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

That I have upgraded to crossovers, binding post, and internal speaker wire. These sounded OK before the upgrade but now sound really nice with most gear, very nice on strings, vocal, and horns.

Steve.

I suggest anyone curious about horns find an opportunity to hear PROPERLY setup Edgarhorn Titans w/ Seismic sub. If you can get by having 2.5 refrigerators siting in your listening room, they are devoid of any RINGING(wooden horns) whatsoever and dynamic as all getout. Startling dynmaics, to tell the truth. There is an effortless quality to presentation that eases sound into your ears. No edge, honk, or screech at all.

I have never, ever, heard any horn setup like Edgar's (except ESO's DIY 4-way horn rig).

Although, i personally prefer the coherence of high-eff single-drivers to multi-way horn setups. That's a personal preference, not performance related.

As they say, there something for everyone out there.

As the Brits say, different horses for different courses. Based on my experience, a good horn speaker gets me closer to the experience of a live music event than other type of speaker. Given that speakers are typically the largest source of distortion, compression drivers and horn loading are an elegant solution because they have less mechanical movement compared to direct radiators. Planer speakers share this advantage, but aren't capable of displacing enough air to capture dynamics. As with most things, the key is in the implementation and execution.

But there are a lot of drawbacks, namely size, weight, number of drivers (at least 4 for true full-range reproduction). It would be very difficult to live with horns in a small room. I think this is the main reason for horns' lack of commercial success.

My Edgarhorns are superb all around. All speakers are compromised in some manner, but horns, if properly executed, are simply more true to live music.

Regards,
Scott

Coouugar, are you speaking of the LaCampanellas? If so, can you tell me more? Directly if you wish.

Darkmoebius and Skushino, I certainly agree about the benefits of horns, but I have yet to hear Edgarhorns that I would buy. I find them not true to live music, but then again perhaps listening to them at shows is not the best enviornment.

all three