Why not horns?

Bjpd57a1, that is one heck of a love poem there. Nicely done. Your passion comes through loud and clear, as if sung through a horn, maybe.

I do use Horns (Klipsch).....I like them a lot. I think the midrange of my Apogee speakers beats the Klipsch by a fair amount though.

Of course my Klipsch aren't the best horns, but my Apogees aren't the best Apogee either?

Dave

No Brainer is the exact term for anyone who cannot hear the obvious colorations of horns! LOL. Hay, we all have different tastes and preferences; what a dull world it would be if we didn't.

Here is the driver I am using:
http://www.bcspeakers.com/product.php?id=0000000035

Check out Acoustic Horn Company AH300 to see the horn I'm talking about. While it is true that a term like distortionless is hyperbolic, it is also true that you will be unable to detect any semblance of distortion in my room at practical listening levels. Conical horns are claimed to avoid congestion and therefore distortion in the horn throat.

As for room interaction, it is actually lower than with more conventional drivers because the horns are only 40 degree dispersion. That's 20 degrees either side of axis, which is to say pretty narrow. That means the sound reaches you well before it reaches any reflective boundaries.
The disqualifier for some people will be listening distance. It is best to have at least 12 feet between you and your horns.
Distortion figures at 120 db have no place in any discussion about my sound system as it will never play anywhere near that loud.
These are the same horns used by Gogent, Oswald's Mill and Chris Brady of Teres Turntable. There is no honk. The presentation is like that of a very dynamic QUAD.

" I have yet seen or heard any speaker which can play loud with such low 0.3% THD. "

"ATC claim this on their highest end designs such as the SCM300 while playing at 121 dB SPL (definitely loud). I am skeptical that they can actually achieve this down to 20 Hz but I imagine it is not far off the truth especially with a 6 db bass boost from a typical soffit mount - certainly from 40 to 20 Khz it can probably be done. Of course, at normal volume levels the distortion is probably even slightly lower but 0.3% THD is definitely approaching the limits of speaker technology even at moderate volume levels."

I find this interesting as the baffle in the "soffit mount" is what gives you the 6db of gain. This is the same property as a horn with all of its issues. Soffit mounting done properly is useful. Improperly done, and it can be just horrid no matter how great a speaker you put in there. Besides working out proper placement, the fabrication of the soffit itself is very important as it becomes a transducer along with the speaker.