Horn speakers , high efficiency but not “shouty”

hORNS by Autotek out of Poland are outstanding as well, and not shouty in the least.  I have the Symphony model @ 95db efficiency- have run it with 211 SET/Aries-Cerat Incito S preamp; and Grandinote Shinai 37-watt pure class A solid state integrated with equal success.  The Beryllium compression horn driver is super smooth yet revealing, and as mentioned above, plays so well with a variety of good amplification- HIGHLY recommend you put this brand on your radar screen.

I have also been to Charney Audio in NJ a few years ago- the big Concerto speakers were quite good, however given the ultra-revealing nature, SET was mandatory to get the best out of it.  Brian had an amazing custom Audio Note type 300B setup; preamp; and dac- and he built everything.  His woodworking and metal shop in the basement are incredible as well- he is a true artisan and super nice guy as well.  He even built the battery power supply and modded my excellent 47 labs Flatfish cd transport.

From my personal experience I can only confirm that Lowthers are shouty.
Nevertheless, SET amp tames that down to acceptable levels. I used 15 Ohm Lowther DX2 in home-made Fidelio enclosures for quite some time before I wanted a change, and I still hesitate to let them go as they were very good at some things. Shouty, yes, even with 300B SET. They were basically useless with solid state, that includes Pass Aleph 4. My room is bigger (around 20’ by 23’ with large openings), with solid state amps there was no bass.

@jjss49 --

i have been looking for 30 years, haven't found em yet - let me know when you do ok?

Have you been trying to deliberately avoid horns these last 3 decades, or.. 

@asctim --

I think we need a technical description of "shouty." A lot of sounds in nature could be described as shouty and a lot of speakers can't produce them with the lifelike intensity that a horn speaker can. Maybe it's the inability to shout regardless of source material that some people really want. A softer, dimmer, more pastel presentation can be easier on the ear while still providing a highly detailed insight into the music.  

Exactly - well put. The vivid immediacy, dynamics and effortless presence of live music has been largely filtered out with non-horn loaded, typical audiophile speakers for a, in your words "softer, dimmer, more pastel presentation .." In other words the reference in home audio reproduction is less of a live event than one constituted by audiophilia itself.

Good horns, and there are quite a few of them, don't shout to my ears, but their characteristics as horns with a narrower, more controlled directivity pattern and thereby more of the sound being emitted towards the listener directly vs. reflected, as well as them using high efficiency compression drivers, may come across as more direct, dense and visceral. The perhaps most relaxed sounding horns I've heard are large JMLC iterations. 

@kevinhughes77 --

Not sure how sensitive you need but the JBL 4367 at 94db is not shouty at all to my ear. Just move from the Heresy IV which was also very easy to live with but the JBL takes it to another level. Maybe too revealing at times but I’ll take an honest speaker I can tune with amps and sources.

I wouldn't call the JBL 4367's shouty either, but I did find they had a rather evenly distributed, slightly mode-y character to their waveguide sound (my guess is waveguide material resonances more than the profile itself), which surprised me given the general praise here. I find they are praiseworthy speakers in many respects, but they balance slightly on the über vivid/agile/punchy side of neutral - to my ears/taste, at least - making them a bit too much of a "hot rod" over time. Classical music, strings in particular, felt less than natural to me. Excellent monitors, no doubt (and which they natively are, anyway), very insightful, and a highly entertaining and coherent speaker, except for some excessive warmth in the lower to central bass. 

Not well known but fantastically musical: Duevel of Germany. I have owned Bella Lunas for the last twenty years and I haven’t heard anything in that time making me want to replace them

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