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Why not horns?

I've owned a lot of speakers over the years but I have never experienced anything like the midrange reproduction from my horns. With a frequency response of 300 Hz. up to 14 Khz. from a single distortionless driver, it seems like a no-brainer that everyone would want this performance. Why don't you use horns?
macrojack
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
Herman... Sound radiates as a spherical wavefront (except as interrupted by walls). At the distance of the listener or microphone the spherical wavefront is nearly a flat plane. The microphone samples this wavefront at a point, and a planar speaker sends it on to the listener as a plane, almost the same as the original wavefront. How better to reproduce a planar wavefront than by a planar transducer?

The diaphram of a planar speaker (like a Maggie) uses stratigically placed mass to damp resonances, but these low frequency anomalies are easier to correct than the high frequency resonances of horns.
mrdecibel
3,163 posts
 
Eldartford. What resonances are you speaking of ? I ask you all. Does your system have qualities of a live ,unamplified venue ? Live music does not "damp" anything. I am not clear of what you speak..... I truly believe many of you horn haters have not heard a "proper" horn set up. A shame, really....
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,164 posts
 
Eldartford, cheesy horns do have resonances, the way many other speaker technologies do. A good horn has less resonance than the your speakers do though. Don't misunderstand me here, I totally empathize with people that have trouble understanding this last point!

As you point out, sound radiates as a spherical wavefront, no doubt why Quad made the ESL63 a semi-spherical device.

A horn often uses a diaphragm that has a similar semi-spherical shape, only it is much larger when it emerges from the mouth of the horn. This may explain why so many people, on hearing good horns, comment that they sound like the best planars, only with greater dynamic impact.

IOW my experience of horns is that planars are really the only thing that compete with horns for naturalness of timbre, coherence and detail- cones don't seem to keep up.
So I rate horns first if they work right (last if they don't), planars second in the firmament and cone systems last.
weseixas
519 posts
 
Mrdecibel,

Every hi-fi system will have that one track where it shines, it's when confronted with differing music types, is where most fails.

I love my non-horns ..........

-------------------------------------------

06-18-10: Mrdecibel
A cd recording from 1984 on the Denon/Nippon Columbia Japan label : Eddie Gomez : 38C38-7189 - 9 tracks - A recording , inho, where many systems fail.....it is jazz and has it all.....I love my horns !
weseixas
519 posts
 
06-18-10: Mrdecibel said " I truly believe many of you horn haters have not heard a "proper" horn set up" ...

This might be true Mr decibel , heard my first on in 1973 my last one last week , so in 37 yrs nothing , not one good horn setup .. from the home made ones , to others costing tens of thousand ... nothing Hmmm and it's not hate mr D, it's just not my cup of tea objectively or subjectively...

I do believe you non-horn haters have never heard a "proper"
speaker setup ... a shame !

LOL..
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