Why not horns?

I feel that comments from the 60s 70s are still passed about as facts by many. Audiophiles have been told for decades that horns where not hi fidelity. Many audio reviewers from the past where anti horn. And much of there bias has been passed about as fact today. Note the all horns honk comments etc this BS is still passed about as a fact even in your thread. Getting over this wrongful bad press and bias. Much the result of AS designs and stereo coming out into the market. Many owned a horn speaker in a mono system,now with stereo and these new AS designs about they where told by the press and audio shops that horns are old fashioned and dated sounding. Since they could replace the 1 large horn with 2 smaller speakers many did so and denounced horns. But this is funny to me since the new AS designs from the late 50s 60s are not so collectible [AR Advents etc] but the old horns they shit canned sure are. Maybe that should say something about the performance of horns that even the old designs are relevant today. And some have values approaching that of new sports cars. Do not think the ARs that replaced the horns are worth more than a few $100 today. Seems this has gone on today with the slim tower these are cheap to build ship store pack etc very good at profits. But sound is so so from most such designs. But still the poorer performing tower is hyped as the best design for audiophile use. For HT we where told big speakers where not needed that small cubes suffice and are higher performing and many still believe this as fact. In our hobby most fall for hype BS Bias etc. Never really investigating for themselves. Easier to pass about others opinion and bias as your own and much easier too no thinking or work involved.

O.K. Macrojack, I don't like horns because to my sensibilities the are honky, screechy, shouty, have a cupped coloration, are too big, can be so sensitive that they amplify every minutia of noise and distortion, are ugly, require a ridiculous amount of of space, get in the way of themselves in such a manner that time aligning them is next to impossible without the added expense of digital manipulation, image poorly, and due to the the exra needed labor to manufacture, the huge size, unusual shape and extra weight cost more than competing designs. IMHO, all told, horns offer an ugly sound for a very high price.

I offer my apologies for wandering off topic and mentioning other brands of speakers that don't offer horns. In my defense it was in response to other contributors that brought up the fact that current technology allows horns to now be time and phase coherent, something that was previously next to impossible to do. I applaud the effort. Another poster suggested that only one other very different speaker technology was capable of that. The inference was that horns are no worse than most in that regard. I thought it appropriate to point out that various other speaker designs offer that capability. Some of us find that important.

Unsound, I appreciate your last comment. It is where I was for many years, and to this day (and I expect for years to come) I still run into horn designs that are guilty of everything you mention in your first paragraph. When horns suck, they really suck. But like any technology, its all in the execution, and when you encounter good horns, they will lack most of the objections you have except size and maybe what it means to be ugly.

A special point with regards to

so sensitive that they amplify every minutia of noise and distortion

Really, every speaker must play every minutia of noise and distortion to be a good speaker, but the noise/distortion floor of electronics is definitely an issue with horns. When we first encountered customers with horns, I think we failed pretty badly on this point because our reference speakers at the time were 89 db. This forced us to really figure out how to get our noise and low level distortion floors down with the end result that we now build a much better product. That revealing nature is thus a boon to progress, but a bane if you have problems in the electronics.

Well, alrighty then. Would anyone like a biscuit with their tea? I found the weather a little disagreeable this morning.

Unsound please name the horns you've owned heard etc that are honky, screechy, shouty, have a cupped coloration