Shinjitsu Audio Horn 2+2 Engine review

TL;DR version: Shinjitsu Audio Horn 2+2s are not plug and play (as advertised) with all low frequency sections. Based on my experience trying to blend them with two different woofer cabinet setups, cannot recommend them.

Back in May 2025 I purchased a pair of Shinjitsu Audio Horn 2+2 for $1399 shipped to my door. The only question the vendor asked was what woofers I planned to use with the horns. I shared that a JBL 127H-1 woofer in a 1.43 ft3 ported cabinet would be used and they like to run crossed over at 1800 Hz (prototype Ewaves). These woofers sounded great using an active crossover and paired with a different compression BMS driver/JBL waveguide combo. I just wanted to eliminate the need for an active crossover and bi-amp setup.

Upon receiving the Horn 2+2s, hooked them up to the JBL woofer bass cabinets and started listening. Using a familiar test track playlist, the music was immediately fatiguing. The woofers sounded “shouty” to my ears.

Pulled out the laptop and UMIK-1 and ran some REW sweeps. The sweeps revealed the woofer was playing up to nearly 3000 Hz before attenuating. Shared this with Shinjitsu Audio and the response was I needed to add a baffle step compensator. Really? These 2+2 horns are advertised as basically plug and play.

Fast forward to September 2025. Pulled a pair of Tyler Acoustics bass cabinets out of storage that use an Aurum Cantus AC250 MKII woofer. Hooked these up to the 2+2s. Started playing the same very familiar test track playlist. The woofers immediately started distorting at any volume level near normal, ~80dB.

To make sure it wasn’t a woofer issue, pulled out the active crossover, two identical amps and bi-amped the 2+2/woofer combo, bypassing the 2+2 crossover completely. Volume balanced the low and high frequency sections using an SPL meter. Set the active crossover to ~1800 Hz. Had to also do a little DSP using Roon to flatten the frequency response. This set up sounded fine. So, no woofer issues.

Informed the Shinjitsu Audio of this result and the response was a Zobel network was probably needed on the woofer to tame the impedance curve. Asked for guidance on the Zobel component values and was sent the name of a web site, speakergenerator.com, that is not operational. That is the extent of the help received.

In fairness, back in May Shinjitsu Audio did offer a full refund or to send the inductors needed to fix the woofer section of the 2+2 crossover. I opted for the inductors and said would install them myself. No new inductors were ever shipped and the value of the required inductor was never shared. Wanted to make these 2+2 horns work. That is the story so far. Not a good one.

The Horn 2+2 is no longer offer for sale. A new, improved “Pro” version is now for sale. Based on this experience, cannot recommend the Shinjitsu Audio Horn 2+2.

Note: pictures copied from a for sale ad (not mine) since the product is no longer shown on the vendors web site.
 

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Update 1

Today I put the 2+2 tweeter circuit back in the signal path and bypassed the active crossover for the highs. Volume balanced the high frequencies to the low frequencies with a SPL meter. Then ran RTA and fine tuned the low frequency section gain. Ended up with the active crossover set 0dB gain and crossover frequency at 1600 Hz.

Played my test track playlist. Sounds amazing.

Now if I can just get the LF section of the 2+2 crossover to yield a 1600 Hz transition on the woofer. Currently installed capacitor is 8.2uF and inductor is probably 1.0 mH (don't have a way to measure mH, but size-wise matches one I have on-hand that is 1 mH.). Crossover calculator am using say a 2nd order Linkwitz-Riley low pass filter should use a 6.2uF cap and 1.59 mH coil. Will see if I have components near these values on-hand.
 
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Welcome to the Haven! I’m zero help with your crossover issues but there are many here who might. I will say there’s so much progress (read cheap) in technology for peanuts to drive multi-amp speaker systems.

You’ve got great gear. I’m jealous. Good luck!
 
Welcome to the Haven! I’m zero help with your crossover issues but there are many here who might. I will say there’s so much progress (read cheap) in technology for peanuts to drive multi-amp speaker systems.

You’ve got great gear. I’m jealous. Good luck!
Yep, I'm using a Behringer CX3400 active crossover for troubleshooting. They cost $100 today and probably about the same way back in 2008 when this one was purchased. The goal with this setup is to eliminate the need for an active crossover and bi-amp arrangement. Fingers crossed...........
 
Today was able to get some semblance of decent sound from the Shinjitsu Audio Horn 2+2 Engines and the Aurum Cantus bass cabinets. To get the crossover to roll off to the woofer at a lower Hz had to double to LF inductor from 1.0 mH to 2.0 mH. Also had to pad the tweeter volume down further by changing out an Lpad resistor from 1 ohm to 0.5 ohm. Do they sound great now? Not really, can still hear some slight distortion in the midrange, but much improved from what it was, which was unlistenable in stock form. Had to figure all this out on my own, vendor was no help.
 
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Update 2

After installing the 2.0 mH inductor on the woofer circuit and lowering the crossover point. Decided to swap the 2+2 Horn Engines to the eWave prototype JBL bass cabinets. Had to change the Lpad resistor from 0.5 ohm back to 1.0 ohm to increase the volume of the high frequency section. The speakers are sounding much better now. The high sensitivity horn works better with the 6 dB more sensitive JBL woofers.

IMG_0067.webp
 
I'm considering purchasing the Shinjitsu Horn X2 PRO to experiment with Large Advents and/or a pair of ADS L520s.
Based on your experience, what would you suggest?
Thanks!

M
 
I'm considering purchasing the Shinjitsu Horn X2 PRO to experiment with Large Advents and/or a pair of ADS L520s.
Based on your experience, what would you suggest?
Thanks!

M
Suggest you make sure the woofers are high enough sensitivity to mate well with the high sensitivity Shinjitsu horns. Hopefully Morris will be able to help you with that decision.
 
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