Ceramic Acoustic Horns

Sammanfattning

This thesis documents the design and fabrication of ceramic loudspeaker horns using slip casting and digital fabrication tools, and evaluates their acoustic performance against geometrically equivalent 3D printed PLA reference horns. Two horn profiles were developed and realised through a workflow combining mathematical profile generation, CAD modelling, 3D printing, and slip casting. The acoustic evaluation measured on-axis and off-axis frequency response and total harmonic distortion for all four horn configurations. Results showed that horn geometry exerted a substantially greater influence on acoustic behaviour than horn material. Differences between ceramic and PLA variants were small and largely fell within measurement uncertainty. The manufacturing process proved to be the more complex outcome of the project. Ceramics is an unforgiving material that requires significant initial experimentation before consistent results can be achieved, and this thesis documents one part of that process. What the work demonstrates is that small-scale ceramic horn manufacturing is feasible, and that the case for ceramic as a horn material rests not entirely on acoustic performance advantages but on the surface character, visual weight, and sense of permanence that the material offers.