Horns for SET: Low budget solutions

Rchau,

Interesting that you mention the Onken, since the same guy who had the S.A.P. eventually moved to an Onken based set-up. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to hear that that system.

I like the Onken idea, though Onken tend to present the same space limitations as the La Scalas...namely they are huge. I'm in a tiny apt. in Chicago and they'd take up about half of my living room. Or am I wrong?

The Onken cabinets can get rather large especially if they are used with 15" or 18" bass drivers. They tend to be wide but shallow. However, the Jensen bass loading (i.e. Onken) can be made using much smaller drivers that are amenable for smaller rooms. Welborne used to sell plans for an Onken bass cabinet for use with the Oris horns that were not too big. I had them for a while while setting up a friends Lowther driven Oris horn. These used a 10" driver so the size was manageable.

That's why I suggested the Stonehenge cabinet and an Altec 604 driver. The cabinet ends up around 18.75" wide, 14.75" deep, and 44" tall. These are not tiny but workable in all but the smallest rooms. These can also be placed close to a wall so you save space. You can go to Iconic's website and see pics.

http://www.iconicspkrs.com/stonehenge.html

You might want to visit osaudio.com. He's a former distributor for Loth X and Zingali horns and usually has a few pairs of each available on closeout. FWIW, I listened to the SAP (Quattro if I recall) pretty extensively when I was auditioning horns and much preferred the Zingali. YMMV.

Marty

I'm in a tiny apt. in Chicago and they'd take up about half of my living room.

In that case I would urge you to consider single driver speakers. The Abbys project a fairly large, life size image that extends forwards. It is much easier to achieve reasonable imaging with single drivers. You won't be able to extract the full potential of a larger horn speaker. If you still want front loaded horns the smaller Heresys would be worth a consideration and an affordable introduction to low-power hi-efficiency amps/speakers.

Another vote for the Abbys, with the plus point that they are really attractive. There are some seriously big ugly horn speakers out there. Zingali are simply beautiful sounding and looking speakers. The cheaper overture I believe, speakers are not so impressive, but the larger HM I believe are remarkable, but there are'nt many dealers to hear them at.