Horns: Why don't they image well?

As I have said many times on various A'gon threads, Klipsch were always designed with a particular price point in mind. My favorites, the original Heritage models, designed by PWK, were always, imo, and ime, great designs, but unless they were " fixed ", of their shortcomings, they might not have won you over. To respond to Eric : set up correctly, they can " disappear " as well as any other design. However, imaging and soundstaging are not the attributes that I enjoy most about them ( although, it is definitely icing on the cake ). I will not go into them here, as I have spoken about it so many times before. Just my 2 cents. Enjoy ! MrD.

"Horns: Why don't they image well?
Anyone have a theory?"

because they image spectacularly?  at least mine do...  in fact, i have several types of speakers that image spectacularly.

i have a better question:
"speakers that don't image well: why don't they image well?
anyone have a theory?"  ;~)

doug s.

My experience is that 'imaging' is not the sole factor of the speakers.

Everything in the chain will contribute.

For example...monoblocks will give a better image than a dual channel amplifier...all things being equal.

My highly modified Klipschorns suffer very little in direct comparison to my highly modified Merlin VSM. Hard panned information does 'stick' to the Klipshcorns a bit more, the Merlins seem to disappear with the same hard panned information. I think much of this difference is due to baffle width. The Volti horns are much better than the stock Klipschorn horn in regard to imaging. Center imaging is pretty much even.

Horns tend to give a wall of sound, but rarely can image pinpoint in the horizontal and vertical and depth like the above ones mentioned can.

This statement is simply false.

It may be true for some earlier horns as the throat design and curvature of the horn flare affect its response. These days that is optimized with CAD; horns can image as well as any other tech.