Why not horns?

Csmgolf has provided a personal account of an honest attempt to make horn speakers work for him. It could be argued that his experience is not indicative of the best that horns can offer but that is not the purpose of this thread. I want people to overcome ignorance of what horns can do and he has certainly made to desired effort.
He says that he is keeping an open mind. What else can you ask of him?

My reach here is toward those who have closed their minds. I don't expect everyone to like what I like but since getting involved in horns myself I have come to learn that there are few areas of sound reproduction that embody misinformation and misunderstanding to the degree that horn loudspeakers do. Even the most prominent horn designers are sharply divided as the best approach. The pre-eminent horn authority at this point in time is probably Tom Danley but I'm sure you will hear arguments about that statement as well.

Perhaps, if enough of us get interested, the forces that guide research will guide the horn. As a technology, simple as it seems,we appear to be dealing with an option that has remained an infant for 50 years.

For those who tak about sweet spots, do some reading about the JBL Everest. Maybe some investigation of B&O experiments with sound directivity and room correction will provide inspiration or spark some imagining. Geddes has a Circle on Audio Circle that is heavily trafficked. Romy has a following. Jonathan Weiss of Oswald's Mill is utterly retro and cutting edge in the same stroke. His designs challenge the best of everything yet stick with horns and single tubes. Bruce Edgar may be the guy who got us all started. Klipsch holds a dedicated following. Jadis created one of the most sought after speakers of all time, all horn. Usher makes a horn speaker that looks very interesting. Bert Doppenberg has been stirring souls and stirring the pot for a couple of decades. Classic Audio Design makes the speaker that Atma-Sphere uses and adores. Field coil drivers are in use there and in the minds of many an entrepreneur. For those who don't know, a field coil uses an electromagnet the way your speakers use permanent magnets.
Have I forgotten anyone? Probably. I'm no expert and I imagine some of what I just wrote contains minor factual errors. I'm too lazy to bolster my recollections with back research for the purpose of this thread. I'd just like to get more people talking and more designers working on horns. I'm sure that tapped horns hold huge potential and I bet that designers can make horns more living room friendly if sufficiently motivated. I understand that the laws of physics are more than just suggestions but I also know that the audiophile community is infinitely resourceful. Our problems lie in the area of media misdirection. The audio press might better be called the audio suppress.

Horns have unexploited potential. Lets get busy harvesting their potential. Most other options seem to have reached their limits long ago.

Dartford, I accept your assessment of what you heard. I am curious what horns you have heard. I realize that might be an extensive list and not worth the bother of recalling but given our diametrically opposed experiences it might help understand where you are coming from.

Macrojack, I would add Jeffrey Jackson and Dave Slagle to your list of cutting edge horn designers. Jeffrey is distributing a line of wood horns and they are collaborating on field coil designs. Check out the Hi Fi Heroin blog at this link to get an idea of how consumed these guys are with it.

http://www.jeffreywjackson.com/

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Lots of personal bias, limited experience, a passing listen now your an expert. Why forum response can be a true waist of time if real info is desired. I can have any loudspeaker design I want I choose horns. And no they do not honk have audible distortions that are problematic for all loudspeakers distort. Yes they image and bass is world class. You get far less thermo compression out of horn designs. After you hear what thermo compression does to musical dynamics hard to enjoy a non horn speaker after. Conventional loudspeakers to me sound like they are working hard to produce signal. A horn system sounds at ease never forced. To me proper horn loudspeakers do most performance aspects better than conventional designs, except, cost, size, maybe WAF. Still to me many with lesser systems who could never afford or get proper horns or loudspeakers past she who must be obeyed of coarse could never except the fact that horns are just better for music. Since this fact hurts to much to except they must make themselves happy with far lesser designs. ;)

Marty, my comments were not addressing your post, but thanks for the follow up. What you say makes sense and may help explain issues that some have with horns. Macro, thanks for keeping an open mind about my personal experience. I, like many others use these forums to learn about differing technologies and how they are best applied. Horns are no exception. They have many desirable virtues, such as those I mentioned in my previous post. But before I would ever consider restructuring my entire system around a set of horns, I would have to hear a set do the things I find important to musical enjoyment.

Johnk, Looking at your system it raises an interesting question, what is a horn loudspeaker? In my mind you have a hybrid system that uses some principles of true horn design with more conventional non-horn characteristics, like the bass module and the super tweeter. Not that there's anything wrong with that. BTW, what's the tweeter. Is there a horn in that box?

To be a true horn IMHO the horn must be long enough to actually load the driver. Having a flared opening does not make it a horn. An example is what Avantgarde calls a Bass horn. It is really a woofer with a flared opening. The length of the flare is way too short to have much impact on the driver. Another hybrid would be a Lowther in folded horn cabinet where the vast majority of the frequencies are produced directly from the driver and just the bass comes from the folded horn.

Wonder how many who dismiss horns have never really heard a true horn?

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