I got in mind that the Paragon and the S2600 (or S3100, DD55000, horn 4660) have something in common. Thanks to Fred Sanford I got a good Paragon drawing, so I can point it out.
The S2600 (et al.) has a very specific directivity so that a special soundstage can be achieved. This can be compared with the soundstage of the Paragon I think:
As I do not assume that the Paragon is disguised in mysticism I made a drawing to analyze its sound reflector. The sound will be reflected just like light at a mirror. As I have no clue about the divergence of the Paragon horn (H5038) I choose a tangential direction at the mouth. The reflected beam is at right angle to the horn opening, more would make little sense. With this assumption there can be made a rough estimation (- I do not know any measurements).
With the arrangement of horn and reflector the sound from the horn is split into two parts. One part is unaffected (blue), the other one is reflected (red). The distribution angle (b-B) of the blue part is about the half of the other red part (a-A). So the sound intensity per angle of the red part is half of the blue part. Within the angle (b-B) there are round about three quarters of the sound energy, within the angle (a-b) only one quarter. This makes a difference in sound pressure of about 5 dB. As the sound pressure is higher in directions A and B than in the ones of a and b there is even a greater difference between direction A+B and a (more than 5 dB) with a presumably smooth transition.
When you look at the polar pattern of the S2600 you see a maximum difference of 10 dB between the directions of 0 degrees and ca. 35 degrees at 2 kHz and 4 kHz. Obviously this is more than in my estimation above. It must be added that at the Paragon the angle between high and low level is not 35 degrees but ca. 90 degrees. Obviously the horn of the S2600 has a greater influence.
You are right if you consider that I do not own a S2600, otherwise I would not have made these thoughts. But everybody can experiment with the Paragon reflector: Take two pressboard with a length of about 90 cm (35 inch) for each side and bow each of them until there is a gap (?) of 8 cm (3 inches). I have tried this with two fullrange boxes. There is a stable stereo image (with a small basis) and an amazing soundstage all over the room. In a big room 7 m x 7m (23 ft x 23 ft) I placed the speakers in the corners, it was all over a fullfilling sound stage.
I hope you can read this fluently so that you are encouraged to read it twice if necessary.
___________
Peter
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Originally Posted by Thom
