Are horn speaker colored or more open and dynamic?

From what I own and what I have heard, the horn speakers are not really colored. I would say that they're less exaggerated and give listener more control over how they want to listen via both active and passive crossovers.
Due to the larger and more open sound, the lower frequency is not as well define due to the open enclosure. That's why some folks prefer to match horn speakers with subwoofers with seperate amplication. However, the listening experience is very different from the conventional cone speakers. Once you heard, it is hard to live with conventional speakers. If there is no size and space restriction then I would go with horn speakers for more versatility ( especially for large orchestra, opera type of music )

Just my 2 cents

Depends. There are some older horn designs that I wouldn't give a nickel for. And then there are the Avantgarde Duos. Over the years I have owned conventional speakers, planars, and electrostats. I have abandoned them all for the Duos. Nothing compares to the LIVE sound offered by these speakers. They excell in effortless reproduction of dynamics and uncolored, transparent, microdetailed sound. The speakers simply disappear and you hear only the music. I love these speakers and plan to live with them for a long time.

On the negative side, the speakers can be difficult to set up. It took me a few days to get the placement and vertical adjustment right. But once I did I was rewarded with breathtaking reproduction of music. The speakers are also very revealing of source material and amplification so you will want to use good components throughout.

- rmf

Performance of horn speakers is very design-dependent, and must be assessed on an individual basis. The designs and implementations of "horn speakers" varies so greatly, that it is almost impossible to make a generalization. Auditioning is strongly suggested before buying.

Twl, I entirely agree, but at the time of this initial post, it seemed to be the concensus on Audiogon that all horns were colored.

TBG, I agree that is the consensus, and that consensus has merit. Horns are very likely to impart additional colorations to the sound, due to the nature of their operation. However, if the horn design is very good, the colorations can be minimal, and the improvement of efficiency, and its attendant improvements is producing deep detail, can outweigh any minimal colorations imparted(at least with some listeners).

All speakers, no matter what design, will impart colorations to the sound. The key is to have the colorations not intrude significantly into your sensitivities, while still achieving other important aspects of producing your sound. All in audio is a trade-off. No free lunch. Sometimes you make a small sacrifice in one area, to achieve superior results in another area which may be more important to you as a listener.

While this may seem both obvious, and vague, at the same time, it is one of the most important things for any audiophile to realize. Nothing is perfect. The key to your listening happiness is to maximize the things that are most important to your sensitivities as a listener, while making the smalles sacrifices possible in the areas of less importance to your listening sensitivites. This is different for different people. That is why some are in nirvana with a certain system, and others couldn't even stand to listen to it.

Generally, with horns, the efficiency level is improved to the point that you require much less amplifier power to achieve desired SPL, which makes the amplifier less strained and improves the sound of the amp. Also, dynamic range is improved, as well as low-level detail. If the horn doesn't make any objectionable colorations to you personally, then it is good enough, being that you are achieving these other benefits. One of the really limiting factors of horns occur in the bass, where proper horn size is too large to fit into the listening room, and engineering compromises are made for compactness, that hurts the performance of the bass horn. The result is that deep bass is not readily achievable out of a compact bass horn. This makes designers resort to non-horn bass drivers, and then integration problems occur, where the bass is not as "fast" as the rest of the spectrum. These are just some of the difficulties that designers face, in trying to make these horn systems.

Basically, a horn is an impedance-coupling device to more efficiently couple the driver motion to the surrounding air. It does this very efficiently, but may make colorations in an objectionable way.

This is why I wrote what I did, because it is truly the listener's decision if the trade-offs are worthwhile in each individual case.