Calling all Horn lovers

The worst cone speakers are horrible. There are cones that seem like they will loosen my fillings in my teeth. The worst panel speakers are horrible. The worst horn speakers are horrible Generalizations are nearly useless.

But the best horn speakers are sublime. Horns are capable of a wonderful combination of sweetness, ease, coherency, power, dynamics. You should try to find some great horns to listen to.

Now, in my "top 5 speakers ever" list is a wonderful dynamic speaker. Unfortunately, it is very inefficient to drive. But my point is that generalizations are flawed.

Now, for MY money, considering the above listed attributes of horns, plus typically good efficiency, more of my favorite speakers are indeed horns, so I would suggest listing to some.

Something I can categorically state is that the prejudice against horns in the Western press and, as a result, Western audiophile circles, is ridiculous and completely misleading.

Seek some out. Go to some shows. Then YOU tell US.

Larry, WRONG! The distortions do not have to be there, they are very avoidable with good throat design, good phase plug design, and good horn design in both shape and materials. It is not "characteristic" in general, it is characteristic of flawed design.

And flawed design is not why horns are often very dynamic. That comes from very low excursion, resultant great linearity, and the fact that the horn is an acoustic transformer, matching the impedance of the driver and the air.

I wish I could say the number of folks who have heard horns in my place and said "that's the most sweet gentle, subtle, yet most powerful system I've heard".

Atma, some of that sound has to do with poor horn design. I have had them, and your amp does not fix poor horn/throat/phase plug design, no more than they fix poor cone speakers or poor electrostatics. Like stupid, for which there is no cure, poor driver design has no cure.

Mr. Decibel, after they listen from 12 feet away from my horns I have visitors listen from 4 feet away. They marvel at the pinpoint imaging at 4 feet, the immediacy of the sound, the coherence, and the lack of harshness, brightness, or any of the things most folks would expect to hear.

I know studio guys who have done this with Tannoys for years.

So, for really well done horns, I disagree with your statement. Some of my horn speakers are better at listening position flexibility, especially going very close (ridiculously close relative to the size of the speakers) than any of my dynamic (cone) speakers.

No time to respond now, I have to handle some real business things. But I will say that Sal, you wrote a nice respectful post for someone who is no doubt annoyed at me. I like that restraint and maturity.

I would have you over to hear some horns that do not bite, honk, shout, spit, or hurt, even with high powered solid state. Send me a pm about what part of the country you are in (if in USA at all).

There are many products that are a bag of mixed compromises to come out with a semblance of neutrality. These "band-aid" products never can be as good as a design that does not use matching colorations to cover up errors (or compromises) in design, as each resonance or distorion destroys detail which can never be recovered. Only the tonal balance can be brought to a more realistic balance, the lost transparency and detail is lost forever.

This is the type of product an above poster is referring to when he says "Part of the art behind a successful horn is incorporating its colorations in a way that is consonant with the music rather than at odds with it."

He should have said "part of the art behind salvaging a flawed design and making it sound OK is .......at odds with it."

There are horns whose diaphragms are under control, whose throat design is good, whose phase plug really works with the design, and whose horn is correct for the frequency range and is non-resonant. These designs measure very low in distortion and need no band-aids such as the poster describes.

So many posts like that are garage pontification by guys who are not designers, who do not know the physics and math, who don't design high performance products, who don't have a multi-decade background of cause/effect experience by testing their own designs as well as those of others to go with their physics or engineering background, yet write as if they do know it all. And their posted information is very misleading, although their original intent may be good.

Proper horn drivers can be exceedingly low in distortion, and as a result sound sweet, smooth, yet highly detailed and dynamic. Playing around with some putty on Klipsches and making category-wide statements proves nothing. It's merely anecdotal at best, pertaining to a limited number of speakers that are far from state of the art.

Get a good listen to some really well done TAD systems, Tannoy studio monitors, JBL Everests, JBL 1400, Classic Audio Reproduction, Magico horns and you'll hear a wide variety of sound whose traits don't conform to the type of horn colorations that a couple of posters are saying are a fundamental trait of the driver type. These claims are not true. Note that Klipsch is not on the list. I don't want to offend Klipsch lovers, they do have their strengths. And the mix/match game might be able to achieve a nice sound. But most folks' gut feel about horns comes from experience with Klipsch or Avant Garde being driven by solid state, or from lousy, over-driven horn PA systems.

I have no monetary connection with horns, I don't sell them, I own some very expensive non-horn speakers, my list of 5 best speakers on the market include some non-horn designs.

Rather, I'm interested in super high end reproduction from any type speaker, and getting good information out there.

Close listening requires really coherent speakers. The greater distances are forgiving of not so well matched drivers, for obvious geometrical reasons. I remember hearing VMPS, a giant box of differing drivers, sound pretty coherent from over 50 feet. 12 feet? Forget it.

Very close listening requires me to change toe in a bit, that's all. It's not just my ears, most listeners in my room are forced to go way up close, and all are equally surprised how great it works. It's like being in front of the stage, the singer 4 feet away, and very, very immediate, yet natural sound.

A low distortion set of components and very coherent speakers are the only requisites. I've done it equally well in small rooms, in some ways it is easier to get good sound in small rooms, the room reflections enter the picture less.

Many studio monitors are capable of this, even tough audiophiles often look down at the monitors, falsely thinking these guys don't know good sound because they don't see the big audiophile names, and assuming that the audiophile brands are the best speakers in the world. In reality, many studio guys laugh at audiophile equipment. The good studio guys hear much more live music than the vast majority of audiophiles, they tend to be very confident in their monitor choices, and very often for good reason.