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

To cut to the chase, horns are not to my liking. While the Avantgards (the best horns I've heard) are not offensive sounding (unlike many of the cheaper horns I've heard), their midrange colorations are unacceptable. Additionally, their subwoofer does not integrate well with the horns.

I find it interesting that many horn lovers seem to choose them because of their ability to work well with low-powered SETs. However, I think most everyone agrees that the speaker has a far greater impact on the sound than any other component. Thus, my approach is to choose the speaker most to my liking, and then select an appropriate amp. Admittedly, such amps are higher-powered, and invariably more expensive than the horn-friendly SETs, but it is the only way I can achieve the kind of balanced, tonally-accurate sound I desire.

It is a curious phenomenon that while there are hordes of individuals who swear by horns, (1) horns are rarely found in high end audio shops and (2) the horn displays at audio shows (e.g., CES, the Home Entertainment Show, etc.) are rarely crowded.

Larry

I owned a pair of Klipshorns for a year and was never able to make them sound very good. This could easily be blamed on my room and electronics but I finally gave up and bought an M&K satellite/sub system that I used happily for about 20 years.

I wonder if anyone has experimented with some of the speaker correction hardware that has become available in the last few years. If you could take the good attributes of horns like dynamics and low distortion and correct the anomalies, I think you'd have something really great.

I have settled on the Köchel K300 horns coupled with Atma-Sphere M60 amps and have no intention to look elsewhere. I might consider some subwoofers down the road, after settling on a digital source and some further tweakery. I don't get to listen to many other systems, but I have a truly difficult time imagining a better setup. I don't doubt they are out there, but Lord this is good.

Horns are usually efficient and dynamic, and I hate them! I have never heard a pair that I liked. I have heard the CARS with Atmosphere amps in another hotel room at a different show than Sean attended and people were scampering out muttering some very critcal things. I usually agree with Sean on most everything, but until I hear different I'm not buying into horns. I suspect the previous post about people prefering low powered SET amps being attracted to them carries a lot of truth. To my way of thinking, thats like buying a car because you like to use a particular octane gasoline. I will say that they probably are an appropriate choice for many, just not me.

Unsound: Thanks for the kind words and vote of confidence. Having said that though, i don't think that there is any one speaker design that can do it all.

With that in mind, I like to compare speakers to women. They may all have some worthwhile and / or beautiful trait's, but i have yet to find one that combines all of the "features" and "performance" that i'm looking for*. As such, i've resorted to having multiples to choose from ( speakers, not women ) and tried to work with each of their strengths and minimize their weaknesses within each system. While we can't have it all, I sure can try : ) Sean
>

* I'm sure that the ladies feel the same way about men too, especially my girlfriend : )