A horn loudspeaker is a speaker which uses an acoustic horn to increase the overall efficiency of the driving element. The horn serves to improve the coupling efficiency between the speaker driver and the air. The horn can be thought of as an “acoustic transformer” that provides impedance matching between the relatively dense diaphragm material and the less-dense air. The result is greater acoustic output power from a given driver.
The main advantage of horn loudspeakers is they are more efficient. They can typically produce approximately 10 times more sound power than a cone speaker from a given amplifier output.
Recently, it has proven to be the best solution to use only one high-sensitivity full-ranger driver in combination with a “back-loaded horn” (BLH) cabinet. This means that the speaker is built with only one driver without the use of multiple drivers and crossover. It works so that the driver emits high and mid frequencies straight ahead, and the bass frequencies are amplified in a back-loaded baffle. Back-loaded means that the acoustic pressure into the baffle is pushed by the back side of the driver’s diaphragm. The right combination of driver and baffle calculation is most important for an excellent result.