Change to Horns or stay Dynamic

Why the talk of stadiums and pro sound? Who cares?

Sorry if I confused everyone. I was just trying to explain that long throw horns with narrow dispersion tend to be used to direct coverage over a small narrow area and work extremely well in stadiums where you have multiple sets of speakers cover section of the crowd just like "spotlights". I guess it was not clear but this "spotlight" feature which is ideal in stadium and hall applications are generally more diffuclt to set up in a room.The "long and short" of it is that shorter wider dispersion horns are what I would tend to focus on for domestic settings (in the mid range and treble of course).

Sorry for a late response, I have been away from my computer. I have tried Lowthers on M.King transmision line, on Open Baffle and on Front horns, really the best setup for lowthers is front horns they sound very sweet (unlike to how they sound on boxes), even on front horns that load down to 170 hz they dont really go that low, on OB I was cutting them a 100 hz and they were having trouble with that...I do believe Lowther to be the most Dynamic dynamic speaker...lets rephrase that, the most dynamic cone speaker...It gets totally killed by compression drivers, I compared head to head Lowther DX3 and Altec 906 and the difference was night and day (plus I hate whizzers)
For a limited range you can even find more dynamic cone drivers than lowthers (Beyma, 18sound) but for a longer range Lowthers are indeed very good, the thing is that they step on Compression driver territory (500-800 hz) and they have nothing to do there in comparison!
I am actually using a Beyma 1" driver from 1.2khz instead of the Altec 906 I had (I may be changing these soon for either Radian or Beyma 750) I have a 170hz Exp horn with an 18sound driver that goes lower than the Lowthers did and have a fuller tone.
I do have a Supertweeter from 6khz up, the Compression Driver was having trouble on complicated symphonic passages going all the way up.

I love huge Symphonic music I used to have a pass for the local Theater but traffic jams have kept me starving for music. On the best dynamic system I listened to I never could get a full orchestra to play correctly and so I lost interest on reproduced Classical music, once I got into front loaded horns and got a system that could play Classical music properly I almost only listen to it when doing critical listening, for gatherings or parties I play everything.
Once you can listen to the violins on the left, Violas on the center-right and cellos on the right, trumpets on the right mainly and Precussion on the back left you know it is getting there, Last night I was playing Borodins Plovtsian Dances and when the percussions came in (minute 3:10 Antal Dorati version) I jumped off my seat!

Not to say Girl with guitar music doesnt sound good, it sounds wondefully deatiled dynamic and present, but once you have the luxury of a full orchestra playing just for you, its hard to pick something else!

JohnK, thanks for correcting me. I know that you are very much more experienced with horns and I certainly haven't experimented with all configurations, including my own Edgarhorns. I have heard of folks with the same horn system as I use that listen near field. Myself, I sit about 12 feet away.

Anyway, I give a big thumbs up to horns!

There is a pair of KCS Oris horn's for sale here on Audiogon.
I almost bought them, but they are blue and could not convince 'her highness' that they go with an antique red looking sofa!
I bet they sound Incredible. For what you are getting for the price you are getting them, they could be such a bargain. I seriously doubt you could buy a better pair of speakers for the money.These sort of speakers are hard to shift secondhand. Don't know why personally. Maybe a bit big and ungainly, but surely for sound quality alone they are worth their weight and size, not mention the very reasonable price.IMHO

Dgad,
You mentioned that you recently heard the Cessaro "Beta" horns.
Can you tell me a little about their strengths and weaknesses?
I thought that the Betas were only available in Germany and Asia. Did you hear them here in North America?
I'm told that they are great speakers but that the TAD drivers can sound a little "hi-fi-ish."