Why not horns?

"Those of you making categorical pronouncements about the limitations of horns - all horns - demonstrate the greatest need for education."

I always love the smug responses.
I'm not sure who you are calling out here. But everything I've ever said is based off of extensive and first hand experience. I'm not and never have claimed that it's impossible to create something from a horn. But to date I have yet to hear one that truly impressed me overall.
I'm not out there trying to design one therefor I really see no reason why I would need more education on the matter.
When I hear one I like it will change things.

You then went on to explain it in , well, a simpler term , coming to the same conclusion that you originally denounced.

LOL...

I did not denounce his conclusion. I denounced his reason. I said something complete different LOL !!

Prez, I read exactly what you wrote. You said "6 different ones will average out their non-linearities. ."

That statement is false. Nothing averages. To average something you must add up each one and divide by the total. They produce less because they aren't driven as hard. Each one produces much less so the TOTAL is less. That is in no way, shape or form an average. That may be what you meant but that is not what you said. I'm sorry but I am not a mind reader.

Good GAWD !!

There is a lot I don't know about electronics but after teaching it for 10 years I do have pretty good grasp on the basics. Since you want to be condescending let me explain it to you in the simplest of terms.

To produce 75 watts into 8 ohms an amp must have rails of about plus/minus 34 volts. That give you peaks of 34 volts which is 25 Vrms. Square that and divide by 8 oms and you get 75 watts. P = V squared divided by R.

When you put things in parallel the voltage stays the same.

If you put 2 amps with 34V rails in parallel you get an amp with 34V rails.

Same volts = same watts.

You are correct that V x I= P.
Also V divided by R = I
With the same R and the same V you get the same I
With the same I and the same V you get the same P

He didn't change the speakers so the R stayed the same.
Sill got 34V peak amplifiers so that stayed the same.
Same V same R same I same power.

Care to retract your admonition to "Sit back, take a breather and learn something!!"

.

If you take 6 different drivers, unless they have perfectly linear transfer functions, they will all have slightly different responses. If they all have the same input signal their responses should smooth to a more linear response.
It may be to small to be audible which is why I stated that it MAY be argued to be better. But it doesn't change the fact that these differing nonlinear transfer functions should become more linear as a whole.
The reduction in distortions, which is what Weseixas picked up on, should have been a little more obvious.

And honestly, I'm not going to retract anything either. I don't doubt that you (Herman) teach electronics but I am still a little wary as to why, when I said "parallel", you assumed bridge and didn't seem to know the difference.

I had written a lengthy explanation to all of this but Audiogon rejected it for being too long. This is probably a good thing.
So I'll just sum up in a few lines.
First, your equations make sense for DC and purely resistive AC. But this is not how drivers directly coupled to amplifiers behave. The whole argument arose from an example I gave as to why Avantgarde would chose to use a high power amp on an already sensitive speaker. This had nothing to do with the assertion that the basshorn could not be sensitive BECAUSE it has a large amp.
Because this line of arguing really has no relevance to the thread. And because we seem to be on different verbal wavelengths here. I'll simply refer you to Balanced Audio Technology for an explanation on why they list their Vk-75 as a 75watt amp and why they list their Vk-150 as a 150watt amp. Even though the only difference between the two is the internal paralleling of the inputs and outputs and a different nameplate on the VK-150. Any more explanation as to why this matters on a complex load I leave to them.

Cheers, and goodnight, for now.

I completely understand the difference in parallel and bridged.

I completely understand that parallel amplifiers cannot double the power output. I remain confused that you insist they do.

I saw nothing on the BAT site that explains why their amps do this. Maybe I missed something.

I accept your apology

.