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Loudspeakers have we really made that much progress since the 1930s?

Since I have a slight grasp on the history or loudspeaker design. And what is possible with modern. I do wonder if we have really made that much progress. I have access to some of the most modern transducers and design equipment. I also have  large collection of vintage.  I tend to spend the most time listening to my 1930 Shearer horns. For they do most things a good bit better than even the most advanced loudspeakers available. And I am not the only one to think so I have had a good num of designers retailers etc give them a listen. Sure weak points of the past are audible. These designs were meant to cover frequency ranges at the time. So adding a tweeter moves them up to modern performance. To me the tweeter has shown the most advancement in transducers but not so much the rest. Sure things are smaller but they really do not sound close to the Shearer.  http://www.audioheritage.org/html/profiles/lmco/shearer.htm
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shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
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@johnk

What about non linear affects from compression in the throat of the horn? This usually results in high 2nd harmonic distortion. Since it is caused by air compression, my understanding is that it is an inherent design limitation of horn transducers.

Here are some measurements of various high end horns. They ALL without exception suffer from high 2nd harmonic distortion.

http://www.pearl-hifi.com/06_Lit_Archive/14_Books_Tech_Papers/LeCleach_Jean-Michel/Horn_Shootout_ETF...

I am surprised nobody is aware of this. It is not a secret.
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johnk OP
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Shadorne nothings perfect all things have issues horns many benefits greatly off set the weakness. Pointing to a bit of 2nd order as a deal killer is also maybe not the best weakness that horns have to focus on. Also if you read till the end Jean lists that many of the horns are low distortion. He also was marketing product so had a bit of a bias towards his own work. Still Jean was one other the good guys in high eff design his horns are wonderful to use but I still prefer my older multicells. Also most all into horns know of JMLC  http://horns-diy.pl/en/horns/jmlc/jmlc-400/
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shadorne
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@johnk


I agree that nothing is perfect but in the context of this thread - horns have long been surpassed by the modern era of conventional drivers (starting in the 70’s) which have performance up to -70dB of THD - a massive 30dB less distortion than horns.

30dB less distortion - now that is incredible progress!
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