Some make the case that horn loading increases efficiency, so more power is converted to acoustic energy leaving less to be wasted as heat. I don't agree with this because while it is true in theory, in practice even the most efficient horns dissipate a great deal of heat, usually more than 50%. And since most speakers remove heat via venting, the reduced excursion from horn loading limits their ability to cool the voice coil. Where power handling is concerned, the reduced excursion is a two-edged sword. Mechanical limits are increased but thermal limits aren't; In fact, the reduced excursion may reduce thermal limits in some cases.

Adam

"
A cool thing about horns is that they can increase the effective power capacity of a driver (remember a 300 Watt driver can handle 500-600 Watts on a 50% efficient horn).
This output corresponds to about 400 acoustic Watts per box which is a very significant energy.
The stack of 6 should produce about 3.2 acoustic horsepower without exceeding Xmax.
"

;-)

it makes sense if the energy is being transferred into sound not heat..light a more efficient light bulb-more light less heat but same power in and out in total..

/end simplistic post

:-)

To use your light bulb analogy, it's like having a reflector or lense that focuses the light and makes it brighter in one spot. You may not need as much power to get the same amount of light in a concentrated area. And you may even be able to reduce the voltage input to the light bulb and get the same candle-power at a specific pinpoint location. But if you increase current through the filament past the limit of the bulb, you'll burn it out whether you have the reflector installed or not. Same thing with the speaker motor, whether installed in a horn or not.

Again, even with increased efficiency, we're still talking about a large amount of heat in the motors of a high-power horn. With excursion reduced because of horn loading, it is questionable whether the woofer's venting is as effective.

people run 2kw per labhorn cabinet, no problems. and the woofers are 450watt rms or so.

Cheers wayne!

Best regards,

Walt

''I run my 3002's bridge-mono giving 3000 watts @ 4 ohms per cabinet. The first green (labeled "signal") LED on the amp just tickle's on and stays on for the majority of the signal input. I hit LED's 2 & 3 (-20 and -10) for the transient bursts''

Regardless of what people say they use, and what music with bass content they may use-
the issue remains that certain people beleive that u can input more power into efficient horns, and i beleived them, it made sense.

i see both sides of the issue, only 1 can be correct
;-)

should i try it-make a labhorn and input 2kw sine for a week?
perhaps its a simple matter of some one saying RMS instead of Music power in a post i saw, setting me off on a tangent.

Cheers
Mike.e