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

Just FWIW... to get horns and other high efficiency speakers to sound right usually involves an amplifier with a relatively high impedance output. Nelson Pass published an excellent article that raised this issue in Audio Express around the beginning of this year.

High efficiency speaker tend to be highly reactive and do not take kindly to overdamping! So the best sound is usually with an amplifier of higher output impedance. This, combined with the fact that tubes sound better then transistors anyway, is why SETs and OTLs are the best amps for horns. Just about any other combination will get you shrill results due to the reactive nature of the speaker.

IOW, horns are not shrill by nature. They get this reputation from being used with the wrong equipment!

funny how nearly in every single set up i have heard horn speakers in the final result is still the same. I have heard the avantgardes with valve amps in hifi shows and in my own room. I am not denying you cannot get a smooth response at the top end but this is almost always with sacrifice to the overall transparency and imaging (what little there is that is).

Furthermore horn lovers are not the ordained ones, horn speakers are outnumbered in the high end systems with low powered triodes etc. I bet by 10:1 at least. Are we saying therefore the rest of the audiophile fraternity are thick?

Not at all. Horns, like cone speakers, come in a variety of performance capabilities. IOW, some work very well, are highly revealing and others pretty much suck at the same task- just like cone or for that matter planar speakers. It would be throwing out the baby with the bath to assume that just because one horn speaker sounds terrible, that they all do!

Luke,
I have found the violon highs indeed a joy, wonderfully musical & a sight to behold. I am about to get the esoteric p-01/d-01/g-0s system with them in a few weeks - the plasma tweeter is aparently even more of a revelation with excellent SCAD playback. Do an audition, life is short & the pleasure you'll get from these speakers is in the same league as great sex.
Dr Jonathan Spratt

The RINGING of metal horns cause SEVERE MIGRAINE headaches. The concentrated sound can SHATTER SKULL BONES. I would not get within one quarter mile of a working metal horn, these are called DRIVERS because they drive you NUTS. Horns are only good on tug boats and firetrucks. JBL originally designed the 375 as a tug boat horn for foggy days. It was later used in the KOREAN WAR on the end of a four foot tube as a weapon to shatter skull bones. I suggest that anyone using a compression driver get an MRI of the skull on a weekly basis to check for fractures of the skull. The high intensity acoustic waves can easily penitrate the skull and burn holes in the brain, thus more inmates can be added to the asylum. These drivers cause standing waves on the skull surface, the intense migranes last for hours to days. Ask any horn "user" if he has frequent headaches. Do you really want to be a "Horn Man"? Are you horny for headach pain? Horns should have been phased out with the Victrola horns. Comments...