Vandersteen 3A Sigs vs Klipsch Forte III

Hifiman55, Mrd.......I identify. 

@hifiman55. Secondary audio diffractions ? I do not hear any. Most speaker grill material will take care of that. That is the reason Thiel recommended leave the grills on. I actually prefer most speakers without grills, as they sound a bit more open. I like speakers that sound open. When I owned AR9s, Spica 50s and Angelus, some Duntech models ( and more ), a successful modification I was doing was to change the thick absorber material on the front baffles to a much thinner, slightly less absorbent material, which in every case, opened up the dynamics, to me, dramatically. Knowing I wanted dynamics led me to horns. Knowing you are a Vannie, I understand why you like them. I owned most of the 2 series, along with his subs and crossover. You do know the JBL 100s are not horns.

Most of the speakers I have owned, disappeared, but most, never sounded like live music, nor, made my toes tap. I think the higher efficiency of the speaker has something to do with the dynamics one hears. Many are talking about the Tekton DI series, giving you this " slam ", feel it in your chest thing, and they are not horn loaded. @heardthat, you might want to consider a pair of DIs ( free in home trial, just pay for shipping back in need to return ). Many listeners I respect here like them ( actually love them ). Just read the threads. Enjoy MrD.

Not to get tooooo far off topic but the physics of a large baffle vs minimal baffle are pretty well understood and IF you can’t hear it try this simple experiment with a 1’ x 1’ price of cardboard, cut mouth hole and have someone speak thru hole .....
roll into a cone and you get focused energy....
then compare those to speaking in free space...

Hopefully we are helping the OP