In Reply to: Is there Different in sound between a wooden and a plastic horn ? posted by yokai on August 24, 2003 at 11:09:39:
Hello,Do a search of your forum and you'll find heaps of threads on this topic.
But... since I've read this forum so many times, I might as well say what I've learnt.
Basically you wont find a difference between a wooden and a plastic horn. Neither "ring", and both can look nice - but wooden ones can look even nicer like Bill Martinelli's wood horn's.
If your looking at metal horns then its a different story. Some ring - and some dont. You won't know until you buy it and try it out because the manufacture is not likely to tell you if their horns ring or not (not a good thing). If the manufacture makes the mechanical resonance lower than the flare rate then its not going to be excited into ringing. But if you have a horn which does ring then you can damp it to suppress this unwanted noise.
How to damp a horn? Here is a quote from Wayne: An example of a horn that really rings is the Altec 811, and it is because the metal is highly tensioned. So the best way to damp this horn is to reduce tension. Cut the horn - the section dividers - and this destresses the bell and damps it. This is similar to the way bells that are broken don't ring anymore, which is exactly what we want in this situation. . So thats one way. Another way is to put damping around the horn itself. I know somebody that has a horn in a wooden box, and thats filled with sand or expanding foam or something like that, and it works very well his said. Like I said do a search of this forum theres been lots of posts on this in the past.
Adrian
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