Are horns and hi-eff designs becoming more popular

Dcstep,

If you ever get up to New Hampshire you'd be welcome to come by and hear my Edgarhorns. All speakers have some colorations and these are no exception. However, you will not hear any midrange honk. I also did not hear that from Azzolina horns. I also own a pair of Acapella La Campinella MkI's and with the right amplification these also do not exhibit any honk.

For to original question, I don't know if horns are gaining popularity but I think high efficiency maybe gaining slightly more popularity in the 2 channel music world. I think lower efficiency and big wattage amps are still the favorites in the HT and multichannel world.

Jaybo,the long answer is YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.Single driver and horns and various vintage Altecs,JBL'S,and others are very popular again.The Japanese have been using this stuff for years.They are usually 10-15 years ahead of the US as far as single driver and different horn technology's.It all depends where you ask the question.Check out JE labs site + "Site Jeen" there are many more vintage sites.If you wanted to try a pair on the cheap try the horn shoppe's speakers.If you want any plans for some of the 50's models send me an email.Take care,keith

Dan_ed, thanks for the offer. I've never been to NH, but you never know, do you? I expect to put together a "big system" in mid-2009 so I'll be certain to check out horns before making a decision.

Dave

I also do not think hi-eff and horn speakers are on the increase, which is a shame really. There will always be a dedicated hi-eff/horn following just like antique furniture and cars. I was put onto horns in 1993 by a friend who was selling his speakers (so sadly was he at parting with them that he was nearly crying at letting them go) they are a pair of Impulse H1's (that I bought on the spot on first hearing, as they sounded Incredible compared to my aged Isobarik DMS). Being In a bedroom band and having lots of nice recording gear we recorded my piano at home with a reel to reel and nice mics, then we played It back through the speakers and the similarity between the piano and the recording was scarily close. I think from my little experience is that there are great bargains to be had cost versus performance between horns and enclosed speakers. I listen to as many as speakers as possible at shows etc and while many are very good and a few are excellent (pricey also), I still would not swap my Oris 150's for. I really bought my 150's for peanuts compared to most speakers on sale here on Audiogon and sound wise they are as good as I need. One probably needs a sympathetic partner for one to house large horns as a minus point.

My impression is that horns are a bit more popular these days than in the recent past, but then most things tend to cycle in and out of fashion, irrespective of whether they are good, bad or indifferent.

Horns have their strengths, but they also have weaknesses. In other words, they are like any other speaker or piece of equipment. The key to audio happiness is to line up the strengths of a speaker with the those areas where your ear is most sensitive or that you find important in sound reproduction. In my case, while I enjoy the dynamics of a good horn, I've never heard one yet that didn't have a distinct honkiness that knocked it out of consideration for me. It is a sonic trait that I am apparently more sensitive to than others.

Interestingly, I've just finished the book "Musicophilia" by Dr. Oliver Sacks. It talks about about the brain and how we perceive and process music along with the manner in which afflictions can affect our hearing music, or even using music as treatment. While the book says virtually nothing about audio equipment, the entire text reinforces how differently each of us perceives music. Some of this comes how our brain is wired from before we are born, some comes from experiences and training as an infant (which permanently affects how connections in our brain form) and some comes from our training and experiences later on. (A very interesting read if you like that kind of stuff.)

The net result is that each of us is going to be impressed by different things when we listen. Therefore, rather than read about how this or that speaker is the best thing since sliced bread, the key is to get out and listen and find out what [i]you[/i] are sensitive to when listening to music.