A "horn" car is a car that used horn loaded compression drivers in it's front stage. The concept is that you have a powerful motor with a small diaphram (cone). It's attached to the horn body. The horn body contains a large volume of air. This means that a small displacement of the diaphram causes a large displacement of air. The horn is shaped so that it's dispersion is very well controlled. The concept is that you can run horns much lower then a conventional tweeter. ID mini horns can be played down to 1kHz (wiht a steep crossover) and their larger horns go down to 7-800Hz. Some custom horns - very large ones can also play down to 500Hz.

Because of their dispersion pattern, horns image very well out of the box. If you mount them and you have an instant, tightly focusted stage with little work.

Horns are also very dynamic - snare drums "slap" you in the face. They have a sensitivity of up around 100+ (some up to 109 dB) so they are VERY efficient - 10W is PLENTY to remove your head.


I'm assuming that you are talking about the ID horn comp set - the CD1e. This set was designed to get people into the world of horns at competitive pricing to conventional sets. The driver on that horn isn't a "conventional" horn driver. It's a cheaper Piezo driver. It has no real impedance, so it must be used with the ID passive crossover.

If you take a look at the sensitivities, you will notice that you need a lot of midbass to keep up with these. THe passive does the level matching for you, and has a few notch filters to take care of some of the peaks that horns have.

To install:
1. mount them as far to the outside of the car as possible
2. mount them as far back to the firewall as possilbe
3. as symmetric as possible
4. connect the top edge of the horn with the bottom edge of the dash with a filler panel
5. a dash mat is highly recommended

Price tags range from 500 for the comp sets, up to around 1000 MSRP for the CD2comp horns. For reference, I got my CD1Pros price matched at sounddomain - they are the only authorized internet dealer, and are probably the only people who can get horns on the net. ....many people "carry" them, but few stock them.

The sound is totally different because of the dynamics. People have described it by saying that you experience the music rather then just listen to it. It's far more engaging then regular drivers. I will say though HORNS ARE NOT FOR EVERYONE. They require special attention.

Everything I have said about them has been mostly positive, but keep in mind that it's hard to get horns tucked under the dash without significantly impacting your foot room. I will be driving my car with my toes, not the balls of my feet anymore.

The perfect horn car has a very symmetric dash. Lots of foot room, and the dash is very smooth between the dash base and the top of the dash. Also, a small center console is a plus.

A civics and accords tend to be pretty good cars, but the heater often hangs too low on the passenger side.

I will say that a ho-hum conventional install still sounds good, a half assed horn install will sound terrible....While horn cars do well in SQ competitions, I dont' recall any horn cars winning finals lately. Basically you can get great sound with either, but they are just different routes.

[quote]im trying to go for alot of quality sound - if i go the route of ID component sets would it be ok to leave the 6x9s or should they be replaced? i had also planned on 4 channel for indoor but others have suggested 2 channels dedicated to the components and leave the 6x9s to be powered by deck.[quote]

If you are really after SQ, dump the rear speakers - a properly setup front stage will yeild plenty of ambience so that they are not necessary. if you went with horns, you really shouldn't have rear speakers - they will destroy the stage produced by the horns, and you will have virtually none of their benefits - a nice stage.

like I said, for ID, the only authorized place is sounddomain.com - check the classifieds at sounddomain.com's forum, elitecaraudio.com or carsound.com

Horns are a different animal. While they don't need EQ, it woudl be nice to have 5 parametric bands at least. Also, you will have to go all active and maintain as close as possble to the follwoing power ratio:

1:3:5 - so for every watt you send the horns, you had better get at least 3 to your mids and 5 to your subs.

I think I have all of them covered. If you want to discuss horns more, start a new thread. I responded to one a while back, so do a search.

Littledragon - sorry to hi-jack your thread!! Let's get it back on topic for this guy.

 

If it was my money, I wouldn't spend any money on rear speakers. Get a 4 channel amp that is pretty capable (75x4) get the components for the front doors. Then get two 10's that can be wired to a 4 ohm mono load. Power it all off of one amp, and you are set. You will have a nice clean sounding system if you install it correctly. You can find used IDQ's for about 100 each on ebay.

 

You can't go wrong with an ID setup. One of my previous vehicles had all ID and I have to say, I haven't had a setup since that ever compared.

 

imma start a new thread so that the ID talk stops jacking up this guys thread

go here

https://www.honda-acura.net/forums/s...threadid=66750