Why not horns?

i always think of horns as like putting the sound under a magnifying glass. A lot of things do not look good under a magnifying glass. Some things can be beautiful but it it may take a while to find the right sound under high scrutiny.

In other words, it may take a good bit more work and precision to get horn loaded speakers to sound "right" compared to less efficient designs that are more forgiving.

I find this interesting as the baffle in the "soffit mount" is what gives you the 6db of gain.

I should add "in the bass region" which is where it is nearly impossible to keep distortion low at high SPL's.

You get even more bass SPL gain by placing a speaker tightly in a corner but this exacerbates room modal issues severely and is detrimental to mid range and treble as you get early side wall reflections.

This is the same property as a horn with all of its issues.

Well sort of...a horn takes this to extreme by coupling the transducer to a very narrow/small chamber(s) and this can cause non-linear distortion due to heavy compression of the air within this small space (when played at higher levels). Technically short wide open horn shapes (like you see on many tweeters) are called "waveguides" and they do not cause distortion although they can alter dispersion in a desirable manner.

FWIW: horns have one huge advantage over conventional designs in addition to their efficiency => lack of compression. Generally a horn will preserve the dynamics of the music at high levels much better than a conventional transducer. In conventional designs the voice coil gets very hot (thermal compression) and large excursions mean non-linearities (distortion). Horns are an excellent approach to many high end applications as they do have distinct advantages.

Electrostatics is so much harder to say then "horns".

Personally I have tried most types of speaker, boxes, electrostatics, ribbons and so on.

I now have horns and wonder how I ever listened to some of the other speakers for so long?

Horns done well have no "honky" sound. They can be as transparent as any quad or ML etc, but with the ability to do true dynamics and volume with bass weight and depth.

I suspect many here have not had the chance to hear a good horn system by some of the comments made.

I made an assumption when I started this thread that only a small percentage of audiophiles were aware of how well horns can reproduce music. So far these responses support that assumption.

While there are many of you who might not enjoy the sound and there are a number of others who are in circumstances that make the horn choice inappropriate, many others could improve their sound system to a great degree by switching to quality front loaded horns.

Emerald Physics and Earl Geddes are two sources who offer rather affordable and well regarded options. BD Design and Acoustic Horn Company are a couple of others.

I urge you all to find out what you are missing. High efficiency is a side benefit in that it increases your amplifier options infinitely. Check it out.