Why not horns?

Johnk, Looking at your system it raises an interesting question, what is a horn loudspeaker? In my mind you have a hybrid system that uses some principles of true horn design with more conventional non-horn characteristics, like the bass module and the super tweeter. Not that there's anything wrong with that. BTW, what's the tweeter. Is there a horn in that box?

To be a true horn IMHO the horn must be long enough to actually load the driver. Having a flared opening does not make it a horn. An example is what Avantgarde calls a Bass horn. It is really a woofer with a flared opening. The length of the flare is way too short to have much impact on the driver. Another hybrid would be a Lowther in folded horn cabinet where the vast majority of the frequencies are produced directly from the driver and just the bass comes from the folded horn.

Wonder how many who dismiss horns have never really heard a true horn?

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Its a good question.

Also lots of good answers that seem to help substantiate why horn loaded designs are a distinct minority.

Personally, I think I would like the sound of a good, pure horn design set up correctly, but I doubt it is something that I will ever have the incentive or motivation to pursue.

In general, I am not a fan of mixing distinctly different sounding driver designs into a speaker system.

My ideal driver would be a robust, high efficiency, full range, field coil based Walsh driver, but no such thing exists today TTBOMK, and if it ever does, it will probably be quite expensive and out of my realm.

Take some time to examine this design.

http://www.techfx.us/web/insubnia/Exodus%20Anarchy%2025hz%20TH.pdf

It is said to provide horn bass down to 25 Hz. in room. I would suppose that means upward extension to about 125 Hz. These are small enough and cheap enough to build for many of us to consider using them in a distributed bass arrangement. I've been thinking about it and wondering about how it sounds. Anybody here able to answer that question?

Horns have unexploited potential. Lets get busy harvesting their potential. Most other options seem to have reached their limits long ago

Horns are great. They are the BEST solution for many applications.

However, you cannot dismiss other options so summarily. You are generalizing too much.

A good horn in the right setup can be the optimal solution, just as a conventional dynamic driver can be optimal in another situation.

For example: What about the midrange. Most horn designs crossover around 800 to 1000 Hz. Many people believe this is not a good region to have a crossover, as it is right bang square center in the sweetspot of all music.

All designs involve trade offs. Horns have some extremely useful characteristics for live audio and stadium audio. In fact they are probably the best #1 choice in most large venue live applications - as the narrow dispersion allows better control of the sound field so each listener gets an optimal experience. Line arrays are another powerful tool for live venues. However, these advantages do not always translate to making these designs the #1 choice in the home or in a studio.

Horses for courses.

Shadorne, Classic Audio Loudspeakers makes a horn that crosses over at 250Hz, owing to the kapton surrounds on the beryllium-domed drivers. The tweeter rolls in at 12KHz.

Only a few years ago, he used a TAD maple-machined horn, but it turned out to have an artifact (even with the TAD drivers) due to an error in the throat design. He had Bruce Edgar design a new horn, and no more artifact. The new horn is also a maple machined design.

This is what I mean by proper setup- a properly-designed horn with a a decent driver. Many of the horn systems I have heard lack these two elements, and so while being loud, are not particularly pleasant nor are they accurate. Once this proper setup is achieved, actually setting up the speaker in a room is quite easy, although I have to say that some of the larger rooms I've used in the last few years at shows have been problematic due to reverb in the room. But that is not really a speaker problem- that's just a room treatment issue.

The main issue that I have run into with horns is that they do poorly in a near-field situation. You have to have about 8-10 feet to make them work, so that you get proper correct blend between drivers. If you are that close to The Classic Audio speakers, you have to be sitting down or the tweeter output is missing. This works OK for me at home, despite a slightly smaller than average room, as my listening chair is at about 11 feet. Further back, in the dining room, I can be standing or seated and it makes no difference.

John Wolfe does wind his own field coils.