Horns for HT?


Hi all,

I'm starting to set up a second HT room in our 18'x32'x10'basement game room. I have a B&W HT/music system on the main floor featuring 800ds, HTM2D, Velodyne DD18. I would like to try something different in the basement. From what I've been told horns excel at impact\dynamics\punch. So would a HT system with horn speakers work well. Does anyone have any suggestions going this direction? I will be using Arcam AVR-600 for my processor.I'm not looking at going quite as high end as I have upstairs

Thanks, Mike
128x128mikeba316
In an earlier iteration of my HT, I had B&W 802 speakers and Mcintosh amps. I it sounded great but I got a taste of horns in my main music setup (which is separate.) So when I moved into my new house, which has separate music and HT rooms, I put custom horns and low powered Audio note amps in the HT room. The sound for me was a definite upgrade with amazing dynamics and impact. The room is sound proofed (relatively) with two subs. BTW, for many years, movie theaters used horns and tube amplification.

Good luck
Check out the Klipsch website, they have a listing that Movie Theatre uses all Klipsch's - pretty dang impressive! I would say Klipsch RF-83 or RF-63, made in USA, assembled in USA and they use solid wood... the RF-82 and RF-62 are assembled in CHina and uses lesser quality wood.... Good Luck!
klipsch, again. No other provides the punch. Khorns with a center Belle would be ideal. I've had such a set up when I built my Media Room. Never looked back. For $5K you will be in heaven.
I've been an audio/videophile for many years myself. I've owned some Klipschies in the past, and think, done properly, can indeed offer some dynamic, well focused, coherent sounding performance for good HT/music dubties! While I do like the klipsh's - historically - with tubes in the system, they offer some efficiency advantages over typical passive speaker systems, which usually ends up resulting in dynamic advantage to the higher sensitivity horn speakers. Basically, they amplify and reinforce the frequencies they cover, making a more potent, hard hitting, and dynamic pressentation there. Their higher sensitivity also makes for a more effortless, efficient system to drive, without difficulty. The horns - especially in your bassment - offer the advantage of limiting off-axis, and floor to ceiling acoustical reflections, which can smear the immaging and dynamic impact of a sound system.
Klipsch's tend on the bright/crispy side on the treble, wiht a foreward pressentation overall (this makes for a more involved pressentation with better "pressence" for movies, IMO), depending on models, so consider. I would go with tubes first, then more mellow, laid back electonics to match, for best tonaly balance (also, EQ's like the Audyssey will help here also, if needed).
I think you can rule out ubber-buck Avantgardes, and look also at Accutech's offerings offers, JBL's THX horns, and similar. Read your reviews here,and do some searching.
For the record, as a movie system, I've not heard much better with horn passive's than the Klipsch THX system refered to here, above, for movies! Sounded very dynamic, detailed, clear, and effortless for passive system. I'd use those if I had to NO PROBLEM! Very good, infact.

Good luck