Why not horns?

Hey guys just give the wife a credit card with a reasonable set limit and a gps with all the malls programmed in the points of interest;that might work;this has been a pretty good thread for someone who never knew anything about horns such as myself.

I got to attend the Capital Audiofest event in Rockville, MD this past weekend. This was a small but very nicely done event.

THere was a range of pricepoints in equipment there, all the way up to several systems demonstrating the best face of some of the most highly touted gear around, like mbl, Magico, yg acoustics, and various others. There were at least 4 systems I can recall that used horn loaded speakers, a very high % of the systems overall I thought, with results ranging from just OK to most impressive.

I spent the most time (a good hour or so) in the Luminous Audio room, which featured a large 4 way custom horn speaker system that somewhat resembled Avantgarde in design, complete with moderate size, corner loaded, dual bass horn boxes on both sides.

These were being demoed with what I would describe as a no holds barred, cost is no limit system, which was exceptionally well done in all regards, particularly in regards to phono source however.

I think I pretty much heard what I was expecting from such a system, and it was most impressive and hard to fault, though the range of music demonstrated was limited to mostly vintage classical and jazz material. I would have liked to have heard a wider variety of music, but that is not where this demo of this system was geared towards.

Unsound, having heard this system and based on teh sound, I suspect you might reconsider if you had the chance to have this particular system including the horns in your home somehow!

Of course, the main aspect of this system that caught my ear compared to everything else at the show was the dynamics, transient response and overall clarity of the presentation. Soundstage and imaging was well up to snuff as well.

There were two things that I still wondered about afterwards. One was who can afford this stuff, and two was I must admit my head hurt a bit afterwards while driving home. I attribute that to just the overall volume and natural dynamics of the system rather than any faults of the system itself. Were I at the symphony sitting that close to the orchestra in full swing, I'm certain I would feel the same way afterwards.

Regarding the otehr systems featuring horn loaded speakers there, they were mostly all quite nice, somewhat impressive and well behaved (not honky or anything like that), but no others left much of a unique impression on me. The Cathedral speakers room was the other horn based speaker setup that I found myself not wanting to stop listening to, although the material and performance volume there was much more reserved.

There are some pics of the horn rig I was talking about and some others at CAF here:

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3766696

My friend has meticulously set up his Trios with 3 pairs of bass horns in a dedicated and purpose built room with every little trick and room correction you could think of.

That doesn't mean he did it all correctly, only that he spent a lot of time and money doing it. Maybe he has, maybe he hasn't?

Are those the huge Avantgarde basshorns? I haven't heard them but they really aren't horns. A horn does not require a 250W amp. Those are woofers with a flared opening.

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"A horn does not require a 250W amp." I hope that was meant to be sarcastic. ;-)