Why not horns?

I made an assumption when I started this thread that only a small percentage of audiophiles were aware of how well horns can reproduce music. So far these responses support that assumption.

While there are many of you who might not enjoy the sound and there are a number of others who are in circumstances that make the horn choice inappropriate, many others could improve their sound system to a great degree by switching to quality front loaded horns.

Emerald Physics and Earl Geddes are two sources who offer rather affordable and well regarded options. BD Design and Acoustic Horn Company are a couple of others.

I urge you all to find out what you are missing. High efficiency is a side benefit in that it increases your amplifier options infinitely. Check it out.

I'm a big fan of ESLs and ribbons, but the horns I have in my own system are faster and more revealing, and less colored. I have heard plenty of horns that honk and do weird things- the throat and mouth design is everything in a horn, any errors and the distortion skyrockets. But if it is correct there is nothing out there that can touch them. I don't have bass horns, my system is a bass reflex/horn hybrid, about 98 db 1 watt/1 meter. The diaphragms in the horns are beryllium domes with a kapton surround with no breakups in the audio pass band, and the magnet structures are custom-built field coils.

IMO/IME field coil is the only technology out there that can be as fast and as revealing as ESLs, although I am very impressed by the High Emotion Audio tweeter, which is an interesting (and patented) cross between a horn and a ribbon, very efficient and very fast (and nearly omni-directional) without coloration. It might be the only exception to the superiority of ESLs and field coils.

I don't blame anyone for not liking horns, but to those who doubt based on their listening experiences, I have this to say: you really need to hear the right one, set up properly. Many horn drivers are highly reactive and don't work right if the amplifier used has a low output impedance due to large amounts of feedback! Just because a horn is expensive, don't trust that it is also designed right too! There are quite a few bloopers out there IMO.

Ralph do you think a single driver speaker can do as good as
a full range ESL (like soundlab) or a dynamic speaker;it seems to be that it would not be able to because it is being asked to do to much especially during complex musicial passages.
I admit I have never heard a single driver system though.

Rleff - My speakers are not single driver but rather a hybrid something like what Ralph describes. I have a 15 inch woofer in a 5 cu. ft. ported cabinet under each horn. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear. I don't know of any full range driver either. Typically a horn can only cover about two and a half octaves. That's why full horn systems are usually 4-way set-ups.
My horns are driven by permanent magnet compression drivers because I can't afford field coil drivers and because I was told by Bill Woods that the B&C drivers I use perform very near to the level of Cogent Field Coils. Certainly they are as close as I am ever likely to get. the Cogent Field Coil sound. My drivers sell for about $480 each. The Cogents are about $15,000/pair.

Macrojack I was surprised to see the beating horns are getting on this thread;I have no experience with them but I do admit I have an interest when the time comes;it sounds like you have a excellant setup.