The Gimbal Horn is Specimen’s newest horn speaker. This speaker will be mounted on the ceiling and suspended using a yoke so that it can ‘gimbal’ (or rotate up and down and side to side). It seemed to me that the space near the ceiling is underutilized real estate in many architectural interiors. The Specimen Gimbal horn will bring beauty and utility to a part of the room that is often overlooked.
This horn speaker is front loaded and therefore will project in a more direct way than the more spacial sound stage of our Specimen rear-loaded horns like the Little Horn Speakers and Liederhorns. This makes these Gimbal Horn Speakers aptly suited to front of house or PA applications.
The horn will be mounted to an aluminum yoke that suspends the cylindrical compression chamber from the ceiling. The horn can be positioned at any angle or rotated to suit the application of the room. We decided to utilize the wonderful and recently rejuvenated foundry facility at the Memphis Metals Museum. Located right on the Mississippi river bluff, it is the perfect setting for creating something using the age old technology of sand casting.
After making a wooden pattern to mount on either side of a backing board, runners and gates are added to allow the metal to flow and shrink. Sand is then packed into both sides of a two-part flask to prepare the mold for casting. Metal is then melted in a crucible inside a furnace and poured into the mold. Voila! Beautiful aluminum yokes for the newest Specimen Horns.
Below are some photos taken while I was at the Foundry casting the first yokes. Thanks to Doug Barton and Holly Fisher and everyone at the Metals Museum for all their help taking on this special project.
Below is a slideshow of photos taken during the building process. Check our my other Blog posts for more information and photos about this newest Specimen.
Gimbal Audio Horn Speakers taking shape, part 2
Gimbal Audio Horn Speakers taking shape, part 3
