Why not horns?

I like the looks of the new JBL Studio 530 monitors. Would like to hear them.

macro,

Have you provided pictures of your setup?

That would help others get a better picture of where you are coming from.

These are nice looking:

Zingalis

Anyone heard them?

I've thought these to be interesting:

Cardersound

Any comments?

"The Better any system get's to the truth, is the less you will experience these so called un-listenable tracks... "

I agree. I suspect this may be the most useful metric regarding system quality of all.

i always think of horns as like putting the sound under a magnifying glass. A lot of things do not look good under a magnifying glass. Some things can be beautiful but it it may take a while to find the right sound under high scrutiny.

In other words, it may take a good bit more work and precision to get horn loaded speakers to sound "right" compared to less efficient designs that are more forgiving.

Unsound,

Which approach's midrange purity do you question? Horn, Walsh or Walsh/CLS, or both?

If a single driver can cover most of the midrange with a flat response and have good dynamics, that to me would indicate at least the potential for midrange purity. Whether or not it is realized or not would depend on additional factors in each case though of course.

" If at some point in the future I feel the need to put two refrigerator sized objects in my listening room, horns would definitely be on my list."

The size of most good full range horn designs is perhaps the biggest reason they are not more popular as I understand it. Most people do not have room for or even want these gigantic beasts in their rooms.

I asked a large Manhattan dealer rep why they carry no horn speakers among the myriad high end equipment on display in their shop and this was the reason related. Of course in big cities like NY, room is generally tighter for most.

Actually I have a decent size house yet parted with my Maggies due to lack of room to set them up correctly without being intrusive, so Maggies are not really a good example of a room friendly speaker design.

The OHMs with the Walsh drivers solved the problem. Big speaker sound in a fairly small footprint that is reasonably room friendly.

I would like to try horns someday, but practically I doubt I would ever get any more serious than dabbling with some smaller designs with a SET amp or something along those lines.

How about an example of a recording I might be familiar with where the players (singer, whatever) is/are properly sized for reference?

Its a good question.

Also lots of good answers that seem to help substantiate why horn loaded designs are a distinct minority.

Personally, I think I would like the sound of a good, pure horn design set up correctly, but I doubt it is something that I will ever have the incentive or motivation to pursue.

In general, I am not a fan of mixing distinctly different sounding driver designs into a speaker system.

My ideal driver would be a robust, high efficiency, full range, field coil based Walsh driver, but no such thing exists today TTBOMK, and if it ever does, it will probably be quite expensive and out of my realm.

Lots of impressive horn setups on this site.

This may be the most impressive set of horns I have seen here:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?vaslt&1225733731

"To cover the full spectrum...
I can't stand horns.
Ported box speakers make good bird houses.
Acoustic suspension speakers are OK.
Line array speakers are good
Planar speakers are the best."

Just for fun, I'll add fuel to the fire and assert that omni Walsh drivers are the best.

I've owned planars and various box designs. Never horns. Horns are new territory I might explore someday.

"the throat may need to be like 35 feet long"

I can see the converts lining up now.....

"Do you admire his system or not?"

Yes.

I just think it it a bit ironic to ask the question "why not horns" and then assert that a 35 foot throat is needed for full range bass. It may well be true but that fact does not support an argument that people should go the horn route.

Also I applaud those who strive to do anything right, but frankly this thread is scaring me further away from horns personally than when I started. Sorry.

:The irony may lie in you insisting that horns are not for you over and over and over again."

Actually I have indicated that I am interested in horns and have researched them a good bit though I would surely not claim to be an expert.

I do not know if they are for me yet or not because I have never tried them.

And, its good that both the pros and cons are being discussed because like most anything it is a mixed bag.

Not for the faint of heart though I am fairly certain.

Don't Klipschorns achieve a fairly full range sound in a reasonable size (for horns) package?

My thought is that were I to test the waters with horns, that I would start with a proven design that has been around for a while like the Klipschorn. Its been a long time since I heard these, but I recall these to be one of the things that got me interested in audio years ago when I heard them.

Here's a fresh question.

Are horns generally more forward rather than laid back sounding? is this always necessarily the case?

Reason I ask is that the Walsh drivers I currently prefer tend to be on the laid back side, in that most things happen behind the plane of the speaker in most setups.

That is the most distinctive characteristic of the omni Walsh driver I think. Other than tha, with my eyes closed, I believe I would be hard pressed to identify the driver technology used in that they have various characteristics of otehr driver types I have heard and read about, including the midrange purity of horns.

So part of the appeal of horns to me is that in my mind they represent the other end of the spectrum in terms of being more forward sounding than what I have. I'm not saying that is better or not, only different. I think what I have pushes things about as far as I would need to go in its direction, so horns appeal to me as a means of trying something completely different and comparing and constrasting. Were I to do it, I would also anticipate the need at some point to use a spearate amp for them from the rest of my system(s), probably a tube amp, in order to get the most out of them.

Dan_ed,

Have you ever heard omnis like OHMs or mbl?

I believe setup can surely affect the tendency of a horn to be more forward or not, but I am not sure if I can envision them being as laid back as omnis I have heard.

And again, to me, a forward tendency is part of the attraction for me in taht I like to look at radically different approaches to achieving good results.

I also suspect though that along with a more forward presentation goes an increased chance to offend or irritate, but I do not think that this necessarily has to be the case and that is the sound that I would be interested in hearing.

"what do you mean by forward and laid back"

Laid back meaning the soundstage is mostly behind the plane of the speakers.

Forward meaning that the soundstage is not so much behind the plane of the speakers and some things may sound like they originate from locations that are in front of the plane of the speakers. In some lively rooms, due to reflections, sound might even sound like the origin is behind the listener to some extent.

I have heard both dynamic and planar designs have a quite forward sound in certain lively rooms, but not so much omnis. I expect horns might as well. granted, room acoustics play a big part in this.

Unsound,

Yes I missed in reading first time that your reference was regarding horns.

You may be right. It would take a lot for me to live exclusively with horns I think, but I do find them intriguing, if not all that practical perhaps.

Luckily, I am blesed to have a house big enough to enable me to dabble when desired without having to say goodbye to what I have.

The bad news is my wife's sunroom is the room where I would most like to experiment with horns!

I've thought about it for a good while now but there are enough practical barriers to address that it has not happened, yet.

Someday I do predict there will be a set of horns in my house somewhere, even if it turns out to be just a nice looking old Victrola.

Herman,

That's a good point regarding time alignment.

Phase coherency is a must for good sound in my mind, yet this is the first I heard of it addressed in a horn design, yet horns would seem to be the most susceptible.

It would almost seem like a serious defect to not address it somehow when building horns to compete with other inherently more phase coherent designs?

Digital technology saves the day once again!

Anybody know offhand if/how Klipschorns deal with time alignment?

Dan-ed,

Those other issues you mention are some of the reasons why physical amplification (ie horns), which is one of the older audio technologies out there, have largely fallen out of popular favor and been replaced by other approaches. Isn't that pretty much what outdated means?

Tubes versus SS amplification is not a relevant analogy because the pros and cons of each of those approaches are totally different than those associated with electronic versus physical amplification in general.

Actually, despite their huge differences in design, I suspect a good set of horns might be fine tuned in a manner to not sound all that different, but I doubt that this would be the case if left to chance.

I also think the horns could be tuned to sound like many other different sounding designs as well, like Harbeth, if that is the intent.

I believe that the sensitivity of horns can be either their bigbest strength or their achilles' heel. Its all in the overall sonic recipe. A little too much salt or pepper can have a magnified effect.

I always go back to thinking of horns (done well) as putting the sound under a microscope, for better or for worse. Otherwise minor differences in signal can now produce major differences in resulting sound.

To me, you better have a love or fascination with horns if you are going to voluntarily deal with them. If you do not have the desire to do what is needed (which may be a lot) to get things right, better off staying away.

That to me (along with size requirements) is probably the best answer to the question "why not horns?".

macrojack,

I like your assertion that horns are essentially a form of mechanical amplification that can be done well, poorly, or anywhere in between.

Unfortunately, my gut tells me that practically mechanical amplification is a preferred means of the past and not the wave of the future.

More efficient forms of electronic amplification, like Class D switching amps. are the wave of the future and will likely put an even further hurt on high efficiency speaker designs, horn or otherwise.

BTW, I do own a pair of horns. One of them can be seen in one of my system photos. Take a look and see if you can find it!

Radio Shack's top the line speaker for years when I worked there was the famous Mach One, which was a horn hydrid design. I never cared much for those and used to steer people away. As I recall, they did sound like a lot of the bad stereotypes of how horns sound. They used to sit prominently right in the front of almost every Radio Shack store in the country. I suspect these helped to give horns a bad name. Some of the other Realistic gear was OK though BTW.

I think that the potential for dynamics is the main attraction of horns to most, including myself, all other things aside.

Plus I do think they are cool looking.

" The only conceptual problem I have with omnis is the large distance from sidewalls required to avoid a detrimental early sidewall reflection."

I've found the OHM Walsh pseudo-omni's actually work surprisingly well only a foot or two out from the side wall. That is how I have them set up currently (two pair in two different rooms).

I believe they are physically damped in the wall facing directions inside the cans specifically to enable them to be placed closer to walls than speakers with a true omni radiation pattern.

Macro,

Interesting technical details to learn, but if things sound good in your setup I think that's all that really matters from a user's perspective. Nuts and bolts specs on drivers and components are fine but do not indicate the final result as I believe has been pointed out already.

I'd like to weigh in on the "fast woofer" question with some observations.

Back in the 70's when I used to sell audio, woofers generally ranged from 8 to 16 inches in most popular lines. I personally never took as well in general to speakers that used 16" and often even 12" woofers. They seemed to almost always sound muddied and unrefined compared to models in the same lines with 8-10" woofers.

My thoughts are that larger woofers are perhaps not a bad thing, if done well of course, however they are often more demanding in regards to amplification. Back then, we used mostly receivers up to 120 w/ch or so that perhaps did not have the current delivery or damping necessary to control those big drivers properlty, or at least that is my theory.

Today, I think there are many amps that are up to the task. That is one of the reasons I am willing to perhaps investigate mixed driver horn or other systems that use larger woofs to see what might be possible these days. I'm strongly considering giving a pair of Klipsch Heresy's a try in my wifes sunroom where I run a pair of very nice Dynaudio monitors currently. These are tiny but deliver almost too much bass in that room. The Heresy's running off my high current, high damping factor Bel Canto ref1000 mono blocks is a combo that I think the price is right to perhaps at least give a try.

"Are you a cartographer?"

I am a software engineer with a background in digital cartography and related systems.

"Most of us know almost nothing about horns as is evidenced by the negative comments some have seen fit to post. "

LEts not sugar coat it. Most negative comments are based on actual personal experiences that should not be discounted in an unbiased discussion. There are many bad examples of horn implementation out there over the years as well as good. This alone indicates horns have potential, but are not a panacea. I believe that to be true and that people considering horns should be aware of both sides of the story.

Also, I complimented the designer of the horns on how well they were setup. The room was only about 14X18 feet or so with high ceilings. The event was in a quite exquisite 19th century mansion with lots of hard surfaces, ie wood, marble brass,etc. This particular room was in the rear of teh first floor and seemed to be a very elegantly appointed den, study or similar room. The horns were perfectly balanced and set up for this room I would say, delivering a lot of sound but never seeming to overpower the room in any way, which I thought was quite an accomplishment. I do not think it possible to squeeze any more good lifelike sound into a room that size without driving people from it, yet most of the listeners who popped in stayed for a long time and did not want to leave, which is always the best sign.

"Mapman, I'm not sure that Ohm's current non-bending wave non-Walsh drivers qualify."

I guess you'd have to take that up with John Strohbeen to know for sure.

I got to attend the Capital Audiofest event in Rockville, MD this past weekend. This was a small but very nicely done event.

THere was a range of pricepoints in equipment there, all the way up to several systems demonstrating the best face of some of the most highly touted gear around, like mbl, Magico, yg acoustics, and various others. There were at least 4 systems I can recall that used horn loaded speakers, a very high % of the systems overall I thought, with results ranging from just OK to most impressive.

I spent the most time (a good hour or so) in the Luminous Audio room, which featured a large 4 way custom horn speaker system that somewhat resembled Avantgarde in design, complete with moderate size, corner loaded, dual bass horn boxes on both sides.

These were being demoed with what I would describe as a no holds barred, cost is no limit system, which was exceptionally well done in all regards, particularly in regards to phono source however.

I think I pretty much heard what I was expecting from such a system, and it was most impressive and hard to fault, though the range of music demonstrated was limited to mostly vintage classical and jazz material. I would have liked to have heard a wider variety of music, but that is not where this demo of this system was geared towards.

Unsound, having heard this system and based on teh sound, I suspect you might reconsider if you had the chance to have this particular system including the horns in your home somehow!

Of course, the main aspect of this system that caught my ear compared to everything else at the show was the dynamics, transient response and overall clarity of the presentation. Soundstage and imaging was well up to snuff as well.

There were two things that I still wondered about afterwards. One was who can afford this stuff, and two was I must admit my head hurt a bit afterwards while driving home. I attribute that to just the overall volume and natural dynamics of the system rather than any faults of the system itself. Were I at the symphony sitting that close to the orchestra in full swing, I'm certain I would feel the same way afterwards.

Regarding the otehr systems featuring horn loaded speakers there, they were mostly all quite nice, somewhat impressive and well behaved (not honky or anything like that), but no others left much of a unique impression on me. The Cathedral speakers room was the other horn based speaker setup that I found myself not wanting to stop listening to, although the material and performance volume there was much more reserved.

There are some pics of the horn rig I was talking about and some others at CAF here:

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3766696

"Pinning the cause down to a single room at the show seems a bit of a stretch to me."

No, it was definitely the room with the loud + dynamic horns. I was in there for over an hour just before leaving and no other rooms (including those with other horns) were anywhere near that intense.

Intense in a good way, but intense nonetheless, ie loud and dynamic albeit very clean with no noticeable distortion or breakup and most pleasant to listen to.

So if your goal is to reproduce the close up dynamics of a live orchestral event, I would say that system did it as well as any system I have heard. But I would have concerns about listening to anything that intense for too long or too often because it can definitely accelerate hearing loss.

BTW, my system at home and most very good suitable powered systems I have heard would have much the same result if listened to similarly. That is what music can sound like, but its effects on ones hearing if exposed too much to it should be an area of caution.

Weseixas, bold but interesting assertion!

The custom horns I heard (110db efficiency) at the audio show were powered by a very expensive ($50000+) Audio Note tube amp, perhaps 20 some watts per channel or so yet quite substantial physically. the size would not indicate the power level to most.

My OHM 5 omnis at home (87 or so db efficiency) are powered by two 500w/ch Icepower Class D monoblocks. Their size do no not indicate the power delviered either, but they go for about 1/10th the cost of the AN tube amp and are highly regarded in their category by many.

Now I know power levels and sound quality are not always bed partners yet the Class D amp delivers 20 times the power for 1/10th the cost, based on known specs.

Now how do the two compare? That was the question I started working on answering last night listening at home.

My assessment so far is that my setup though totally on the opposite end of the design spectrum, can probably almost match the dynamics of the horn system at any listening volume I would care to ever experience and is quite competitive and possibly superior in most every other regard. Fatigue factor is also quite low.

Go figure!

BTW, as most know I am a big fan of teh Walsh driver approach and OHM speakers in general. The Walsh driver is a big part of the sound equation on my system. I don't think most conventional box designs can match these or the dynamic strengths of the horns. Planars have their own set of constraints that are not insurmountable but significant in the dynamics department.

I would have to hear the two systems side by side with the same source material playing in order to make a more detailed comparison of the two. In lieu of that, so far I;d assert that my setup can at least compete in the same league as the megabuck setup I heard basedon comparitive listening. Same true with other more conventional setups I heard running some big time players like Magico V3, mbl, and YB Acoustics among others.

Bottom line, I think that horns can sound like live music and at least convey certain kinds of recordings accurately, but it seems like one must practically be a millionaire rocket scientist to accomplish it. When you do though, the results can be quite rewarding. Nothing really good ever comes cheap or too easily I suppose....

I believe the presenter in the Cathedral room (the designer of the speakers I believe) told me it was a vintage Fisher tube amp of some sort, but it was tucked away and I did not see it.

The source was digital, a Marantz player or something along those lines, but not certain.

The experience in the Cathedral room was way different than in the room with the mega gear driving those horns.

Cathedral used a modest CD player and a vintage Fisher tube amp as I recall. Some classical piano and more pop pieces (carole King) were played while I was there. The Cathedrals were very pleasant and clean sounding and easy on the ears, though volumes and dynamics were not to the max with that setup and source. They indicated they were going for more of a "vintage" type sound. I could have stayed and listened in this room for much longer than the 20 minutes or so I spent, but I still had some ground to cover before event end.

The mega gear room was tweaked to the max for phono, and the phono stage designer (Dynamic Sounds) was present. The phono rig there was most impressive, not a trace of noise on those ultra sensitive horns and a quite nice and vibrant presenation overall to boot, but that's another story for another thread. Some digital was played using an Accuphase player, but this was way less impressive in that setup.

I like the corner horn approach IF you have the right room to implement it in. If not, then you have to work with what you have.

The SOTA horn system I heard at CAF was set up in the corners and that worked exceptionally well in that room.

BTW,

I've decided to designate the SOTA horn system I heard at CAF as a reference system for me. I equate leaving with a headache to someone with sensitive eyes being outside on a gorgeous sunny day without sunglasses. It is uncomfortable, but the problem is with our own sensory overload, not the signal. You put on a pair of sunglasses to deal with it. With a sound system, you might have to turn down the volume a bit, though you would prefer not to. At the live symphony performance, you might have to move out of the front row and back a ways.

MrD,

Can you tell us more about the mods to the La Scala, how you determined them, and how these effected the resulting sound? Thanks.

No doubt one can play things much louder when distortion is in check. The human ear can only handle so much though, so one must be careful!

"there are many ways to enjoy good sound."

Now, as with most good things, that is the truth!

Audiophiles frustrate me quite often when they assume a narrow view of what can constitute good sound! No wonder they are a dying breed!

Unsound is right.

Don't be a horn Nazi! Sharing of different views (that's all they are) by all including those who loathe horns is part of the learning experience. Just stick to the facts and I'm sure that horns will find some new devotees which is the best that can be hoped for realistically with any technology or approach discussed on this site.

"ALL speakers have colorations."

All recordings do as well. Same true with every piece in every system out there. So the idea of no coloration is not reality and not worth losing any sleep over. If you enjoy what you hear, then that's about as good as it gets.

' I bet there aren't a handful of people here who have actually heard a front loaded bass horn of sufficient length and size like mine to properly produce a bass note.. Raise your hands.."

I doubt it also.

Hopefully that is not required in order to do it right else the future of horns does not look any brighter.

Unsound,

"no soup for you!"

"Some of the very best loudspeakers I've ever heard and some of the worst –where horns"

I fall into that category as well.

"Does any other horn owner have a problem with larger than realistic presentation?"

What does "larger than realistic" mean? Some examples?