Are Horn Speakers good or bad or simply a complete joke?

The harshness is the source not the speakers.Listen with a viynl set up.Digital is the joke.

Older horns can still sound really good in properly set up. Klipsch, JBL and Altec Lansing sometimes still give me goosebumps when I hear them at my dad's.

I switched to horns 5 years ago and have never looked back--but ,of course,I attend live music 40 or 50 times a year--both old Altec VOTTs and Edgarhorns. my good friend JGH agrees with me 100%

Horns are great esp. if you like the punch / slam / dynamics of live music. Setup is critical, but the rewards are very worthwhile. A forum archive search brings up 54 references to horns in the speaker catagory alone - I suggest you pursue that lead. Below I have pasted in the search link for you (first entry below links to the above-referenced 54 finds). Below that are 10 direct links to individual posts from the aforementioned 54. There is a lot of good info here:
http://audiogo5.iserver.net/cgi-bin/fr_srch.pl?0&1&procsrch&3&4&

http://audiogo5.iserver.net/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&989249073&read&keyw&zzhorns

http://audiogo5.iserver.net/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&988933562&read&keyw&zzhorns

http://audiogo5.iserver.net/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&986076653&read&keyw&zzhorns

http://audiogo5.iserver.net/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&981725620&read&keyw&zzhorns

http://audiogo5.iserver.net/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&980394513&read&keyw&zzhorns

http://audiogo5.iserver.net/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&979415558&read&keyw&zzhorns

http://audiogo5.iserver.net/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&973282698&read&keyw&zzhorns

http://audiogo5.iserver.net/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&969595915&read&keyw&zzhorns

http://audiogo5.iserver.net/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&936412039&read&keyw&zzhorns

http://audiogo5.iserver.net/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&922525017&read&keyw&zzhorns

Edle, Since the Japanesee and the rest of the Asian world, has embraced this type of transducer, as well as being the first culture to recognise and endorse the return of vacume tubed equipment, I can assure you horns are no joke. When my Japanese friends tell me that JBL Hartsfields, WE horns in custom enclosures from the 1950s etc., are close to the best ever,when driven by great amps, I gotta beleive there IS quite a bit to it. The Asian community, as a whole, seems to have the ability to spot greatness in sound, well before the rest of the world realises the achievements........Frank