Originally Posted by
withTarragon
If I may interject, sonce this is a topic near and dear to me. The Conical horn is a CD horn, that is, the freq respsonse on-axis and off axis are comparable (as is the the Oblate spheroid, manta ray, bi-radial, some electro voice etc). However CD horns do not have a flat freq respsonse and will require some EQing to boost the high end. The tractrix is not a CD horn and it will beam as you go up in freqeuncy.
The term conical is tricky and typically mis-used. The expansion rate is "conical" and the cross-sectional area will increase by the square of the distance (IOW, twice the distance then 4 times the increase in area). Not all "cones" will necessarily have this rate of expansion (it depends on the angle). Again, the term conical refers to the rate of expansion and not the contour of the sides.
The other problem is that attaching a concial flare (say a "cheerleader's megaphone of the proper angle) will not make a good horn since there would be a sharp discountinuity in the flare (contour) at the throat where it meets the driver. Consequently, conical horns will have some secret recipe that transitions the flare betwen the conical portion and the throat/driver. The designer will (or may have) also have some secret recipe for transitioning the end of the conical section to the mouth. This is usually some rounded over geometry at the exit of the mouth. Without this last feature, the horn will do poorly at low freqeuncies (since horns are usually undersized for practical reasons) and the horn will have mouth reflections (especially at lower freqeuncies). In sum, a "conical horn" may deviate at the throat and mouth by design.
Now before folks beat up on me for narrowly defining the term "conical", check Olson's text book or Berenek's. The disinction does matter, not in terms of directivity, but terms of loading/efficiency
Good luck on your project and I am curious how it comes out and how you solve the various problems that always seem to creep up.