Horn based loudspeakers why the controversy?

To the wider audience...
Nope, I haven't heard any really great home horn systems. I have heard hundreds of big, honky horns in bars, clubs, theaters, and arenas though. JBL are some of the worst I've ever heard. JBL horns are what Pine Knob has installed in their amphitheatre and they absolutely suck. The honky, distorted sound from them was the first thing my friend commented on and he knows pretty much nothing about audio to color his opinion. The least horn sounding horns I've ever heard have been Nexo arrays. The thing I truly hate about horns is how they feel like their bearing right down on you. I don't hear music that sounds massive. I hear a speaker that sounds massive. Maybe I'm just hypersensitive to that characteristic horn sound, but it's as distracting to my ears as vinyl hiss which is why I'll never bother owning a turntable. 

@kosst --

Going by your experience and the venues in which you’ve predominantly(?) heard "horn" speakers (again, most of them have likely been hybrids; not that this is necessarily a bad thing sonically, but it waters down the model of definition here), and being that this is mostly the pro-arena (i.e.: cinema speakers which uses mostly horn hybrids are usually not the worst representatives of "horn" sound, I find, but bear in mind they’re sometimes driven upwards of their limits), I’d say you may be in for a pleasant surprise with a pair of well-implemented, quality all-horn or horn hybrid speakers in a domestic environment. "honky, distorted sound" is nothing at all like what a pair of quality horn speakers will bring to the day, certainly not least when played at more moderate levels in a home, but if a sound that deviates from many if not most direct radiating smaller speakers by virtue of simply offering up a larger, more effortless, present and enveloping presentation, and that these traits are for some reason not to your liking, then I guess our case here must finally come to rest. However, I’m thinking you may be mixing up sonically detrimental artifacts from your overall pro-arena horn sound experience - where many aspects "come into play" to negatively affect the sound quality - with what are truly assets in quality horn sound reproduction in carefully implemented home setups. As for JBL, I’ve come to find their current 44-range, K2’s and Everest iterations to be overpriced, and I can tell you there are indeed much better (all-)horn speakers out there, and for less money - certainly going by my inkling for good sound.

I’m hoping you’ll some day be treated with a good demo of horn speakers in a home setting (let us know if an audition at poster @mrdecibel will eventually be arranged, and what you’ll come to find of it). I’d be glad to demo my own setup for you, but I reside in Europe (Scandinavia) and may not be the most obvious candidate.

I lost a midrange driver in my Heresy.....  I could not believe how easy it was to replace the diaphram......   thanks PWK.....

I was questioning my tweeter's condition after my daughter wrecklessly cranked the volume and damaged a midrange so I decided to order Crites titanium diaphrams.   They are excellent !!!    Even better was Bob's customer service.  Unbelievable level of passion for speakers and his customers.   Crites Speakers has another loyal customer .  

Anyone who things horns sound “colored” or lack imaging, or intimacy hasn’t heard a good horn system, period. 
First of all, most horn systems are not time aligned. This is bad for all of the above issues.
My system is fully time aligned, and features the world’s best midrange, the RCA1443 field coil driver. 
It scales beautifully: Norah Jones is in front of me singing one minute, then the next a massive orchestra is playing. (not sure how to post a photo?)

No ‘cone’ woofer speaker will ever match the speed, realism, and scale that a well designed horn system can muster. The problem is that these are rare. Wheel Fi made great systems, but I don’t think they’re around anymore. Try them. 
Oswalds Mill is a joke. Their horns sound good, but the owner is a complete idiot. But that’s another story!