Are Horn Speakers good or bad or simply a complete joke?

Sean, Duke, I listened to a huge, Avanguarde model, quite a few times last year. The horns are polymer?, vinyl? (not metallic, anyway). Sound was ecstatic when listening to jazz or other SMALL ensembles. Female vocals also great (jazz & classical). The lower register was weaker compared to mids and highs. The sound was NOT evidently coming out of a horn -- it came out clear of "tunnel" colouration and perceptible ringing.

Please note, however, that this took place at a dealer's premises & not @ home; take it with more than a grain of salt.

As it's relatively easy for me to audition these speakers, I may be able to dig up more, if you wish.

Cheers

Sean wants to snag my WHAT? Wow I'd better be more careful; I was just thinking about stopping by the radio shop & showing them off just to watch you drool! Maybe I'll only bring in one of them; that won't get you too far - hee hee.

I heard the Avant's in '99: no "cupped-hand" midrange horn resonance coloration was noticed although it was only a very brief audition. They're made out of some kind of a composite material.

As I said previously, setup is critical with horns. I'm also doing a similar mod-project (presently all on paper) of my Belle Klipsch's & still collecting the parts for this job. However as I've fine-tuned & upgraded my rig to a higher level of finesse, that cupped-horn coloration has significantly diminished to the point that it's no longer very much of an issue, even pre-modded. When talking "setup" I mean system-synergy: using the right matchup of equipment, cables, tweaks etc. It's a long-ish pathway to nirvana but I'm really very pleased, even prior to total optimization.

A very good friend of mine recently sold his Joule Electra tube monoblock amplifiers and stored his Merlin speakers in order to purchase a pair of Beauhorns and an Art Audio Jota tube amp (he retained his First Sound pre amp in his system). At first, I thought it would be very difficult for the new set-up to match or surpass his old one, especially since he had been getting really great quality sound (his system was very lively, transparent, dynamic, musical, and accurate with the Joule tube amps and Merlin speakers). Then after he installed the super tweater, I was amazed how transparent, musical, and dynamic these Beauhorns are. It is my opinion that when done right, the Beauhorn speakers can play really large and difficult pieces of music that other speakers are unable to (the music is more accurate and life-like. Orchestral music is a good example. After hearing the Beauhorns, it has altered my thinking and opinions in favor of horn speakers.

You guys should hear the new Klipsch RF series. With about 250 hrs. of break in, and the proper gear(because gear is system dependent)they sound really nice. But wrong gear and they will cut your head off.They are very neutral and revealing, will tell on your upline gear real fast.

Todd, horns are certainly unforgiving as you say. If a rig has any upline problems, then you'll certainly be more aware of that when playing through horns. If everything is setup properly then the articulation & control, definition & detail are amazing indeed.
I haven't heard the RF line, but now I'm really interested in checking them out - thanks.