Calling all Horn lovers

Kiddman,

As the author of the "garage pontification" you object to, I suppose I should respond. One of the drawbacks of this type of forum is that we don't really know each other. Sure, we may get some feel for how people think through their written posts, but we don't really know much about each other's background or abilities. I think that if you knew more about me and the many years that I have spent designing and building speakers and tube electronics, you might have used different language, but perhaps not. It does appear that you have greater faith in "good" engineering than I. In my experience, good engineering is a necessary starting point but what distinguishes a good from a great sounding component is the musical sensitivity of its designer. That is what I call the "art" in design.

Now I need to get back to my garage.

"In my experience, good engineering is a necessary starting point but what distinguishes a good from a great sounding component is the musical sensitivity of its designer."

Based on my experiences, I think there is a lot of truth to that when applied to speaker design in particular.

In addition to being MIT educated, the guy who designs my favorite speakers also runs an arts coalition in NYC and has indicated that he "voices" his speakers using what he hears in Carnegie Hall as a reference.

I've been to Carnegie Hall, and what I've heard there did in fact remind me a lot of what I hear at home (but on a larger scale, of course).

No time to respond now, I have to handle some real business things. But I will say that Sal, you wrote a nice respectful post for someone who is no doubt annoyed at me. I like that restraint and maturity.

I would have you over to hear some horns that do not bite, honk, shout, spit, or hurt, even with high powered solid state. Send me a pm about what part of the country you are in (if in USA at all).

Very good. It took a while but glad to see JBL mentioned. I'm off! The cabs to my new 4345's with Heartsfield mid-range and 2206 mid-bass are being built in somebody 'else's' garage.

My own fondness for waveguide-style constant-directivity horns is largely because of the radiation pattern control that format offers. I believe that the reverberant field plays a much larger role in perception than it is normally given credit for, and a good constant-directivity horn-based system offers an imo elegant way to do a good job with the reverberant field.

The dynamic contrast and liveliness, particularly at low levels, are icing on the cake to me... the radiation pattern control is the cake, because the reverberant field has a strong influence on the tonal balance of the system, and imo a good tonal balance is among the most fundamental requirements of a high-end loudspeaker. Unfortunately it is poor tonal balance (honk or harshness) that has prejudiced many people against horns, based on a listen to an inadequately-engineered system. I've been fortunate enough to win over a few avowed horn-haters, who apparently hadn't heard what the format has to offer when done with care.

Another major advantage of a good horn system is its compatibility with specialty tube amps (OTL, SET). These are the best-sounding amplifiers made, assuming a compatible loudspeaker system, and a good horn system will offer the efficiency and tube-friendly impedance curve that such amplifiers are looking for.

All horns are not created equal of course, and regardless of the type of horn used, a premium is placed on doing a good job with the crossover... as a bad horn system can be really, really bad. I utterly failed at my first attempts to design a crossover for a horn system, and had to learn from a couple of masters in the field (Wayne Parham and Earl Geddes) before I could even begin to do an acceptable job.

Duke
dealer/manufacturer