Horn based loudspeakers why the controversy?

Many assume horns are good for high SPL use only many assume they all need massive amount of SQFT to house and get integration many assume all horns are plagued with coloration or have no ability to image, or that horns for audio use are rare costly hard to source and not being produced in large nums but if you read reply's from owners and other audiophiles you can see most all of the passed about as facts on horns are wrong.  

"Everything you know is wrong," Firesign Theater.

Everything you know is wrong," Firesign Theater- thxs that one cracked me up..

I don't hate horns, but I find there dispersion characteristics to be very different on and off-axis.  If you tune them for on-axis listening then they are muddy off-axis.  If you tune them for off-axis listening, your ears will bleed when you are on-axis.  So, when properly tuned, they can be good on-axis, but they do not make good speakers for wide-field listening.

The sound of any speaker, including omni directional drivers,  is always better "on axis" because the stereo image is right, all conventional drivers beam some anyway, and phase plugs and proper modern horn design is about dispersion to prevent extreme beaming. Any speaker manufacturer that says their speakers sound great anywhere in the sound field is hyping their stuff, because it just ain't so since the closest speaker is always louder (see "Garcia's Second Law of Nearness," Merkle Press $4.50 plus shipping.). The "little" horns in the Heresy IIIs seem to disperse as well as the conventional tweeter speakers I have around. In fact, a little test of "realistic" (by my standards anyway) sound is how a speaker sounds from nearby…not in the direct field like when I’m in the adjoining part of the sort of "great room" where my gear is (making another martini or curled up in a fetal position weeping quietly), and the Heresy’s sound like, "hey, there are musicians over there doing something." Also note that some designs feature the fact that they "beam" higher frequency tone at the "sweet spot" listener as a way to limit wall reflections. Who cares what the speakers sound like from the side anyway? The dent on the couch from my butt where the system sounds best is there for a reason.