seeking ‘HORN’ ideas apart from Klipshc Lascalla


hello all!

Horns, and just now, the Klipsch Lascalla interests me and as a new purchased items, ala, $12K MSRP, are doable.

to gain a wider perspective what other avenues, choices, or options in competing brands could be suggested as alternative selections in the $8K to $15K new or used arena?

i’m aware adding sub (s) is a likely necessity with the Lascallas, and possibly many other such speakers..

power is up in the air and nothing yet is set to stone, but any speaker candidates will be used with tube or SS amps. Tubes predominately of course. albeit, not necessarily SET Flea wattage amps, e.g., 2a3, 300B, etc., though I’d not wish to rule out these types as a later down the road application .

I’ve heard only at shows sevewral brands and have not been thrilled by Avante gard Duos or uno’s especialy.

I have enjoyed immensely the Classic audio T1s but am having issues justifying their near $40K entry fee.

overall, i do enjoy the idea of the sheer impact and presence horns produce but feel from my brief listening experiences in show venues imaging often lacked yet contributed this attribute to room conditions and or the LP itself being perhaps too close.

truth be told, even cone speakers are not totally off the table as considerations, as some ‘hybrid’ bass powered systems appear to be quite easily driven;.

predominately, my main caveats here are size of units and the room dims. they will be set.

for a bit , room size will be 13.5ft x 21ft x 8.5ft and using the short wall.

albeit the current room dims will increase, it is not yet known to what extent, though the desire is to land in a larger, but not huge dedicated listening room. likely a tad wider one in any event

secondly, given present room dims, it seems to me placing speakers in there which are taller than about 4ft or so, is going to be excessive…. ?

lastly, imaging is usually a pet peve of mine. the better the imaging the more involved the presentation seems to be IMO. certainly imaging is not the whole shooting match and orgainics, speed, leading edge def, decay, lower register deliniation, and presence all play quite significant roles.

as I’m at the onset of putting together this outfit any suggestions are definitely appreciated in terms of speaker ideas other than the Lascalla per se.

alas, DIY, or kit options are off the table as assenbly is no longer something I’m comfortable doing..

as for power, consider what ever amps are involved, I’d probagbly use what ever quality amps whose outputs are 25wpc or greater, be it one chassis or two. the plan is to acquire more than one sort of power amp in topology and or output along the way.

huge thanks, .
blindjim

Showing 2 responses by richopp

Why?  Horns distort sound.  They are for poles at football stadiums, not serious audio systems.

Try an A/B with a planer and see what you think on opera arias or jazz or pop music where the singer actually has talent and has taken singing lessons and has a recording engineer who knows how to record a voice.  (This does not seem to be a widely shared talent these days, unfortunately.)

Cheers!
@ossie62 Thank you for your comment. Rather than a neophyte, I am a former shop owner who listened to horns and every other type of speaker available, including electrostatics of every manufacturer, planers, boxes, and even some hybrid designs of all of these reproduction formats in my shop for LONG periods of time with many different pieces of electronic gear. Now, that was a while ago, but physics do not change much over the years, especially those involved in playback of recorded music.

THEN, when we set up instruments in the shop and played them to hear the differences between live music and recordings, we learned even more.

Finally, one of my many bands that I played in recorded in a studio, and THAT was a learning experience if I ever had one in this field.

Recording engineers and the equipment they use have a lot to do with the sound you get on playback. Obviously, the room you listen in has a significant influence on the quality of your listening as well.

What we found was that even though horns were loud, they clearly distorted human voices and SOME instruments when listened to with well-recorded music--we liked the Lincoln Mayorga direct-to-disc vinyl in those days, which have some issues, but were better than 99% of what was out there.

If you put the two side-by-side and listen to a variety of music genres with pretty good equipment, you will probably discover what we did. Planers are not perfect, but they DO reproduce what you feed them as accurately as a reproduction device can. A live violin or female voice will be helpful as well in hearing the differences if you can arrange that like we did.

Having typed that, some people LIKE the horn sound, and more power to them. We sold you what YOU liked and put the money in the bank; it is called business,

But after years of listening and playing and going to live concerts of every genre in many venues, we found that the most accurate and pleasing reproduction for long-term listening was had through planers, with all their "faults" that you point out and I disagree with, but that is what makes audio so much fun!

Cheers!