Calling all Horn lovers

Vu has a "club" located offsite from the store. The club includes three separate listening rooms, plus an area where they do construction projects. The 15A is in the main listening room which is something like 20' x 25'. It is in the "club" because a purchaser of the system had it installed in his listening room for a single afternoon (after the wife saw it, it was no longer welcome).

The worst cone speakers are horrible. There are cones that seem like they will loosen my fillings in my teeth. The worst panel speakers are horrible. The worst horn speakers are horrible Generalizations are nearly useless.

But the best horn speakers are sublime. Horns are capable of a wonderful combination of sweetness, ease, coherency, power, dynamics. You should try to find some great horns to listen to.

Now, in my "top 5 speakers ever" list is a wonderful dynamic speaker. Unfortunately, it is very inefficient to drive. But my point is that generalizations are flawed.

Now, for MY money, considering the above listed attributes of horns, plus typically good efficiency, more of my favorite speakers are indeed horns, so I would suggest listing to some.

Something I can categorically state is that the prejudice against horns in the Western press and, as a result, Western audiophile circles, is ridiculous and completely misleading.

Seek some out. Go to some shows. Then YOU tell US.

Shakeydeal, our speaker preferences are similar. If I could ask, why did you pick Bob's C model Cornscala rather than one of the other models? I'm thinking of replacing my Cornwall III's with one of his other offerings. Would appreciate your thoughts. For Bander, I grew up with horn loaded speakers and love the accuracy, dynamics and "live" music quality, as many other musicians do as well. Quality, of course, varies as does taste so careful selection is important.

I went with the C version because of the better dispersion of the tweeter. My room isn't huge, but it is bigger than some. I am glad I did, because I think this Selenium tweeter is excellent.

Shakey

but I do know that this arrangement does not have the dreaded horn "shout" or any other colorations that to my ears identify it as a horn.

IME this is the result of using the wrong kind of amplifier on the horn, rather than something inherent in the horn itself. Most older horn designs have crossovers that are not designed to work with amplifiers with lots of negative feedback (low output impedance); this results in crossover errors when such amplifiers are used. The result is that the horn may be playing information out of its proper passband! *That* is where that honky shouty horn reputation comes from. for more info see:

http://www.atma-sphere.com/Resources/Paradigms_in_Amplifier_Design.php