Why not horns?

Duke, thank you for your thoughtful response. It has been argued here that that though they might appear similar that wave guides and horns are different enough as to require them to be categorized differently. Wouldn't such a controlled radiation pattern reduce the size of the sweet spot and reduce the sound-stage, especially for multiple listeners? I've not heard this to be the case with horns. Wouldn't the amount of reverberant sound be greater in most indoor live venues too? So long as the reverberant sound is not too close in time, shouldn't we be able to hear this as a reverberant sound and not as distortion? Furthermore, couldn't this reverberant energy be controlled via room treatment and/or room correction? If my budget permitted, I'd guess that I'd move from cones & domes 'n boxes to top quality omnis. Perhaps the antithesis of what you've described as an advantage. Aren't there already existing remedies for such thermal compression in many cones & domes and not really much of an issue for alternative drivers? Am I correct in assuming that the cross-overs you describe aren't digital and therefore are probably incapable of preserving correct time and phase? It would appear to me that this ideal matching of non-horn loaded woofers to the rest of the horn loaded drivers must be rare in deed, all the horn loaded systems I've heard are blaringly bright. I have still yet to hear a horn system that's colouration's are below audibility.

One thing that Duke did not cover is the drivers in use in the horns. Many speakers have breakups which contribute to distortion; if a horn driver exhibits this the result can be really bad. I know of at least one driver that has no breakups in the passband (its a true beryllium dome) and is helped by a kapton suspension that prevents artifact at the edges of the passband (250Hz-12KHz). This driver is very fast, very detailed and very smooth.

The other area that can be a problem is the interface of the driver to the horn- the throat area. The 2" TAD driver and 500Hz machined maple horn were an excellent example of this problem- right at the crossover/passband limit there was a peak followed by a dip before it smoothed out and it was not pleasant.

BTW this was in the Classic Audio Loudspeakers up until about 2 years ago when a new horn and driver (field coil) was introduced that fixed that problem (Valin gave the new driver on the old TAD horn Best Sound at Show and a few months later when the new horn was added declared that the new horn/driver combo was 'the biggest improvement he had heard in any speaker'). Its a fact that CAD has helped out horns immensely!! TAD **has** to have known about that problem but over the years/decades they did nothing about it.

I think that the potential for dynamics is the main attraction of horns to most, including myself, all other things aside.

Plus I do think they are cool looking.

FWIW, I find most horns ugly, but the Avant Gardes while not my cup of tea sonically, are very cool looking.

My only experience with horns is with Avant Garde Duos and why I choose not to buy a pair of horn speakers. The horns seems to work well in a long room with seating not too close. The subwoofer on the other hand wants to have you seating close. There is a mis match with this combo. The bass does not flow well. Playing certain CDs like Cowboy Junkies caused the subwoofer to load up in a large room. Of course there were certain CDs which sounded really good but I play all kinds of music so I have to have all of it. I have noticed some people on Audiogon have built bass horn speakers instead of using subwoofers which might solve the problem in my mind. I have not heard any yet but I will in the future. The last problem is you can not buy these speakers but must build them yourselves. I don’t do that.