Why not horns?

"what do you mean by forward and laid back"

Laid back meaning the soundstage is mostly behind the plane of the speakers.

Forward meaning that the soundstage is not so much behind the plane of the speakers and some things may sound like they originate from locations that are in front of the plane of the speakers. In some lively rooms, due to reflections, sound might even sound like the origin is behind the listener to some extent.

I have heard both dynamic and planar designs have a quite forward sound in certain lively rooms, but not so much omnis. I expect horns might as well. granted, room acoustics play a big part in this.

Mapman, I thought it was obvious that I was questioning the midrange purity of horns. Horns are about as different as omnis as can possibly be. Based upon your love of omnis, (which I do appreciate), I can't help but feel that horns would be an anathema to you. I find horns to be the most colored of all the different speakers. I will say that they do do dynamics and loudness as well or better than just about all other speakers (though the Wilson's can give them a run). If one were to listen to nothing but big band music, I could understand one choosing horns, but despite literaly hundreds of demos, including some high touted and expensive rigs, I find horns to be a bad joke.

Unsound,

Yes I missed in reading first time that your reference was regarding horns.

You may be right. It would take a lot for me to live exclusively with horns I think, but I do find them intriguing, if not all that practical perhaps.

Luckily, I am blesed to have a house big enough to enable me to dabble when desired without having to say goodbye to what I have.

The bad news is my wife's sunroom is the room where I would most like to experiment with horns!

I've thought about it for a good while now but there are enough practical barriers to address that it has not happened, yet.

Someday I do predict there will be a set of horns in my house somewhere, even if it turns out to be just a nice looking old Victrola.

Devolution?

Mapman, I see, then my horns are very laid back using your definition. IMHO this has everything to do with how speakers are place in the room and very little to do with the type of speaker. Don't let comments like those from Unsound dissuade you. You may not end up liking them but with 10s or 100s of thousands of us loving them they must have something to offer.

Rleff, Time align means that the sound waves from the different drivers arrive at your ear at the same time. Imagine a whack on a drum that was partially produced by the woofer and partially produced by the mid range and just to exaggerate imagine that the woofer is sitting 100 feet behind the midrange. You would hear the higher frequency part of the whack and then about a tenth of a second later hear the low frequency part of it. That applies to all speaker systems with more than one driver but it is exacerbated with a bass horn since they are so long.

In order to physically align my drivers the mid-tweet horns would have to be 16 feet behind the mouth of the woofer. I choose to digitally delay the mid-tweets instead of moving them.

Unsound, I guess that's why there are different types of speakers. I've never heard a Thiel I wanted to listen to for more than a few minutes. I've never heard the upper level Vandersteens but the 3A sounds to me to the slowest speaker in the world. I end up leaning forward trying to get to the music. Others say they sound wonderful. Go figure.

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