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

Sean, I think your onto something, but maybe your priorities mixed up. I made the same mistake.

Remember now, there are different kinds of horns. There are front horns and back horns. I agree that the front horns do tend to have colorations that can be distracting. But rear horns rely primarily on direct radiator sound, with the rear wave being horn-loaded to reinforce the bass frequencies and the mid-bass that drops off due to baffle-step losses. They usually behave as bass horns down to a point, and behave as a tuned port below that, if they are made well. This allows lower bass than expected from the given horn length and mouth size. Lammhorn 1.8 is particularly good for this type of back-horn speaker. Efficiency is a little lower than front horn types, but coloration can be less, also. Back horn is the type I selected for my low power SET system. I like it.

Until this year, I would probably have said that horns while very dynamic were not an ultimate answer given inherent colorations. two things have changed that perception, (1) the purchase by a friend of Lowther based horns and (2) my own purchase of a set of Acapella Campaniles which utilize an ion tweeter, a midrange horn and four 10" woofers. With respect to the Lowthers, while they are somewhat deficient at the frequency extremes, they exhibit a continuousness and presence that seem right to me, paricularly with single ended amps. With respect to the Acapellas, to my great surprise, given adequate breakin and proper positioning in the room and toe-in, the drivers mate very nicely and the sound does not localize on the drivers. All in all, a stunning achievement.

I'd love to hear those ion tweeters.

Sean,
My husband agrees with you, in part. He agrees that there are no perfect speakers.
Judith