High Quality Horn Loudspeaker Systems

by Björn Kolbrek and Thomas Dunker

This superb hardback book is widely considered to be the “bible” in loudspeaker horn theory and design.

The book is A4,
1070 pages,
Removable cover,
Silk bookmark
and it comes in at a solid 3.34kg.

How do I design a Loudspeaker horn?
What is the best horn speaker design?
How do horn loudspeakers work?

In 1919, Arthur Gordon Webster published his seminal paper on horn theory, which gave impetus to a large body of research work. Since then, many papers, patents and book chapters have been published on the topic, but during the century that has since elapsed, no book has been published that exclusively covers the subject of horns. Until now.

Fuelled by a desire to gain a deeper understanding of the theory behind horns and horn loudspeakers, Bjorn Kolbrek and Thomas Dunker spent several years researching the subject. They delved through old books and papers, spending days in the basements of university libraries and even the archives of AT&T. They built test equipment, made measurements, wrote simulation software. In a bid for completeness, Bjorn took up studies at the University of Trondheim, eventually being awarded a Ph.D. for developments to the mode matching method for horn loudspeaker simulation

Björn Kolbrek Ph.D, doctored at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, with his dissertation “Extensions to the Mode Matching Method for Horn Loudspeaker Simulation” in 2016.

Originally Bjorn was an R&D engineer working on electronic control systems for marine machinery in a Norwegian company, however from his childhood he dreamed about building his own radar, got into ham radio and tube electronics.

Björn’s interest in horn speakers happend in the late 1990s and has led to him to understand and develop the mathematics and the heaviest theory behind the art of horn design. He has also worked on horn simulation software development for at least as long as we have collaborated on horn speaker research.
Bjørn went professional in horn speaker design and theory as he was practically employed by Celestion in the UK before finally doctoring at the NTNU.

Thomas Dunker is an loudspeaker and audio enthusiast and was well known for managing and contributing to a horn speaker website in the mid 1990s. The website was unfortunately a comparatively short lived, however Thomas’s interest in horn speakers never waned, and his experiments and research continueas life’s twists and turns permitt.

Thomas is a passionate audio experimenter and DIY’er and although has remained an “amateur” in the true sense of the word he has nether the less studied the subject of horn speakers for more than 25 years on and off.
The history writing in the book has been Thomas’s main contribution to the manuscripts in terms of text with Bjørn contributing enormously to the historical aspects.