm extremely happy with horns. Not to mention, no one ever rides in my Cad but I often am driving groups of people in my truck and the clarity and dynamics of these things will be perfect for showing off just a bit not to mention cutting through the higher road noise of this type of vehicle.
