Indeed. Zu are awesome speakers.
If you have an obsession with certain kinds of amps, SETs and laterals for instance, you really need horns to get the best of those. In the rest of the world of solid state gain is very cheap and you can accomplish dynamics with raw brute force easily and cheaply. Efficiency just isn't as important as it used to be. |
@mapman
My daughter's school has a large fitness center equipment with a horn loaded EV system, both mains and ceiling mounted delays, but they wisely outfitted the ceiling and various wall sections with acoustic treatments. It sounds quite decent. |
I don't hate horns. I personally don't have any reason to use them. It's frustrating to see horn fans insist that they're the only way to achieve certain characteristics because a) they are not, b) they're not ideal in many environments, and c) their virtues can be hotly debated. For every virtue horns are said to embody, there's a well regarded speaker that seeks to achieve the same results with a polar opposite approach. Horns are highly direction. MBL thinks omnidirectional is the ideal. Horns simulate a large radiating surface. Electrostats are huge radiating surfaces, and many might argue superior. Others try to simulate a point source and get pleasing results.
For me personally, I listen to very few things in my natural day to day environment that simulate large, directional sources of sound. Sunday I attended a concert at my daughter's school which featured a choir, bell choir, brass band, and an orchestra in an auditorium of decent acoustics. My system at home portrays a comparable sound to what I heard. Generally I feel that the dynamics of events like that are less than what people want to be hearing on a home stereo. I'm not sure 130 dB of dynamic range reflects reality very often. I don't believe that should be the goal of an audio system at the cost of other virtues. |
@analogluvr
How exactly do you figure inefficient speakers can't be dynamic as all hell given robust power? That math doesn't work. Sure, many inefficient speakers are limp on account of torpid power, but there's nothing inherent preventing them from being dynamic. You accuse me of relaying outdated or inaccurate information, but what you're saying hasn't been true since the power wars of the 70's.
No offense, but you and johnk seem to believe audio hit it's zenith in 1935 or there about and everything since has just been regression. No matter what anybody seeks, you two prescribe massive horn loaded solutions and low power tubes. Prescribe for me the fully horn loaded full range speaker that will fit within 2 or 3 square feet and is suitable for listening at 10 to 12 feet using modest solid state power that costs less that $5000. I think those are very common demands of a great many people here. You guys can't even bring yourselves to admit those speakers don't exist, much less appreciate that's not a practical solution for many. At least HR admitted the 936's came surprisingly close to the dynamics of the Uno Nano's so I know I'm not listening to a couple of compressed piles of junk. You and johnk and a few others talk like there's some vast chasm of difference and that no shortcoming of horns compares to the failings of dynamic drivers. It's frustrating to those who don't agree. And you guys just don't take no for an answer.
The real irony to me is that the same people who vehemently argue for the dynamics of horns are the same who think vinyl is king. You don't get more dynamically compressed than vinyl. Why the big concern about your speakers dynamics when your source can't utilize the capability? |
@analogluvr
Yeah, I'd say it is an oversimplification. It takes into no account gain of an amp. The kinds of dynamic compression you're talking about would be glaringly apparent, but the reality doesn't seem to reflect that.
The funny thing about all this is that I was a real stalwart for years expounding on the virtues of old gear. I never had a warehouse sized listening room like some of you seem to have for these massive horn rigs, and I never wasted my time with them. I've still got a pair of ESS AMT1's. If you can tolerate nondescript bass and a hollow midrange, they're awesome sounding speakers, but they're nowhere near as convincing or uniformally flat across their power band.
The sensation I've always gotten, even from the best horns I've ever heard, is the same sensation I get standing right in front of a trumpet or sax horn. My dad and brother played trumpet. I played sax and electric bass. It's no mystery to me at all why you NEVER see horn loaded bass guitar rigs. The very last pair of horns I heard were these big JBL SOB's at Pine Knob. I HATED them. They were a perfect example of large, honky, in-your-face, broadband horns. And when I say "in-your-face", I mean even from 75 feet away they felt like they were drilling the sound through you from a totally nondescript point which was anywhere but the stage. The friend that came with me even commented on how honky and distorted the sound was and he really doesn't know enough about audio to have a prior opinion.
I'll say it again... If somebody has a pair of fully horn loaded speakers that take up 3 square feet each, bring them on over and prove me wrong. |
@atmasphere
Yes. There is the theory and there is the practice. I would also agree with your assessment of distortion and dynamics. I've long said that truly high fidelity allows for listening at very high volume without a sense of real loudness and what you say squares with that. |
That sounds like a very reasonable assessment of the situation. That's kind of my problem with AMT based speakers. At some point you're crossing over to a conventional cone and it kinda falls apart in some way. |
Aside from their Heritage line, it doesn't appear that Klipsch makes anything that would quality as "high end". I just scoured their website for something that would compare to what I'm listening to right now and they've apparently abandoned their high end hybrid designs. It looks like your Klipsch options are either Best Buy-grade 2 ways or their Heritage line.
This thread made me do reading on horns and my opinions about them aren't swayed. Horns have problems that aren't cheap to fix. I went back and read up on Avantgarde and the retired premium Klipsch line. I'd like to hear the Avantgarde's I read about, in part because HR described the dynamics of my Focals being close to them. Nothing I read about any Klipsch product tempts my curiosity. I'd never tolerate a speaker the size of a small dresser, period, and I consider the placement demands of K-horns a design failing that unavoidably constricts them to less than ideal placement in any less that ideal room.
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@johnk
You’re presumptions about my experience with horns is as wrong as you claim my opinions are. Klipsch horns in particular were the definition of honky horns for a long time on account of their big, very resonant horns. I get the impression from the glowing adoration of horns by some here that their significant shortcomings are being ignored. Just like any transformer, they color sound. Like any transformer, the degree and quality of that coloration is a product of the design and materials used. And just like any transformer, better ones are more expensive by virtue. Horns are NOT just better regardless of how they’re made.
The Palladium series did look like fine products, but they apparently didn’t compete with conventional speakers well.
As for the required corner placement, who exactly has two ideally located corners from their listening position? You basically need an ideally proportioned room to be sure the speaker placement is the best. That strikes me as a significant design failing. |
I just want to be clear that I'm not saying the modern Heritage line is a bunch of junk. Like the Porsche 911, they've taken a design with significant faults and refined it into something quite respectable.
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I'll bet half their problem is their website. Go there and try to find a dealer stocking a pair of Heresy. In my area I get every ABC Warehouse, Best Buy, and a few electronics shops I've never heard of. You can be sure Best Buy and ABC Warehouse aren't stocking heritage gear and their website makes no distinction. I wouldn't know where to hear a good pair of Klipsch without calling shops for 15 minutes. That's a problem. |
I think it says more about their scarcity. I was surprised to find they'd abandoned the entire line. I can't believe they didn't sell just because the Klipsch name really lacked prestige. There's clearly no shortage of Klipsch fondness here. They reviewed well. The worst thing I read about any of them is the bookshelf had no depth. That would be an unexcusable sin in my book though. |
I won't argue with that. You're generally talking big speakers though. |
@mrdecibel
They didn't use the installed PA rig for the small events they did. They used EV's on stands. I've heard the main rig plenty because I've operated cameras at their big events. It's not bad.
I can't say I've ever heard an ideally set up horn rig in a residential setting. I'm not even aware of a shop that sells good horns within 100 miles of me. The lower end horns are only memorable for how annoying they were and I usually find them with big orange cones or stuffed in a theater somewhere. Honestly, I wouldn't waste anybody's time showing me K-horns because I'd absolutely never buy them at any price. Their size and placement demands make them impossible options.
Like I said, if somebody has a great pair of horns for me to hear, let me know. I'll listen. I like a tight, physical kind of sound. That's why I like my Focals. It's what I've liked about horns. I don't like that in-your-face way so many project sound. I've never heard a horn not sound like that to some degree. Either that's just what horns sound like, or they're exceptionally difficult to design correctly. I'm leaning towards the latter. I don't blame people if they like that kind of sound. Some people value tone beyond imaging or any other consideration. We all have our quirks. I value exceptional imaging, smooth response, and decent but not ear-popping dynamics. Horns aren't for me. |
@johnk
You're making a bunch of unequivocal statements there that I can go out and prove wrong right now with the cold, hard evidence of measurements. I glossed over a variety of horn measurements just now. None of them have dispersion as even as my Focals, much less something like a Magica S5 Mk. II. Horns CAN image well, but do they generally? Not in my experience. I've never heard anything image as flat and 2 dimensionally as horns. I'll allow for a better optimized horn to image well though.
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but dispersion tends to dictate the quality of imaging to some significant extent. I've thought it to be common knowledge that narrow baffles and smaller drivers yield wide dispersion and resultant impressive imaging. I'm not at all surprised to find that virtually every horn I could find measurements on generally exhibited the same truncated dispersion. That's the natural result of simulating a very large radiating area. That's what horns do. I do NOT think that sounds good. It appears judging by the marketplace most people don't think that sounds better or even good either.
The bottom line is that until I hear a horn that sounds like a point-source I'm not going to like them. Actual sources of sound tend to behave much more like point sources than large, focused, radiating areas tainted with the coloration of an acoustic transformer's resonance and shape. It's kind of like amplifiers with coupling transformers. Some folks like them, some think it's just another contrivance between them and their music. I like DC coupled amps. I like dynamic driver speakers. I don't like transformers of any sort except big toroidals in my power supplies. |
Honestly, I don't sit around listening to a lot of well recorded orchestra music recorded in well tuned venues. A pair of speakers that replicates that isn't a serious consideration to me and it doesn't require tremendous amounts of imaging capability to replicate that. The vast majority of what I listen to is studio recorded material. I throw 3 things are a stereo to get a feel for it. Tool, Dead Can Dance, and Bassnectar. If Jambi doesn't bowl me over: fail. If the bells in Agape stab me in the ears: fail. If Bassnectar falls apart: fail. I like the set back sound of my Focals. I like their complete sonic absence. Sure, there's things they could do better, but I like what they do and they work well in the space I have.
I'm well aware Focal aren't for everybody. They tend to have a certain character not everybody likes. What I think I'm seeing here is horns have different uses for different people and spaces. I'd just like to see that fact acknowledged instead of the blind assertion that horns are the ideal for every person in every space for every taste. Been nice debating this, but I'm beyond repeating myself at this point and there's nothing more to be said. |
I'm scouring the interwebz over here. I can't find ANY hifi shops that deal in horns. Either I'm missing it, or nobody in the midwest likes horns. |
I'm not saying measurements have much to do with personal taste. Some folks love the sound of horns, others huge baffle deals like DeVores and the big BBC clones. Some neither. These Focals I'm listening to at the moment have tweeters mounted in big lenses to manipulate their baffle interaction. The tweeters are called 1 inch inverted domes, but the actual diaphragm is much bigger than that and the main inverted dome is surrounded by smaller inverted domes. The mid-range driver is unusually large for the crossover point used and that leads to them being more directional at the crossover region. Line array theory would suggest that the 3 little woofers couple in their pass band and operate like a single 21" driver in the vertical plane. There seem to be all kinds of ways of manipulating the behavior of a speaker to mitigate or accentuate certain characteristics. I think a lot of modern speakers have improved a lot because more exotic ways of controlling driver behavior have been developed and better understood. I agree that a lot of speakers steal some horn theory and behavior. I also think they do it without the drawbacks and challenges of an actual horn. Is the KEF UniQ driver a horn? I've never heard it called one. I've never heard anybody say it sounds like one. But it does have a compression element and a waveguide. It's probably more of a horn that the tweeter arrangement Zu uses and lots of people call those horns. |
I don't see horns on the rise. I take the failure and withdrawal of Klipsch's Palladium line as a strong indication that there isn't a significant market for horns. |
Oh.... Are you saying what I stated earlier that horns are too difficult to design and build cheap enough that they're not an option worth considering for the vast majority of people not looking to blow 6 figures on a rig? Kinda sounds like it. |
@mrdecibel
You're honest about the matter. You get the impression in this thread horns are just inherently perfect and invulnerable to criticism. |
This isn't a thread about horns. This is a thread about the controversy surrounding horns. I've presented a wide variety of reasons and opinions that have been systematically challenged every single time. Yet when somebody else reiterates a point similar to mine it isn't challenged or debated. Sometimes quite the opposite. But I'm the troll. Some of you would attack me for claiming the sky is blue just because I said it. Dynamic speakers absolutely smash horns into the ground in terms of volume of media attention, sales, and conversation. Why do dynamic loudspeakers practically own the speaker market at every price point? You can't understand the controversy if you can't answer that question. |
@johnk
I've had some experiences like that. My mom thought I was nuts for buying the stuff I have until I parked her in front of it and played her favorite music. She got the chills and tears and no more explanation was needed. No matter how you cut the cake, we do this to have strong emotional experiences. It's no surprise people get fired up about how they do that. |
@phusis
The old Klipsch stuff is exactly why people have the opinions they do today about horns and I think denying that is simply intellectually dishonest. I'm sure I'll get crucified for pointing this out, but there isn't even consensus in the horn camp about what good horns and bad horns are. If you read over this thread you see some saying horn hybrids suck, but others love them. Some say the vintage ones are good. Others say good horns require advanced engineering and exceptional materials. And at some point somebody has said some horn is great so many times here practically every horn ever made has been named. I'll bet I could take this crowd and put them in a room and see debates about just horns become as heated as horns vs dynamic drivers. |
Do you have any idea how unhealthy insulating a space like that is?
Energy efficiency isn't just that last consideration of mine when it comes to audio. It's not even on my map. My class A amp is the only thing I ever shut off and I let it warm for 2 hours before listening to it. |
Hey there Ironleif! Should I start driving every car ever made with electric power steering before I decide electric power steering flat out blows? No idea where you got the idea I've never heard horns, but if big, honky glaring JBL and Klipsch horns never existed I'd probably be less offended by horns and more willing to give then a chance. I guess you didn't bother reading my arguments regarding their failings. I'm not going to repeat myself, but suffice it to say I don't believe you need horns for excellent dynamics, nor do I believe the coloration and far-less-than-ideal directionality are worth whatever benefits gained. Since the horn market is a distinct minority in the larger hi-fi market, I'm clearly not the only one who doesn't like them. MOST people don't like them. |
@johnk
How so? The fact I've never once stumbled into a hi-fi shop selling a single horn loaded speaker after living in 4 states seems to suggest to me very few people are interested in them and they don't sell. The fact very little is written of them in forums here, elsewhere, and in the press seems to suggest not many care to read or write about them. Siegfried Linkwitz's in his talk at Burning Amp this year roundly criticized the behavior of horns, especially their dispersion failings, and eloquently explained what's not to like about them. It's not like there aren't legitimate reasons to dislike horns. It's not like there aren't highly regarded and successful engineers who dislike them. |
Are you trying to tell me the hideous, honky, plastic horns JBL and Klipsch sell at Best Buy are great examples of horns and proof that horns are widely desired? Those hunks of crap crammed into Best Buy shelves in an aisle? That’s what you’re going to hang the popularity hat on??? Those things are exactly why I hate horns. The one guy I know with JBL speakers would burn them tonight for a chance to own my Focals. I love to bring over people who own that Best Buy JBL and Klipsch crap and park them in front of my 936’s. It always leaves them lusting.
Indeed I am a fan of Focal. If I didn’t think they sound excellent I wouldn’t own them. I’m familiar with the infinite horn loading technique Focal uses. It isn’t designed to focus or amplify the back wave. It’s designed to nullify it.
You seem to be under the impression that the general public is well aware of $10,000 speakers and is discriminating in their tastes. They are not. They buy sound bars for their TVs. They buy Bluetooth speakers for their bedrooms. They buy their home theater sound systems in a single box one man can lift. The vast majority of people wouldn’t spend what I’ve spent on my speakers alone for their entire entertainment system. Most people don’t know what real hi-fi actually sounds like. I’m sorry, but people scooping JBL, Pioneer, Bose, and Klipsch off the shelves of Best Buy isn’t going to inform me as to what people buying hi-fi like. |
@johnk
No offense bro, but you don't seem to understand the definition of the word "logic". If JBL and Klipsch horns are out there owning the hi-fi market, why can't I find a dealer with a search warrant? Logic suggests if I can't find them, nobody is trying to sell them because nobody wants to buy them. And yeah, I'm absolutely biased against them. I think their general behavior and theory is fundamentally flawed and I'm hardly the only one. |
@johnk
Inventing your own definitions for words to make me say things I never said is pretty transparent and cheap.
The basic concept of directional speakers is widely contested for a plethora of reasons. That's a very widely understood reality. The finest compliment that can be paid to a horn is that it doesn't sound like a horn. What exactly are we arguing about??? Are you that offended that what you call perfection sounds awful to somebody else? Is it impossible for you to imagine somebody liking something that's technically superior in many ways to what you like?
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@johnk
Oh yes... Uncle Sam has been beating down the door at Meyer Sound to get their hands on Meyers long throw array technology like the sort installed at OSU stadium used to shoot sound across the horseshoe.... Without horns.
Sometimes that's useful. Sometimes not. I just don't think that's a desirable virtue in an environment like a residential home where the space can be well controlled and tailored. Personal preference. |
Are we now establishing here that speakers that exhibit confined directionality and stunted bandwidth are undesirable for high fidelity? If not, I'm confused by this. There's no shortage of speakers or designers bending over backwards with shapes and materials to reduce or minimize the directionality of their designs in the interest of smooth tonal accuracy. Focused directionally is widely considered a bad thing for hifi. I don't understand why somebody would want that in their living room.
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@johnk
Again, you're trying to make me say things I never said and I'm getting tired of your flagrant intellectual dishonesty. You say I don't understand how these things work. Have you never looked at the dispersion plot of a horn speaker? They're basically worthless 15 degrees off axis up and down the spectrum. Are you going to tell me that's NOT directional??? That's almost as bad as big planars and nobody considers that a strength of planars.
You question why horns are so controversial. It's no mystery to me why you don't see it. You embrace the failings of horns as virtues. I'm not attacking you for that. We all make our compromises to get what we want. That's fine with me. |
@wolf_garcia
Siegfried Linkwitz is the guy out there making foolishness out of all the "narrow dispersion is good" silliness. Maybe it's good in a PA, but not a living room. This crowd here deliberately avoids and ignores anything that disagrees with their OPINIONS. That's the source of this controversy. |
You missed all that jazz about acoustic centers, edge diffraction, and directionality? If you're listening to a pair of Klipsch, you're listening to a speaker that incorporates every failing he points out. |
That's not even remotely true of my Focals, or a wealth of other speakers I've listened to. |
Ok, mechy-boy... Glad you feel that way. You'll be the first guy I call when I sell them. |
I'll agree with most of the above, and most of that is exactly why I dislike horns. I've never attended an acoustic performance that sounded anything like what I've heard through a horn system. A quartet doesn't sound room filling or enveloping. It doesn't have startling dynamics. It doesn't sound huge. The scale and imaging I find in the live performances I've heard is much more like the dynamic speakers I've heard than any horn.
I'm sure I'll be jumped on because I've never experienced a live acoustic performance that's sounded anything like what horns do. I've never heard any violin, clarinet, or kettle drum really sound huge or enveloping in any venue. |
My daughter goes to a private boarding school that's got a fairly decent theater and church to perform in and they've got a full choir, a bell choir, a full orchestra, and several quartets. I've heard them all in the theater and the choir and quartet at the church. I've heard about a bunch of orchestras at the big theater down the road from me and at the Catholic college around the corner around the corner from the school I went to growing up. I'm fairly familier with what live music sounds like. My usual fair isn't classical or classical instruments. I grew up surrounded by people playing electric instruments all over the place. I've been to more live shows than I can count outdoor, in clubs, and arenas.
I've never heard anything amplified over horns, be it an orchestra or some grungy punk act, that sounded anything like unamplified music.
You guys are describing exactly what I'm hearing in horns, and absolutely hating. Horns always sound huge and enveloping and hyperdynamic which, to my ears, sounds obscenely synthetic. They take the sound of a mic a few feet away and amplify every single detail, then project it with unrealistic size and proportion unrealistic distances.
Sure, it's exciting, but nothing about that sonic character has ever once caused me to mistake what I was hearing for synthetically reproduced sound.
My friend is about to load up his living room with Klipsch horns and I've tried to describe what they're going to sound like and he thinks that sounds awesome. Good for him I suppose. I think he'll probably like them, too.
The question to start was "why are horns controversial?". I genuinely hate most of what you people seem to love about them. That's the answer. |
@mrdecibel
I try to get down there once or twice a year. I doubt I'll have a chance until the holidays, but I'll be down eventually. I'll message you then. |
To the wider audience...
Nope, I haven't heard any really great home horn systems. I have heard hundreds of big, honky horns in bars, clubs, theaters, and arenas though. JBL are some of the worst I've ever heard. JBL horns are what Pine Knob has installed in their amphitheatre and they absolutely suck. The honky, distorted sound from them was the first thing my friend commented on and he knows pretty much nothing about audio to color his opinion. The least horn sounding horns I've ever heard have been Nexo arrays. The thing I truly hate about horns is how they feel like their bearing right down on you. I don't hear music that sounds massive. I hear a speaker that sounds massive. Maybe I'm just hypersensitive to that characteristic horn sound, but it's as distracting to my ears as vinyl hiss which is why I'll never bother owning a turntable. |
@gawdbless
I'm very open to hearing whatever I can. I think I extended the offer to go listen to anybody's system within a few hours of me. So far no PM's to that effect. I'm in Toledo and I drive to northern Michigan a couple times a month. |
Alrighty, folks! The ultimate horn skeptic has sat down and listened to a fully horn loaded system in the form of Klipsch LaScala II.
I'll start with the cons and finish with the pros.
The imaging wasn't up to the standard of my Focal. I'm willing to chalk some of that up to the room, though I feel that the room was about as dead as my room at home. Specifically, the soundstage was strictly limited to the space between the speakers. The sound was more forward, but certainly not attacking my face or anything. The bass was AWOL at 40Hz; a fact I couldn't live with.
The soundstage between the speakers was very good. I relent from using "excellent" only because the scale of depth didn't beat my Focal. The dynamics were first class, definitely besting my Focal, but not by a wide margin. The bass was great before it went on vacation.
In conclusion, I'd have to do a lot more listening before I decided if such physical dynamics are something I'd want to live with. I can imagine them being fatiguing, especially with certain albums I like, but I can appreciate the thrill of such an aggressive character. The lack of bass is a total non-starter though.
I liked them. I would sit and listen to them for hours to better understand them and how I heard them. But at their price point, $8,000, I feel like I'm get 90-95% of the dynamics, better soundstage, and more deep bass for half the price in my Focal. I can conceive of better placement and room treatment tipping the balance, but I didn't hear that.
So there. Nobody can call me dishonest. I think most would call LaScala II great examples of a fully horn loaded system. I listened. I liked them a lot. Probably not speakers I'd buy though. |
I liked them. I can see why people are fanatical about them. They were exciting and fun to listen to. Granted I have tweaked a room and tuned an amp specifically for my speakers, but my modest Focals truly outclassed the LaScala in terms of imaging and bass when I went home and listened. I can imagine a better room getting better imaging out of the Klipsch, but that's not what I heard that day. I liked what I heard and I respect it, but I didn't walk away with any regret for buying what I did. I can see how others might. |
