Are Horn Speakers good or bad or simply a complete joke?

I dont think anyone has as yet on this forum seriusly faulted horns in general.

Early on in my audio quest, I had Klipschorns, but I had a hole in the center. I bought Infnity ServoStatics which only gave me two windows to the recording studio. After trying every form of drivers, I heard the movie, the Last of the Mohicans on Altec VOTs. The amps were tube PP amps, but I was once again hooked by the horns' ability to have the pace and impact of sound, not just music.

Like others I think horns in general have two problems: needing many drivers to cover the full range, resulting in poorly integrated sound and honky or ringing horns. When I bought the Beauhorns, I got neither. The single driver was well integrated over the range that it could cover, and the box was deliberately resonant. The only problem was the bass was deficient as was the top end. The top end was easily dealt with using the Muratas, but there are no decent subwoofers to mate with horn drivers. Also the Lowthers are not compression drivers, which I find to be quicker.

I now have the Acapella LaCampanellas which are well integrated and almost as quick as the Beauhorns. They lack the plasma tweeter, but it always has stood out for me as better than the rest of the system. I once considered buying a full blown Goto compression driver system with 5 horns, but not only the expense but the question of integrating 5 horns deterred me.

In short I have a compromise speaker system and think I have no alternative.

That I have upgraded to crossovers, binding post, and internal speaker wire. These sounded OK before the upgrade but now sound really nice with most gear, very nice on strings, vocal, and horns.

Steve.

I suggest anyone curious about horns find an opportunity to hear PROPERLY setup Edgarhorn Titans w/ Seismic sub. If you can get by having 2.5 refrigerators siting in your listening room, they are devoid of any RINGING(wooden horns) whatsoever and dynamic as all getout. Startling dynmaics, to tell the truth. There is an effortless quality to presentation that eases sound into your ears. No edge, honk, or screech at all.

I have never, ever, heard any horn setup like Edgar's (except ESO's DIY 4-way horn rig).

Although, i personally prefer the coherence of high-eff single-drivers to multi-way horn setups. That's a personal preference, not performance related.

As they say, there something for everyone out there.

As the Brits say, different horses for different courses. Based on my experience, a good horn speaker gets me closer to the experience of a live music event than other type of speaker. Given that speakers are typically the largest source of distortion, compression drivers and horn loading are an elegant solution because they have less mechanical movement compared to direct radiators. Planer speakers share this advantage, but aren't capable of displacing enough air to capture dynamics. As with most things, the key is in the implementation and execution.

But there are a lot of drawbacks, namely size, weight, number of drivers (at least 4 for true full-range reproduction). It would be very difficult to live with horns in a small room. I think this is the main reason for horns' lack of commercial success.

My Edgarhorns are superb all around. All speakers are compromised in some manner, but horns, if properly executed, are simply more true to live music.

Regards,
Scott