How much of High End Audio is Horn Speakers?
An audio friend of mine had been discussing my future speaker purchase. We discussed, Harbeth, Devore, Spendor, Audio Note and other more traditional speaker brands. A week or two later he called an asked me what speakers I had purchased. When I told him Klipsch, there was a little silence on the other end of the line. Our call probably ended a little sooner then usual. I could tell he was disappointed in my purchase. Is it the Klipsch name that illicits this type of response or is it Horn speakers in general? After thinking about some of the other Audiophiles in town, a good deal of them are on the low power high efficiency speaker route and more than a few I know are using Horns. Does anyone know how the high end market share is divided? Is there a stigma associated with certain lower cost Horn speakers? Or is this just Klipsch? I now own a pair of Klipsch Cornwalls and am enjoying the journey associated with tweaking the sound to my taste. Is there an unwritten rule that friends don’t let friends buy Klipsch?
Horn speakers have small diaphragms, working in a powerful magnetic field and acoustically loaded, which producers high efficiency and low distortion. Downside is that the waveguide creates coloration. My JBL 1400's are the least colored of any horn speaker I've heard, but the trade off is that to tame those resonances results in less efficiency and there is still a hint of "horniness". But I can live with that. |
@vladtheimpala blanket statements like that are never true. If you have never listen to a naturally warm, engaging and add any other adjectives you want horn speaker, then you have never listened an Avantgrade in a good system. The Duos Avantgrade, as good and in many cases better than my Sonus Faber Aida, the Trio leaves the Aida in the dust, as it does my Tannoy’s, or any of the other speakers I own, including the Wilson. if the Avantgrade sound harsh, then it is either the system connected to them or the music or the room placement. if you are ever around Barcelona, let me know, I will let you listen to them with any of my amps, including my Audio Signature Ginrei and the soon to come The Legend. If you don’t like it and find the music to be engaging and as real as you have listened, I gladly buy you dinner. |
