Horn based loudspeakers why the controversy?

@kosst_amojan

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.

In my world that could as well be a compliment to horn speakers, and your experience in playing the saxophone only makes you the better judge for drawing this comparison. I'm quite sure what you're intentionally referring to here is an aspect that to your ears follows horn speakers regardless of the music being played back - i.e.: one that mimics the "shouty" and present sound of a real sax or trumpet - but my takeaway from this (and which I believe you may be at least subconsciously influenced by as well) is the significance of spontaneously comparing speakers to live instruments, and all that could entail. Think about it, and to reiterate; you're comparing live instruments to speakers, horns not least, and this also calls out shared traits such as tonality/timbre, dynamics, uninhibited presence (a sense of ease, you may say), etc. While your intentional takeaway is for this to be negatively fused and support your stance, I'm conversely seeing you being dismayed by a sound that emulates a live acoustic ditto, for the reason mainly being that any comparison made here will be grounded in more than what you're consciously aware of. Speculative and total B.S.? Quite possibly, but it's a potential "the plot thickens" example of how many audiophiles may be less interested in or even repels live acoustic sound (as reproduced by a stereo) than creating their own (and by a whole community supported) hifi-sound. 

Kosst you said{ It's no mystery to me at all why you NEVER see horn loaded bass guitar rigs}  http://philjonesbass.com/product/16-h-bass-horn-speaker/

' Shouting contest thickens ', no doubt. He is not against live music or its approximation, he is against bad 'live music' shouting at him.
Phusis, I suggest you leave the man alone, let him 'play sax' any way he wants to and just listen without commenting. I would also say that you yourself do not tolerate the same things.

Anyway, who would want these ’big vaginas’ that are almost , if ever, impossible to make sound coherent, more or less uncolored and not spitting out sounds in your face ? Sax and trumpet played live in front of you sound really terrible. Even Miles’s trumpet, I suppose.

@phusis 

Thanks for your comments and I definitely agree: the interest in horn material damping somehow appears MIA, yet too many manufacturers seem to be acting almost as if they are better off letting such sleeping dogs lie, rather than stepping in to educate the consumer on a sales point for which they see no real demand.

"As a general rule I believe horns are much more sensitive, so to speak, with regard to their implementation, manufacture and need of care to work really well compared to direct radiating speakers, but these are demands that doesn’t sit well in today’s manufacturing market, for obvious reasons (sad they are)."

Yes, and I could almost say that it seems like one of those sort of 'pet-peeve' speaker-building traditions of mine in general - that most speaker builders tend to be (relatively) clueless about fully and seriously investigating doing whatever it may happen to take to solve a given "audio" problem (i.e., evaluating how well the problem was fixed based on nothing more than how it actually Sounds) - most particularly the traditionally neglected kind - even if that best sounding solution happens to turn out to be rather more expensive than was anticipated.

In the end, most manufacturers seem much more comfortable building essentially by some sort of *common-sense* based, unconscious formula (the crossovers, or resonance control of a panel, or a horn or cabinets or whatever) should each cost no more than X. Maybe vaguely like when we as newer audiophiles tend to map out our systems planning with a budget first ("I'll spend X amount on speakers, Y on the source, etc), rather than asking the more seasoned question: "How much will it take for me to get the kind of sound I want?" Or for the manufacturers: "How much will it cost to solve the more basic, traditional and neglected audio problems and then work them all into a single, solid design?"