Why not horns?

I've had reasonably extensive experience with horns - I currrently own a pair of Zingali 3s and I auditioned 2 other brands (SAP and Avantegarde) at length before my purchase. Some years back, I decided to buy a low powered SET amp (I wanted to check out the enthusiasm for these designs) and was looking for an appropriate speaker match. Ultimately, I settled on horns for that reason.

Of the 3 brands, only the SAP presented coloration issues for me, but I gather that I'm less sensitive to mild colorations than some others who participate here. The Avantegardes were appealling but not so much the price tag, so I ended up with the Zings.

After a few years, the issue that caused me to look elsewhere was what I'll call "the dark side" of extended range horns. That is, if the bright side of horns is - as Shadorne noted - lack of compression. All the designs I mentioned are strikingly dynamic at audition, but....

The (sub)woofers are not horn loaded. Horn loading a true low frequency driver is generally impractical, so this "hybrid" approach is common to most extended range horn designs. As the volume goes up, the horn loaded drivers remain unconstrained, while the (sub)woofers compress in fashion that - in my system - was audible and, eventually, offputting. After this discovery, I re-auditioned the Avantgardes at a local dealer and specifically varied the SPL more than I would usually do at such an audition. In the end, I noted a similar, if admittedly subtler, effect with the Avantgardes.

I can't generalize to all such designs, but -in my case(s)- I found the mix of horn loaded upper frequencies and non-horn loaded bass more distracting than, say, a well executed panel with dynamic woofer hybrid (as a reference point). The bottom line is that I now use the Zingalis for background listening - where they sound great, if overkill - because I find them bright at higher SPLs.

I do not intend this to be an overarching criticism of the design approach, merely a response to the OP. For me, that's "why not horns" in my main system.

Marty

Csm,

If you were trying to address my issue re: "hybrid horns" (i.e. almost any extended range horn design), I think that you may have missed my narrow point. Specifically, I was suggesting that horn loaded drivers increase their output more rapidly than non-horn loaded drivers (subwoofers included). That is, take a GREAT subwoofer (I use Rythmik) and adjust it so that the tonal balance is just right at your typical listening level. Then crank the volume. IME, ALL speakers change character at some point, but horn/hybrids do so more quickly and more audibly.

My explanation - that compression in the non-loaded driver (the subwoofer in this example) - audibly exceeds that in the horn loaded driver. That is, by the way, just a guess - but a guess that explains what I hear. I only hypothesized this after a couple of years living with horn/hybrids and only further tested it with a brief audition, so I can't swear that it's the issue at hand. However, I don know this:

In the systems to which I was referring, you'd need to reset the level of the subs as you increased/decreased volume level in order to maintain consistent tonal balance.
No shot at the subs (and I have used Velodynes, too), just observing the mismatch in dynamic behavior between horn and non-horn loaded drivers - with the acknowledgement that the sample size is too small to produce statistical significance.

Atma,

I understand why you reject the pejorative comment re: horns and imaging, but I will take issue with your specific rebuttal. Planars and omnis (properly set up) image differently than horns (or any other monpoles). Some may prefer that presentation. Some may feel exactly the other way. I won't attach a value judgement, but either way, IMHO, imaging is one area where people can draw sharp distinctions between monopoles (including horns) and dipoles/bipoles/omnis.

Marty