Hindsight after 45 years


   Forty-five years as an audiophile chasing a state of audio reproduction, commonly referred to as audio nirvana, where music sounds indistinguishable from a live performance. 
   Forty-five years of being a student and practitioner of all things audiophillia.

   Forty-five years of careful research and implementation.

   Forty-years trying to achieve maximum fidelity, detail, and emotional impact.

   Forty-five years of purchasing and rotating some really nice well regarded high fidelity equipment.

   In hindsight, I wish I had taken a different path. I wish I had gone the pro audio route.

   I live in Nashville; Music City. Where on any given day there are several different live performances within one city block and more all over the city. This is my reference.

   Being a gear junky, I pay attention. Never have I seen a single piece of hifi used on stage. I see guitar amps, pa speakers, and eq’s.

   Even bars and clubs play recorded music on pro audio equipment into large house speakers and the energy is fantastic even at lower volumes. 
   I’m not saying pro audio is better than hifi, there are many factors. It’s all subjective, relative, and dependent upon individual’s preferences and expectations. 
   Pro audio has come a long way in the last forty-five years, which may be why I didn’t find it practical for me years ago.

   I’m just saying, if I were to start over now, I would go pro audio.

   

audiodelusion

The gist of all this and in reference to OP's post is that horns are hard to beat if you are looking for a more "live" musical experience. Probably why Klipsch has such a core of devoted followers. 

Havingfun123.  Your experience mirrors mine.  2 different types of equipment designed to be used in different ways.  My stepfather was a professional musician and I remember him setting up some of his performance gear at home.  Roland and Yamaha keyboards, Peavy amps and Leslies etc.  It sounded live because it was but it didn’t cut it for listening to recorded music including his.  The noise floor was too much as you noted.  I’m sure my best home setup wouldn’t have swung if he tried using it on stage.  Live music is great in a hall and so are live recordings or studio tracks in a well treated listening room.  The gear isn’t interchangeable in my experience.  

It is not necessarily restricted to horns/compression drivers...Different types of designs exist in the pro sphere (concentrics, line arrays, etc).

High sensitivity is largely a free lunch, detail and harmonics became easier to perceive, not to mention the unlimited dynamics, slam, sound power, etc from that class of speakers. Even the vintage klipsches with poor execution had such a following because some of the positive attributes overshadowed the shortcomings, w.r.t the "live" sound pursuit.  Japanese audiophiles, for example, seem to run almost exclusively with that class of speaker.

The 86db li’l oinkydoinky bookshelf speaker guys have steep hills to climb before they got anywhere.

On a related note, there are lots of homes (at least in the midwest, where i’m at) with rooms larger than or the same size of smaller venues, bars whatever, i.e., dudes set up in large semi finished house basement spaces in my metro area. Take a look at the hometheater forums, for example, guys sitting around with arrays of huge JTR horns..

It is not exactly a black or white with venue size these days.

Again, the weak link in the pro sphere is the high powered class D sht (the crown barf)....the R2R comeback,  higher fidelity class A/AB with some modest watts, etc paired to that class of speaker combines the best of both worlds.

The gist of all this and in reference to OP’s post is that horns are hard to beat if you are looking for a more "live" musical experience. Probably why Klipsch has such a core of devoted followers. 

Here are some thoughts from an ’infamous’ speaker designer & musician on this live music disconnect  topic...

WAF & lifestyle crap killed the mojo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PIE1znQv2U&t=7s